Wladimir Fischer (Wien): From Balkanologie to Balkan-Kompetenzen: Major Topics in 'Western' Academic Representation of the Balkans

Institutionalized knowledge about the Balkans developed as a philological domain in theearly 19th century until today, Western and Central European businesses and banks capitalize on that knowledge in their Central and eastern European expansion strategies. This presentation showcases some major topical shifts in the field and discusses the present situation.

Der Schwerpunkt des IFK lautet derzeit Kulturen der Evidenz. Auch die Tagung Was zeigt sich? Evidenz in den Kulturwissenschaften verfolgt die Sichtbarkeit der Dinge, Symbole und Bedeutungen. Dies jedoch nicht nur um einer Kultur der Sichtbarkeit willen, sondern unter der Prämisse, dass die Kultur/wissenschaften sich am Ende der Ironie befänden.

Chris Armbruster, Executive Director, Research Network 1989

Five Reasons to Promote Open Access and Five Roads to Accomplish it in Social and Cultural Science

Economists have done most to innovate scholarly publishing and communication by switching to Open Access. In cultural studies, history, law, political science and sociology, Open Access publishing is still an innovation at the margins. Yet Open Access is demonstrably the superior publishing model in the WWW Galaxy.

It is amazing how fast methods and disciplines are ageing. The following Call for Papers sounds already oldfashioned, though its questioning rhetoric and style, and the seductive powers of language is far from irrelevant. I think, the topic deserves to be central: