Practices of Comparing. Towards a New Understanding of a Fundamental Human Practice

Epple A, Erhart W, Grave J, eds. Practices of Comparing. Towards a New Understanding of a Fundamental Human Practice. BiUP General. 1st ed. Bielefeld: Bielefeld University Press; 2020.Practices of comparing shape how we perceive, organize, and change the world. Supposedly innocent, practices of comparing play a decisive role in forming categories, boundaries, and hierarchies; but they can also give an impetus to question and change such structures. Like almost no other human practice, comparing pervades all social, political, economic, and cultural spheres. This volume outlines the program of a new research agenda that places comparative practices at the center of an interdisciplinary exploration. Its contributions combine case studies with overarching systematic considerations. They show what insights can be gained and which further questions arise when one makes a seemingly trivial practice - comparing - the subject of in-depth research

Mehrfachbesprechung: Doris Gerber: Analytische Metaphysik der Geschichte. Handlungen, Geschichten und ihre Erklärung, Frankfurt/M. 2012

Currently, epistemological debates on the formation of concepts in the field of history are close to nonexistent. For that reason alone, this book written by philosopher of history Doris Gerber – with which she earned her habilitation degree at the University of Tübingen – is a welcome addition to the literature in the field. In this work, Gerber addresses the metaphysical question of what "history" really is. In this study, she considers approaches typically adopted within the field of history, and questions whether the intention to act is essential in writing history, or whether it is even required in the first place. The findings of the four reviewers that follow are diverse in their opinion of this provocative study

Vergleichen unter den Bedingungen von Konflikt und Konkurrenz

Albert M, Engelschalt J, Epple A, et al. Vergleichen unter den Bedingungen von Konflikt und Konkurrenz. Praktiken des Vergleichens. Working Paper des SFB 1288. Vol 1. Bielefeld: Universität Bielefeld, SFB 1288; 2019.Was ist das Spezifische an Vergleichen bzw. Vergleichspraktiken, die unter den Bedingungen von Konflikt und/oder Konkurrenz durchgeführt werden? Im vorliegenden Working Paper wird dieses Spezifische anhand von soziologisch inspirierten Überlegungen zu den Grundbegrifflichkeiten des Konflikts bzw. der Konkurrenz als einer besonderen Art der Formung sozialer Beziehungen herausgearbeitet. Zunächst werden die Begriffe von Konkurrenz und direkten gewalttätigen Konflikten vor dem Hintergrund unterschiedlicher disziplinärer Forschungskontexte bestimmt. Ausgehend von einer Soziologie der Konkurrenz geht es dabei um sozial- und geschichtswissenschaftliche Diskussionen um gewalttätige Konflikte. Zentral sind die begriffliche Schärfung unterschiedlicher kriegerischer Auseinandersetzungen und das Gewalthandeln in Konfliktsituationen, die nicht als Krieg bezeichnet werden können. Anschließend werden die vielschichtigen Wechselbeziehungen sowohl zwischen gewalttätigen Konflikten und Konkurrenz als auch zwischen Konflikten, Konkurrenzen und Vergleichspraktiken aus der Sicht der unterschiedlichen Forschungsprojekte des Projektbereichs A des SFB 1288 dargestellt.**Ergänzender Hinweis zu den Creative Commons Lizenzen**"Creative Commons license terms for re-use do not apply to any content (such as graphs, figures, photos, excerpts, etc.) not original to the Open Access publication and further permission may be required from the rights holder. The obligation to research and clear permission lies solely with the party re-using the material.

Historicism and constructionism: rival ideas of historical change

Simon ZB. Historicism and constructionism: rival ideas of historical change. History of European Ideas. 2019;45(8):1171-1190.A seemingly unitary appeal to history might evoke today two incompatible operations of historicization that yield contradictory results. This article attempts to understand two co-existing senses of historicity as conflicting ideas of historical change and rival practices of temporal comparison: historicism and constructionism. At their respective births, both claimed to make sense of the world and ourselves as changing over time. Historicism, dominating nineteenth-century Western thought and overseeing the professionalization of historical studies, advocated an understanding of the present condition of the human world as developing out of past conditions. Constructionism, dominating the second half of the twentieth century, understood the present condition as the recent invention of certain ‘historical’ environments, without prior existence. As competing ideas of historical change, they both entail a comparison between past and present conditions of their investigated subjects, but their practices of temporal comparison are irreconcilable and represent two distinct ways of historicization

Multiple Histories? Changing Perspectives on Modern Historiography

Epple A, Schaser A. Multiple Histories? Changing Perspectives on Modern Historiography. In: Epple A, Schaser A, eds. Gendering Historiography. Beyond National Canons. Frankfurt/New York: Campus; 2009: 7-23

Doing Comparisons - Ein praxeologischer Zugang zur Geschichte der Globalisierung/en

Epple A. Doing Comparisons - Ein praxeologischer Zugang zur Geschichte der Globalisierung/en. In: Epple A, Erhart W, eds. Die Welt beobachten. Praktiken des Vergleichens. Frankfurt: Campus; 2015: 161-199