Constellations of Historical Impact

Historical research projects at KWI explore intersections between the sciences, politics, economics, and society, as well as the self-understanding of historical actors. We want to know what has to occur in these constellations for phenomena to develop that are capable of crossing the threshold of historical significance.

In order to trace how ideas swing into action, the instruments of intellectual history and history of knowledge alone are insufficient, as is an exclusive focus on social, cultural, and economic institutions. Only a combination of these makes it possible to investigate what happens when intellectuals step onto the diplomatic stage, natural scientists turn their know-how to economic account, or journalists do the groundwork of those in power. Our research is thus sustained by the insight that history is always “made”, resulting from the production and hard-won legitimacy of historical knowledge. This should also be understood as a call for self-reflection. The historians at KWI seek to continually illuminate the design of historiography, its methods and debates as well as its struggles for interpretive authority.

One additional aspect of historical significance being examined at KWI is the actual or supposed decline of such significance. Especially in the second half of the twentieth century, there were diagnoses of the end of politics or of ideology. The Heisenberg project led by Tim Schanetzky, “Crisis of Critique?”, takes off from the observation that at the beginning of the 1970s, positions critical of capitalism were dominant in social debates as well as in the humanities. A gradual erosion of corresponding ideas set in after that, which the project pursues as a possible precondition for the neoliberal age.

Finally, objections to the “delusion of feasibility” are driven by the growing awareness that sections of humanity are living well beyond their resources. In the framework of the ERC Synergy project “Cultures of the Cryosphere”, an international research team led by Stefan Höhne will shed light on an essential, previously neglected contemporary historical facet of this problem: technologies of cooling that are indispensable for the modern global economy. As a massive source of emissions, cooling apparatuses thus fuel the very processes of planetary warming that necessitate the increasing use of artificial cold. But is it even possible to imagine a cool conduct for humanity that would conserve resources?

At KWI, these questions are not only the object of research, but also an invitation to engage critically with history in its present.