Suchergebnisse

Kooperatives Vorgehen, das in den Natur- und Ingenieurwissenschaften zum akademischen Alltag gehört, gilt in den Geistes- und Kulturwissenschaften weithin noch als 'terra incognita'. Kooperation und Synergie, Interdisziplinarität und Internationalität sind die Forderungen, die an 'moderne Wissenschaft' gerichtet werden. Damit ergeben sich neue Perspektiven für die kommuni­kativen Prozesse, die in den geisteswissenschaftlichen Disziplinen Erkenntnis ermöglichen und vermitteln. Entsprechenden Erwartungen kann in besonderer Weise nachgekommen werden, wenn die Möglichkeiten der prozessorientierten Informations- und Kommunikationstechnik für den Informationsaustausch und das kooperative Vorgehen in einem definierten Verbund oder auch in einer weithin offenen 'scientific community' im World Wide Web genutzt werden. Die damit angesprochenen innovativen Prozesse lassen sich unter drei wichtigen Perspektiven be­trachten: (1) mit Blick auf die Anwendungen netzbasierter und multimedialer Software-Unterstüt­zung für Kommunikation und Kooperation in den Wissenschaften (im Internet werden nicht nur im großen Umfang Informationen vermittelt, sondern webbasierte Anwendungen und Werkzeuge / Ar­beitsmittel ermöglichen im wachsenden Maße auch Kooperationen; die Integration von Kommuni­kations- und Kooperationsleistungen geschieht mit Hilfe der 'collaborative technologies'); (2) mit Blick auf Entwicklungen exemplarischer Modelle zur ICT-Unterstützung wissenschaftlicher Arbeit (aus der grundlegende Veränderungen in Wissenserwerb und Wissensaustausch sowie in den Vorgehensweisen von Lehre und Forschung folgen können); (3) mit Blick auf die Relevanz für prinzipielle Probleme der Wissenschaftsforschung und für spezielle Interessen an den Entwicklungsmöglichkeiten der Geisteswissenschaften (welche Arbeitsformen prägen die Praxis der Geisteswissenschaften, wie können sie – durch ICT gestützt – weiter entwickelt und optimiert werden; welche Bedingungen und Zielvorgaben ergeben sich dabei aus aktuellen Konstellationen der Wissenschaftspolitik und Forschungsförderung?). Unter diesen Aspekten wurde im Förderungszeitraum 2001-2007 für die DFG-Forschergruppe 'Narratologie' an der Universität Hamburg ein (groupware-basiertes) Modell für netzgestützte In­nen- und Außenkommunikation zum Ausbau kooperativer Forschungspraxis entwickelt: der Sys­temkomplex e-Port/NarrPort. Dieses Projekt (mit seinen komplexen inhaltlichen und organisatori­schen Prozessen von Konzeption, Realisation und Evaluation zu netzgestützter geisteswissen­schaftlicher Arbeit) sowie die Ergebnisse einer kontinuierlichen Reflexion der Praxis von e-Port/­NarrPort werden in mehreren Schritten vorgestellt: (1) in einer Bilanz zu den um das Jahr 2000 nutzbaren Anwendungsmöglichkeiten der digitalen Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologie in kooperativer Forschung (e-Science) und netzgestützter Lehre (e-Learning); (2) in einer problemorientierten Beschreibung des für die Bedürfnisse von Geisteswissen­schaftler/innen modellierten Systemkomplexes und seiner Leistungen für die Arbeitspraxis in der Forschergruppe 'Narratologie'; (3) in einer Skizze zu den personellen und institutionellen Voraussetzungen für die Realisation des Konzepts e-Port unter den Aspekten von Organisation, Aufbau und Betrieb des Sys­temkomplexes e-Port/NarrPort; (4) in der detaillierten Beschreibung der (für die geisteswissenschaftliche Praxis in Forschung und Lehre) entwickelten Systemkomponenten und -module; (5) in der Auswertung der Erfahrungen aus der Anwendung des Konzepts e-Port in der geistes­wissenschaftlichen Forschungspraxis (auch hinausgehend über die Forschergruppe 'Narra­tologie') und der erweiternden Nutzung im e-Learning-Bereich; (6) in einer ersten Bilanz zu möglichen Veränderungen in kommunikativen und kooperativen Verhaltensweisen von Geisteswissenschaftler/innen und zu prinzipiellen Perspektiven für den Aufbau einer "Cyberinfrastructure for Humanisties and Social Sciences".

