Meet the IUPAB Councilor—Hans-Joachim Galla

As one of the twelve Councilors, it is my pleasure to provide a short biographical sketch for the readers of Biophys. Rev. and for the members of the Biophysical Societies. I have been a member of the council in the former election period. Moreover, I served since decades in the German Biophysical Society (DGfB) as board member, secretary, vice president, and president. I hold a diploma degree in chemistry as well as PhD from the University of Göttingen. The experimental work for both qualifications has been performed at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen under the guidance of Erich Sackmann and the late Herman Träuble. When E. Sackmann moved to the University of Ulm, I joined his group as a research assistant performing my independent research on structure and dynamics of biological and artificial membranes and qualified for the “habilitation” thesis in Biophysical Chemistry. I have spent a research year at Stanford University supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and after coming back to Germany, I was appointed as a Heisenberg Fellow by the DFG and became Professor in Biophysical Chemistry in the Chemistry Department of the University of Darmstadt. Since 1990, I spent my career at the Institute for Biochemistry of the University of Muenster as full Professor and Director of the institute. I have trained numerous undergraduate, 150 graduate, and postdoctoral students from chemistry, physics, and also pharmacy as well as biology resulting in more than 350 published papers including reviews and book articles in excellent collaboration with colleagues from different academic disciplines in our university and also internationally, e.g., as a guest professor at the Chemistry Department of the Chinese Academy of Science in Beijing.

BRENTANO ON SCIENTIFIC PHILOSOPHY AND POSITIVISM*

ABSTRACT In this paper, I analyze Brentano’s fourth habilitation thesis, according to which the philosophical method should be none other than the natural scientific one. The meaning of this thesis can be initially assessed through an examination of Brentano’s views on the relationship between natural and human sciences. His arguments for methodological unity in this debate show that he actually argues for an overarching idea of scientific knowledge, which is not restricted to the fields already recognized as scientific, but which can also be applied to philosophical domain. A fuller comprehension of that idea is provided by Brentano’s writings on Comte’s positivism.

Ursula Ganz-Blättler. “Signs of time: Cumulative narrative in broadcast television fiction”

TV series are one of the very few ‘traditional’ media formats that continue to thrive in the current media landscape. In Europe, the format of TV series (i.e. serial audio-visual fictional narratives) has been surging for some time in terms of numbers of suppliers and consumers, as well as in shares of distributors’ offerings and consumers’ media use. Homegrown high-end original productions have become ‘calling cards’ for suppliers active in the European market(s). Subscription-based, pay-per-view, and advertising-based networks, as well as public service suppliers order and finance serial fiction. International players like Netflix, HBO, Sky, and Amazon invest in original (co-) productions in many countries. From a media economic perspective, the market entry of more and more ‘big tech’ and conglomerate players into the production and distribution of TV series is another indicator of the importance of the product TV series. The success of the format warrants extensive investigation. Nevertheless, compared to, e.g., cinema, ‘new’ media, and political communication, the attention of scholars in communication/media science and other disciplines still seems surprisingly modest, particularly in Europe. Some noteworthy European works on fictional TV series are Schlütz (2016), Redvall (2013), Gormász (2015), and the scientific journal Series – International Journal of TV Serial Narratives (series.unibo.it). Ursula Ganz’s work Signs of Time was accepted as a habilitation thesis in 2009, and an adapted form was published in 2018. The thesis thus represents somewhat of a European premiere in discussing in great detail and depth what the term ‘(audiovisual) cumulative narrative’ entails and how the central feature of accumulation impacts the analysis of narrative as communication and reflective stance.

What is Computer Science? The two crises of computer science.

What is Computer Science? The two crises ofcomputer science. A second, habilitation thesis.

Friedrich A. Lutz’ Epistemological and Methodological Messages During the German-Language Business Cycle Debate

Friedrich A. Lutz’ 1932 habilitation thesis is considered the last highlight in a German-language business cycle debate that took place during the interwar period. This debate, initiated by Adolf Löwe, concentrated on the necessary conditions in defining a dynamic theory that should explain the business cycle understood as a dynamic disequilibrium phenomenon in a deductive way. This article contributes to Lutz scholarship by focusing on Lutz’ criticism of Clément Juglar’s “unconditional” observations. This constituted the basis for the problematic concept of wave-like fluctuation subsequently adopted by the Historical School and Joseph Schumpeter. I establish a relationship between Lutz’ criticism and his statement that this perspective does not find support in economic history. Lutz asserted that each crisis represents a unique historical phenomenon caused by specific factors whose impact on the economy depends on its institutional framework. From this, I derive an epistemological claim, namely that the equilibrium tendencies within the market order should be the subject of inquiry, and a methodological call, namely the development of models showing hypothetically what factors can disturb these tendencies. The paper contextualizes Lutz’ criticism and messages into the formation of the Freiburg School’s research program.

Th e Leibholz-Schmitt connection’s formative influence on Bonhoeffer’s 1932–33 entry into public theology

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s brother-in-law Gerhard Leibholz’s insight into the Fascist theory of the state’s messianic leadership and myth of creating communal life became a major source of information for Bonhoeffer. Leibholz had gained this knowledge in close jurisprudential cooperation with Carl Schmitt as is evidenced by Leibholz’s 1929 habilitation thesis which at the same time intersected with Bonhoeffer’s academic work. Their original political leanings towards authoritarianism, Volk, and Vitalism were revised by Bonhoeffer and Leibholz in November 1932 through stepping out into a coordinated public opposition to the approaching political changes. But both only recognized the populist xenophobic destructiveness of such a life, hidden beneath the myth of unity, once Schmitt turned to National Socialism in early 1933. Bonhoeffer’s theology, built on the Leibholz-Schmitt discourse, remains a call for vigilance against the abuse of power, populism, and xenophobia, and continues to call for seeking God-revealed life.

Mitmensch contra Dasein

This paper presents and discusses Karl Löwith’s anthropological critique of existential analytic that is formulated in his Habilitation thesis (Das Individuum in der Rolle des Mitmenschen, 1928), where he develops an anthropological counter-paradigm, i. e. Mitanthropologie, in opposition to Heidegger’s fundamental ontology. Given the extent and the complexity of such a subject, I will limit the present inquiry to two specific topics: the Miteinandersein (Being-with-one-another) and above all the Sein zum Tode (Being-towards-death). In practice, I will first explain the basic features of Mitanthropologie together with the crucial critique that it levels at Being and Time. I will follow by outlining the importance of the Todesfrage (the question of death) within the existential analytic by means of a comparison between Heidegger’s Being-towards-death and Kierkegaard’s Sickness unto death (Krankheit zum Tode). Finally, I will expound Löwith’s objection to Being-towards-death, which is expressed in the alternative formula Freiheit zum Tode (Freedom-towards-death).

Profesor Tadeusz Skulina – historyk języka i onomasta

Professor Tadeusz Skulina (1929–1992) was born in Katowice but from the Second World War he was connected with Great Poland. Also in Poznań, he studied Polish Studies and following his graduation became employed at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań where he completed the consecutive stages of his scholarly career. As a disciple of Professor Władysław Kuraszkiewicz he conducted research on the Polish language of the Old-Polish era and of the 16th century. His doctoral thesis (1964) was devoted to historical phonetics and historical dialectology but soon he changed his scholarly interests and entered the field of Slavic studies, especially East-Slavic languages. In his habilitation thesis he discussed the question of the Old-Ruthenian anthroponymy. This thesis, published in 1973, was the first original, so extensive and detailed thesis about the Old-Ruthenian names. As we know, in the period following the receipt of his habilitation degree Professor Tadeusz Skulina had plans to prepare a monograph about Polish feminine onomastics. He had pursued this for years, however, unfortunately, never managed to prepare a synthesis. He only left an unfinished editorial draft of this book. Apart from research activities, Professor Skulina was involved in didactics and also performed responsible administrative functions at the Institute of Polish Philology, was a member of numerous scholarly societies. For his achievements, he received many awards and honours. Professor Tadeusz Skulina died in 1992 after a long and emaciating illness. The scholarly achievements he has left inspire the successive generations of researchers. He also left unfinished written works and ideas which he never managed to realize.

THE ORIGINS OF ADORNO's PSYCHO-SOCIAL DIALECTIC: PSYCHOANALYSIS AND NEO-KANTIANISM IN THE YOUNG ADORNO

This essay examines one of the least-studied works in the philosophical corpus of Theodor Adorno, The Concept of the Unconscious in the Transcendental Theory of Mind. A retracted habilitation thesis composed in 1926–7, the text is often regarded as an exposition of the philosophical system of Adorno's teacher, Hans Cornelius, that bears little significance for Adorno's mature works. I argue that Concept of the Unconscious sheds significant light on both the historical origins and the conceptual underpinnings of the relationship between society and the psyche that Adorno would theorize over the course of his intellectual career. In this early text, Adorno articulated a dual critique of dominant neo-Kantian and vitalist understandings of the unconscious, turning to Freud for a more adequate account of the unconscious as a product of intertwining psychological and social processes. Adorno developed this dialectical understanding of the psycho-social relationship in numerous postwar writings on psychoanalysis.

Estimation of the Cartographic Projection and~its Application in Geoinformatics-habilitation thesis presentation

<div class="abstract"><div class="abstract_item"><em>Modern techniques for the map analysis allow for the creation of full or partial geometric reconstruction of its content. The projection is described by the set of estimated constant values: transformed pole position, standard parallel latitude, longitude of the central meridian, and a constant parameter. Analogously the analyzed map is represented by its constant values: auxiliary sphere radius, origin shifts, and angle of rotation. Several new methods denoted as M6-M9 for the estimation of an unknown map projection and its parameters differing in the number of determined parameters, reliability, robustness, and convergence have been developed. However, their computational demands are similar. Instead of directly measuring the dissimilarity of two projections, the analyzed map in an unknown projection and the image of the sphere in the well-known (i.e., analyzed) projection are compared. Several distance functions for the similarity measurements based on the location as well as shape similarity approaches are proposed. An unconstrained global optimization problem poorly scaled, with large residuals, for the vector of unknown parameters is solved by the hybrid BFGS method. To avoid a slower convergence rate for small residual problems, it has the ability to switch between first- and second-order methods. Such an analysis is beneficial and interesting for historic, old, or current maps without information about the projection. Its importance is primarily referred to refinement of spatial georeference for the medium- and small-scale maps, analysis of the knowledge about the former world, analysis of the incorrectly/inaccurately drawn regions, and appropriate cataloging of maps. The proposed algorithms have been implemented in the new version of the <span style="font-family: monospace;">detectproj</span> software.</em></div></div>