Goethe University‘s move from Bockenheim to the IG Farben area : on the state's productions of space and the neoliberalisation of the university

Im Zuge des Bildungsstreiks 2009 besetzten Studierende der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität (JWGU) in Frankfurt das „Casino“, ein zentrales Gebäude auf dem neuen IG-Farben-Campus im Westend. Während frühere Besetzungen von Universitätsgebäuden auf dem alten Campus in Bockenheim von der Universitätsleitung zwar auch nicht gerade begrüßt, aber doch toleriert worden sind, ließ das Präsidium im jüngsten Fall 176 Studierende nach nur drei Tagen polizeilich räumen. Um diesen repressiven Wandel im Umgang mit studentischem Protest zu verstehen, rekonstruieren wir im Folgenden die Art und Weise, wie die JWGU als Teil des Staatsapparates Universität zu unterschiedlichen Zeiten zwei Campus als konkrete Orte (places) hervorgebracht hat, die jeweils als Ausdruck und Verdichtung der nationalen und lokalen gesellschaftlichen Kräfteverhältnisse im Fordismus bzw. Neoliberalismus zu interpretieren sind.In 2009, the central building of the new IG Farben Campus of Johann Wolfgang Goethe University (JWGU), Frankfurt, Germany was occupied by students protesting against the neoliberalisation of higher education. While similar occupations at the old Bockenheim Campus were usually tolerated, if not welcomed, by the university management, this time 176 students and members of staff were forcefully evicted after only 3 days, when the university’s presidential board called in the police. To better understand this way of ending such protest, a level of oppression almost unheard of at a German university in the last 20 years, we reconstruct the way in which JWGU, as part of the state apparatus university, has produced the two campuses as particular places that are bound up in and expressions of the national and local condensations of forces of Fordism and neoliberalism respectively

Patent protection, imitation and the mode of technology transfer.

This paper analyzes a model in which a fir endowed with a new technology can choose between exports, licensing and direct investment as entry modes in a foreign market. I endogenize the vintage of the transferred technology and allow for imitation by the licensee. Subsidiary production and exports circumvent imitation but involve higher costs for the innovating firm The fir can strategically use the vintage of the technology to deter imitation by the licensee. As a result, transfers to affiliate might be of later vintage than technologies sold to outsiders. Through modificatio of the imitation costs, the host country’s system of patent protection influence the mode of technology transfers which in turn affects the welfare of the recipient economy.International technology transfers; Imitation; Patent protection;

Chemische Fabrik Griesheim – pioneer of electrochemistry

This paper gives a brief survey on the history and the strategies of Chemische Fabrik Griesheim of Frankfurt on the Main. After the foundation in 1856, it had been a middle-sized chemical company manufacturing fertilizers, mineral acids and soda. Due to important innovations, the enterprise developed to a leading producer of heavy chemicals at the end of the 19th century. To improve profitability, it acquired a dyestuff company and joined IG Farben Trust in 1925. After World War II, its activities and plants became parts of other corporations. Most of them are still operating

'I Heard Beauty Dying': The Cultural Critique of Plastic in Gravity's Rainbow

This essay attempts to get a grasp on Pynchon's 700-plus page omnibus, Gravity's Rainbow, by focusing on the development of a single motif in the novel: plastic. It argues that Pynchon takes 1960s and 1970s critiques of supply-driven consumer capitalism, of which plastic was a visible emblem, and makes them more emphatic by placing them into a fictionalized version of the prewar years and the 1940s. Looking backwards, and employing a creative license that allows him to attribute the rise of plastics technology and consumer capitalism to purposely evil entities (like his fictional versions of real-life corporations IG Farben and Shell Oil), Pynchon is able to deliver a narrative that locates the roots of contemporary problems in the technological and business innovations of the World War II era. In Gravity's Rainbow, as in early-'70s America, plastic comes to signify for a suite of negative meanings, from environmental degradation, to an exploitative economic order, to a sadistic psychology in which the desire to achieve immortality results in the destruction and perversion of life itself. The essay is divided into three sections. The first uses a cultural history of plastic to identify popular cultural attitudes towards plastic and locate them in Pynchon's text. The second turns towards a closer reading of Gravity's Rainbow, examining the character Greta Erdmann and her relationship to plastic. The final section considers a second character, Tyrone Slothrop, and concludes that Pynchon's critique of plastic ends on a pessimistic note, positing only a limited possibility for meaningful resistance towards plastic and the material and psychological economies that it represents

Capitalism's victor's Justice? The hidden story of the prosecution of industrialists post-WWll

This chapter analyses the trials of industrialists at the US Military Tribunals at Nuremberg for their roles in the Nazis' aggressive wars and the Holocaust. The chapter is organized as follows. Section II examines the Allied consensus on the nature of World War II as imperialist; on the role of the industrialists in Hitler's aggressive war; the formulation of the ‘economic case’; and the indictment, trial, and judgment at the International Military Tribunal. Section III traces the post-World War II turnaround in US foreign and economic policy and its impact on US political and economic involvement in Europe. Section IV shows how this turnaround manifested itself in the conduct and outcomes of the trials of the industrialists at Nuremberg. Section V compares the US trials to the largely forgotten post-World War II international trials of industrialists by the French, British, and Soviet military tribunals, and with the decision of the Military Tribunal for the Far East not to indict Japanese zaibatsu leaders. Finally, Section VI connects the aftermath of the trials, the ‘McCloy clemency’, and subsequent reinstatement of most of the industrialists to their former positions, with contemporary debates around international criminal law, the economic causes of conflict, and ‘corporate impunity’

Constructing an 'industry': the case of industrial gases, 1886–2006

Historically minded social scientists who analyse business and industrial development over time – including business historians – often deploy the term ‘industry’ as if its meaning were both self-evident and unchanging through time. This article uses the case of the international industrial gases industry over the course of 12 decades to demonstrate some ways in which a more critical and dynamic view of ‘industry’ – in combination with recognition of the imperfect overlap between firms on the one hand and industries on the other – enables better understanding and analysis of both

Wissenschaftler, Unternehmer, Mäzen, NS-Opfer : zur Erinnerung an Arthur von Weinberg (1860 –1943)

Im öffentlichen Bewusstsein sind die Brüder Arthur und Carl von Weinberg vielleicht wenig präsent. Aber bei den ehemaligen »Cassellanern«, in der Universität, im »Senckenberg«, im »Städel«, in der Frankfurter Gesellschaft für Handel, Industrie und Wissenschaft, bei den Leitern von Zoo oder Palmengarten, auf dem Rennplatz in Niederrad oder im dortigen Golfclub weiß man sehr wohl, wer die Brüder von Weinberg waren. Es gibt auch ausreichend Literatur, in denen ihre Verdienste hervorgehoben werden. Anlässlich der Übergabe des Schreibtischs von Arthur von Weinberg an die Universität sei versucht, die Geschichte der Familie Weinberg, insbesondere die von Arthur von Weinberg, aus fünf verschiedenen Perspektiven wenigstens anzudeuten