Social and Political Science

El estudio actual de los liderazgos locales en América Latina y en particular del caso mexicano, requiere de una revisión de las nuevas realidades institucionales y los valores que delinean el actuar de estos líderes, en su relación con el gobierno nacional; restricciones que más allá de representar un límite a su capacidad de acción, ofrecen nuevas posibilidades, para encabezar esfuerzos colectivos, que se traduzcan en la creación de oportunidades de desarrollo regional y local.

In this working paper (chapters II and III of an eight chapter M.Phil dissertation), I establish the necessary theoretical foundation to address an underexplored question: How do natural disasters impact social capital, and why? In Chapter II, I introduce an anthropogenic conceptualization of natural disasters that avoids a priori assumptions of what was disastrous and what was natural in the context of specific disaster case studies (such as the 2008 Flood in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which was used in my dissertation). Chapter III tackles the topic of social capital. A "clear orthodoxy" for understanding social capital is reached by finding common ground between the more private-focused view of Bourdieu and the public-focused view of

This paper will explore the correspondences between Oswald Spengler's approaches to history and biography. In Der Untergang des Abendlandes, Spengler poses the rhetorical question, ‘do common biographical archetypes (‘Urformen’) underlie everything historical?’ The recent publication of Spengler's autobiographical fragments, known under the heading Eis heauton (‘to himself’) gives an opportunity to explore the claim that Spengler's work draws parallels between personal history and that of cultures, and illuminates the identification of his own experience with history. Following a brief outline of Spengler's philosophy of history with particular regard to the core concepts of ‘organicism’ and ‘analogy’, and the duality of being (‘Dasein’) and wakefulness (‘Wachsein’), the paper will address the concept of ‘awakening’ as a precondition of Spengler's own historical consciousness. It will remain to show how this moment is located both in the childhood of cultures and in that of Spengler himself. The twin aspects of awakening as fear and cognition will then be examined in relation to Spengler's creative difficulties, the literary challenge posed by the perceived impossibility of conveying historical experience in prose. In short, the paper's hypothesis is that Spengler's account of the development of historical consciousness, in both its ontogenetic and phylogenetic forms, can be traced to his own experience and also determines the idiosyncrasies of his historiographic method.

, have a place in the intellectual heritage of the movement commonly known as the 'Conservative Revolution'. It describes how Thomas Mann, during the Great War and the ensuing German revolution, found himself in a dilemma characteristic of the bourgeois conservatism of that time. Whilst many of his contemporaries increasingly radicalized their position, this essay argues that Mann's irony was not only a literary device, but led him towards a moderate political position which, although it was not fully articulated until after the war, can be traced to Reflections. Drawing on Reflections and Mann's correspondence and diaries of that period, as well as on previous scholarship both on Mann and on German conservatism, this essay argues that not only was and is Mann unsuitable for appropriation by the extreme right, but that the very concept of the 'Conservative Revolution' should be reconsidered.

Books reviewed in this issue.Medieval and Early Modern Literature & CultureBielby, Clare, and Anna Richards, eds. Women and Death 3: Women's Representations of Death in German Culture since 1500.Kerth, Thomas. King Rother and His Bride: Quest and Counter-Quests.18th & 19th Century Literature and CultureBeech, Timothy. Hamann's Prophetic Mission: A Genetic Study of Three Late Works Against the Enlightenment.Esterhammer, Angela. Romanticism and Improvisation, 1750–1850.Kilchmann, Esther. Verwerfungen in der Einheit. Geschichten von Nation und Familie um 1840.Introducing an Online Ressource: http://www.goethezeitportal.de/20th & 21st Century Literature and CultureBrockmann, Stephen. A Critical History of German Film.Decock, Sofie. Papierfähnchen auf einer imaginären Weltkarte: Mythische Topo- und Tempografien in den Asien- und Afrikaschriften Annemarie Schwarzenbachs.Figge, Susan G., and Jenifer K. Ward, eds. Reworking the German Past. Adaptations in Film, the Arts, and Popular Culture.Gut, Philipp. Thomas Manns Idee einer deutschen Kultur.Hohbein-Deegen, Monika. Reisen zum Ich. Ostdeutsche Identitätssuche in Texten der neunziger Jahre.Leeder, Karen, and Robert Vilain, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Rilke.Scanzoni, Signe von. Als ich noch lebte. Ein Bericht über Erika Mann. Ed. Irmela von der Lühe.Schneider, Gesa. Das Andere schreiben. Kafkas fotografische Poetik.Schuchalter, Jerry. Poetry and Truth: Variations on Holocaust Testimony.German Studies across the DisciplinesBroadbent, Philip, and Sabine Hake, eds. Berlin: Divided City, 1945–1989.Langston, Richard. Visions of Violence: German Avant-Gardes after Fascism.Mancini, Elena. Magnus Hirschfeld and the Quest for Sexual Freedom: A History of the First International Sexual Freedom Movement.Olick, Jeffrey K., and Andrew J. Perrin, eds. Guilt and Defense. Theodor W. Adorno on the Legacy of National Socialism in Postwar Germany.Pratt Ewing, Katherine. Stolen Honor: Stigmatizing Muslim Men in Berlin.