Descriptions of ocean and inland navigation play a role in structuring the text of the Nibelungenlied. On the one hand, in a manner serving to guide the reader, over long stretches of the narration they provide anticipatory and retrospective references and create constitutive preconditions for phases of the plot. On the other hand, they characterize and codify important persons by means of direct nautical roles and functions. This also occurs within the framework of a possible juxtaposition with coeval writing on the part of both the author and reader, in which context ecclesiological symbolism may play an important role as a mode of contrast.
Moreover, through the literary references to foreign - but to some extent real - places, the knowledge and conception of geography and oceanography of the time of the work's writing was treated in a complex and varied manner, also including allusions to the contemporary, i.e. Hohenstaufen, political and mental outlook. Caused in part by the varied accessibility of the respective sources, the Nibelungenlied reveals clear differences in knowledge about conditions in Central Europe on the one hand and the Lower Rhine region as well as Scandinavia and the North Sea region on the other. In addition, however, - precisely through the resulting reality-related attention to detail in the former case, and the more blurred but not entirely fictional depiction in the latter - there also arises a deliberate relationship of dramatic tension among the vast regions in which the Nibelungenlied is set.

Since research got underway at the German Maritime Museum in 1971, this institution has been publishing the research results (including numerous dissertations), primarily of external scientists, in its series Schriften des Deutschen Schiffahrtsmuseums. A closely interlocked relationship with external research was thus achieved and further intensified in 1975 by the establishment of the scientific editorial department and the publishing of the Deutsches Schiffahrtsarchiv. Written material concerning the exhibitions and the general museum work are conveyed to a broader public in the form of museum guides, brochures and the semi-annual journal Deutsche Schiffahrt, published by the endowment association. The series of scientific treatises, which has grown to comprise nearly sixty volumes, is produced according to high standards of quality. This circumstance and the annual publication of the scientific journal in the form of a yearbook since 1980 were essential factors leading to the inscription of the German Maritime Museum on the Blue List of institutions receiving joint federal and state funding, as well as to its status as a national museum and its excellent international reputation. In the 1990s the museum's publication programme was enhanced by a documentary series, in which above all first-hand reports from the realm of navigation are published at varying intervals. The editorial department, which now has a staff of three, also oversees publications appearing independently of the various museum series. All in all, the editorial activities have become continually more complex - with regard to contents and conception alike - in the course of the past thirty years, while being compelled to respond to increasingly rapid technical developments. Audio books are already being produced, for example, and the first online publications are presently in the preparation stage. The increasing technicalisation of production processes has led, however, to an enormous rise in production costs, taking place at a rate which cannot easily be compensated. In view of the fact that, in this day and age, the value of scientific work is often measured primarily according to its cost/benefit ratio, the editorial department has thus come under considerable financial pressure. What is more, it is confronted with new tasks, tasks of a kind that could never have been foreseen in 1971, when Detlev Ellmers provided the impulse for the publication of a regularly appearing scientific monograph series.

In May 1908, one of Flensburg's most important shipowners - Jens Jost (1828-1910) - celebrated his golden wedding anniversary, on which occasion he and his wife received a silver-plated centrepiece in the form of a "cog." This gift was presented them by the Flensburger Schiffergelag (shipowners' and merchants' association founded in 1580) whose chairman Jost remained until his death. Following its transfer from the family estate to the collection of the Flensburg Maritime Museum, the centrepiece was published for the first time in the museum's pictorial guide in 1985 and next mentioned in the 1989 publication Maritimes Silber im Industriezeitalter (maritime silver in the industrial age) by Detlev Ellmers. Its designation as a "cog" was based upon the knowledge which the late nineteenth century possessed about late medieval shipbuilding, and the centrepiece was accordingly anything but a precise model of this ship type. Yet despite the lack of knowledge as to its actual appearance, as a centrepiece in the historicising style the cog was an extremely popular motif in the handicrafts of late nineteenth-century Germany. The examples include many that are indicative of contemporary circumstances in German navigation, readable in the symbolism and allegories of their pictorial programmes. This "Flensburg cog" was made during the phase of history in which Emperor Wilhelm II - and with him the German Reich - were struggling to gain preponderance on the seven seas. Within the context of this vision, the centrepiece reveals itself as a symbol of the claim to power. The depictions on the starboard side of the ship model personify the continents of America, Africa and Asia. In place of the usual personification of the continent of Europe, however, the national symbol - the "Deutscher Michel" - is used in conjunction with his attribute, the head of cabbage. This depiction is to be found on the bow of the ship. The "Deutscher Michel" is conceived of here as the successor to the merchants of the Hanseatic League (Ill. 4), whose member cities comprised the port towns and commercial centres of nearly all the countries of Northern Europe. In the pictorial programme of this cog, "Michel" is seen as the outpost of world-wide trade. The identity of the maker of this silver cog and/or author of its pictorial programme - for which there are no comparable examples - unfortunately remains a mystery. There can be no doubt, however, that the message conveyed by this centrepiece was understood by Jens Jost and his contemporaries.

Thirteen papers on different subjects, focussing on writings and inscriptions in medieval art, explore the faculty of writing to create and determine spaces and to generate the sacred by the display of holy scripture. The subjects range from book illumination over wall painting, mosaics, sculpture, and church interiors to inscriptions on portals and façades.