Article ID: CBB536022796

“Honecker's Vassal” or a Prehistorian in the Service of Science? The Evaluation of Former East German Scholarship and the Concept of the Scholar in the Debate on Joachim Herrmann in Reunified Germany (2021)

unapi

The evaluation and transformation process of the GDR research system in the wake of German reunification 1989/90 was immediately accompanied not only by debates within the scientific community, but also by an extensive discussion about the value and future perspectives of East German scholarship and its protagonists in the nationally circulated press. In 1990, the focus turned temporarily to the prominent East German prehistorian Joachim Herrmann after his election to the board of an international historical association. The article uses the example of Herrmann and the public discussion about him as a case study to examine the status of, and changes in, the authority of scholarship and the scholar in the context of the evaluation and restructuring of the East German research landscape in the early 1990s. A selection of press articles from nationwide German newspapers and newsmagazines, as well as archival letters exchanged between different participants in the debate serve as prisms carving out the central arguments and subjacent structures of the discussion. Therefore, Herrmann's case exposes generic characteristics of (different concepts of) scientific authority and the close connection between its negotiation and the search for identity in the newly reunited German academic sphere.

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Article Friedrich Cain; Dietlind Hüchtker; Bernhard Kleeberg; Karin Reichenbach; Jan Surman (2021) Introduction: Scientific Authority and the Politics of Science and History in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (pp. 339-351). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB536022796/

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Authors & Contributors
Cain, Friedrich
Nikolchina, Miglena
Kluger, Anne
Himmel, Torsten K. D.
Eyal, Gil
Möller, Christian
Concepts
Science and politics
Authority of science
Cold War
Science and government
Authorities; experts
Socialism
Time Periods
20th century, late
21st century
Places
East Germany
United States
West Germany
Netherlands
Poland
Bulgaria
Institutions
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
United States. President's Science Advisory Committee
National Academy of Sciences (U.S.)
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