Illusion of Coexistence: The Waldorf Schools in the Third Reich, 1933–1941

From 1933 to 1941, the eight existing Waldorf schools in Germany were forced to close. As an alternative system of education, they were considered a threat to National Socialism. Yet, they were not systematically nor uniformly brought into line with the Nazi state through the process of Gleichschaltung. Very few studies address the history of the Waldorf schools under National Socialism, and those that do are invariably written by members of the Waldorf school community. By examining correspondence between the Waldorf school administrators and Nazi officials, this study helps to fill the void. This investigation reveals that the personalities of both the local Nazi officials and the leadership of particular Waldorf schools played a large role in determining the fate of each school. The ambitions and attitudes of Nazi officials in each state determined the amount of pressure each school felt. In turn, each school was free to determine for itself how best to respond to this pressure. As a group, the schools were motivated by a desire to preserve the pedagogical philosophy Rudolf Steiner, the founder of the Waldorf schools. As such, they were initially eager to cooperate with the demands made of them by the Nazi administration and prove that they were not a threat to National Socialism. As Nazi demands encroached on the schools’ freedom to practice Rudolf Steiner pedagogy, however, die schools’ cooperation decreased. As each school reached its limits of compromise, they chose to close their doors rather than compromise Steiner’s pedagogy. By investigating the eight German Waldorf schools, this study reveals that Gleichschaltung was not always an efficient and successful process and that local authorities heavily impacted the course of Nazi education policy. Moreover, it reveals that individuals did have some room to make choices in Nazi Germany; choices that did not always conform to Nazi wishes

Settlement & ceramics in Southern Iran: An analysis of the Sasanian & Islamic periods in the Williamson collection

Between 1968 and 1971, Andrew George Williamson carried out one of the most extensive and ambitious archaeological surveys undertaken in the Near East. Williamson’s survey of over 1,200 archaeological sites distributed widely through southern Iran represents the most detailed archaeological study of the region. Williamson's untimely death in Oman in 1975 prevented the work from being completed or published, and as a result, the information from his pioneering study have remained generally obscure. A sizable portion of the finds that Williamson collected during the survey (17,000 sherds) were exported to the UK and deposited at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, along with much of the documentation associated with the project. A full synthesis of this material has not until now been attempted. Recognising the important scientific value of Williamson's survey, a detailed study of the Collection was initiated with the aim of: 1) providing a complete catalogue of the Collection; 2) creating a list and map of all sites that Williamson visited and 3) analysing the resulting dataset. The discussion presented below, which describes the results of the research on the Collection, has been broken into two sections. The first section describes Williamson’s work and the contents of the Collection (Chapter 1), and explains the methodology and approach that has been taken during this study (Chapter 2). The second section uses the data generated from the study to analyse regional settlement trends (Chapter 3) and the changing distribution of a selection of key ceramic wares (Chapter 4). Together these themes contribute towards a model for the long-term economic development along the northern shores of the Persian Gulf, ๒ an area that has previously suffered from a major lack of primary archaeological research. Drawing on this study and the more detailed now be possible, for the first time, to set out a scheme that covers the Persian Gulf region as a whole

Henri Temianka Correspondence; (priestman)

https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/temianka_correspondence/2581/thumbnail.jp

Factors Affecting Plant Responses to Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi and Soil Fungal Communities

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are ancient mutualists that associate with the majority of plants. However, the factors that influence how much a plant benefits from AM fungi, or the factors that influence other root-associated fungi are unclear. I examined how plant traits related to nutrient availability can explain variation in AMresponsiveness and whether native species differ from exotics in these relationships. Leaf mass per unit of area (LMA) correlated positively with mycorrhizal growth responsiveness (MGR) and root colonization (RC) among native species. This indicates that native species with more conservative traits more strongly benefit, and benefit from, AM fungi. Furthermore, exotic species did not share this relationship, suggesting that ecological filtering can influence associations between plants and MGR. I also investigated whether populations of the exotic plant, Centaurea solstitialis, collected from native versus non-native ranges, differed in AM-responsiveness. Grown alone, C. solstitialis from both ranges considered together derived a weak benefit from AM fungi, but in competition with the North American native S. pulchra, AM fungi ii i suppressed the biomass of C. solstitialis. The magnitude of this suppressive effect was greater on native versus non-native populations, suggesting that rapid evolutionary changes in how exotic plants respond to interacting AM fungal partners can affect their competitive tolerance in recipient communities. Additions of N and of N and P can have strong effects on soil fungal community composition. However, it is unclear how individual guilds of fungi change along these gradients. I performed high-throughput sequencing on soils from the rhizosphere of Andropogon gerardii, the dominant C4 grass in the Konza Tallgrass Prairie Reserve, to investigate how long-term fertilization with N and N and P affect soil fungi. Fertilization increased pathogen abundance and diversity, but AM fungal abundance and diversity was only decreased when high amounts of P were added. Further, although most AM fungal species decreased along the fertility gradient, the dominant AM fungal species increased, suggesting potential shifts in the functional attributes of those communities. These results suggest that additions of N and P can increase rhizosphere pathogen loads and increases in P can shift the composition and abundance of AM fungi

Mountain Waters: Using Chinese Landscape Thought As a Frame for Architectural Practice in China

Working on many scales and types of projects in China at times of rapid change, the writer is founder of his own architectural practice Priestman Architects now based in Chongqing and is a PhD candidate at London’s University of Westminster. Environmental, socio-economic and spatial problems persist and metamorphose; the phenomenon of the burgeoning and dominant human habitat of the city is also faced with rapid change from new forms of occupation and technologies. Promoting hopeful visions of the unruly city and its interrelated fringes is a pressing need. This paper proposes an outline theoretical framework using ideas of cultural landscape in China to better frame and locate architectural work. The paper starts with Living off Landscape by Francois Jullien which discusses the potency of Chinese ideas of landscape against the limitations of European landscape thought and includes a discussion of photography as the primary media beyond painting that is extending ideas of landscape. The paper considers the use of the path in classical Chinese landscape painting as a conceptual, cultural and physical thread linking the non-urban to the urban. There, the building - heroic object or urban component - can both accommodate exterior contexts and combine resonant interiorities to constitute a fertile field where social and private domains touch

Fluidic Valves for Variable-Configuration Gas Treatment

The paper surveys recent development in the highly specialized field of chemical engineering: vehicle exhaust gas aftertreatment, where variable configuration systems are currently introduced or considered. These respond to varying operating conditions by inserting into the gas treatment flowpath different reactors. The main practical problem are the valves for gas flow switching. Usual mechanical valves are costly, failure prone, heavy (especially the solenoid variants), and not robust enough to withstand the adverse conditions of high temperature, vibration, shocks and dripping water and mud at the usual locations under vehicle body. Fluidic no-moving-part valves, inexpensive and robust, are proposed as an attractive alternative. Especially in their novel axisymmetric layout, they may be very compact, in fact integral with reactor body. The qualitative change brought by the new approaches may provide an inspiration to other areas of chemical engineering