Against the intellectual backdrop of mounting uncertainty concerning the secular nature of modernity, the present study reconstructs a philosophical debate in Germany, concerning the origins and legitimacy of the modern age as a secular age. This debate was carried out between Hans Blumenberg, Karl Löwith and Carl Schmitt, between about 1950 and 1980. Blumenberg's little-known early work is considered as a preliminary to his best-known book, Die Legitimität der Neuzeit, in which he attacked Schmitt and Löwith for propounding versions of a theorem whereby modern thought consisted of "secularized" religious matter. It is also shown to develop other core concepts, notably that of human self-assertion, whilst being charted against Blumenberg's own intellectual self-assertion, his struggle to find a distinctive voice. A historical discussion of the concept of secularization is followed by an examination of Löwith's derivation of the progressivist philosophy of history from Christian eschatology, which is shown to be less straightforward than Löwith's popularizers assumed. Löwith's personal confrontation with Blumenberg having been shown to conceal a deeper affinity in the rejection of apocalyptic thought, the focus shifts to Schmitt's political-theological critique of modernity. Schmitt deploys the secularization theorem to call into question the human autonomy on which Blumenberg founds the modern age's claim to legitimacy. Schmitt is shown to argue against what he perceived to be a human plan to terminate history in an earthly utopia, precluding a divine judgment on history and man. The subsequent debate between Blumenberg and Schmitt in letters and texts reveals fundamental differences concerning the status of man with regard to the absolute, with Schmitt's concept of antagonistic, absolute potencies being pitched against Blumenberg's vision of a division of powers, which he discusses in terms of the myth of Prometheus. In arguing for the autonomy of the modern age, Blumenberg is shown to challenge critiques of civilization which avail themselves of religious rhetoric for political ends.

Oswald Spengler hat Selbstbiographie und die Biographien von Kulturen in Analogie zueinander betrachtet. Die Autobiographie dient ihm damit auch als eine Art Laboratorium des Denkens. Darin offenbaren sich Widersprüche wie der zwischen dem „Träumer“ und dem „Tatmenschen“. Diese innere Spannung läßt sich auch auf die Begriffe „Romantik“ und „Sachlichkeit“ bringen, die polare Möglichkeiten deutschen Denkens und Handelns beiderseits des Ersten Weltkriegs darstellen. Mit Blick auf Helmut Lethens Verhaltenslehren der Kälte soll nun untersucht werden, welche Motive der Neuen Sachlichkeit sich in der Selbstreflexion von Eis heauton ausmachen lassen.  Diese Motive sind: Hochstapelei und Lüge; die Maske; das Verstecken; und schließlich, die Spannung zwischen „kalter persona“ und „Kreatur“. Dabei zeigt sich, daß Spengler an der Schwelle des neusachlichen Jahrzehnts manche seiner Denk- und Verhaltensformen zu antizipieren scheint, ohne aber zu einer positiven Identifikation mit denselben zu gelangen. Daraus ergeben sich wiederum Konsequenzen für Spenglers Menschenbild: Es bleibt so widersprüchlich wie seine Selbstwahrnehmung. Auch das Fragment gebliebene Spätwerk krankt an diesem Zwiespalt wie an Spenglers allgemeiner Schaffenskrise.