IHC Residency Program Lecture Thursday / June 5th / 5PM Steinhauer Library (Phelps Hall, 6th floor) The astrophysicist Friedrich Karl Zöllner became a convinced spiritualist during a trip to London where he met the spiritualist and physicist William Crookes. Zöllner’s experiments with the American medium and juggler Henry Slade in autumn 1877 and spring 1878 became the starting point of a vivid spiritualistic mass movement in Germany. Trying to obtain acceptance among first-rate German scientists and scholars he experienced harsh rejection. Accordingly, Zöllner reacted with insulting propaganda against his unbelieving colleagues and made Hermann von Helmholtz one of his favourite targets. The lecture interprets Zöllners sarcastic rhetoric in terms of witchcraft. In this context, witchcraft is seen as a discourse that results in serious harmful effects to its participants. Albert Kümmel, Dr. phil, studied German literature, English literature and philosophy in Paderborn, Coleraine and Berlin. He wrote a dissertation on Robert Musil’s novel The Man Without Qualities in 1999. From 1999 to 2002 he worked as a research scholar in a project on the archeology of media theory (1890-1930) at the Center for the Study of Media and Cultural Communication, University of Cologne. In October 2002 he was awarded a Feodor Lynen Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation which lead him to Santa Barbara to work with Prof. Dr. Laurence Rickels on a project on nineteenth-century German spiritualism. His publications include Das MoE-Programm. Eine Studie ueber geistige Organisation (The MwQ-Program. A Study on Intellectual Organisation, 2001), Medientheorie 1888-1933. Texte und Kommentare (Media Theory 1888-1933. Texts and Commentaries, Anthology, ed. with P. Loeffler, 2002), Der verweigerte Friede. Der Verlust der Friedensbildlichkeit in der Moderne (Peace Rejected. The Loss of Peace Imagery in Modern Times, ed. with Th. Kater, 2003), Signale der Stoerung (Signals of Disturbance, ed. with E. Schuettpelz, forthcoming), and Einfuehrung in die Geschichte der Medien (Introduction to Media History, ed. with L. Scholz/E. Schumacher, forthcoming). This event is sponsored by the UCSB Interdisciplinary Humanities Center Residency Program and the Department of Germanic, Slavic, & Semitic Studies. Top of Page <<Back