• Program Statement
• Plenary Lectures & Panels
• Thursday
• Friday
• Saturday
• Participants

Program Statement
We will witness the ending of a century and a millenium soon, but clearly the topic of historical endings is much more complex and interesting to intellectual historians for reasons that go beyond the fact of our situation in calendar time.  At first sight it seems pointless to construct any systematic or topological approach to the phenomenon of "ending".  That something is ending seems to be an observation one can make in many places and instances.  In order to envisage the topic of ending in an interdisciplinary perspective, it is important to neglect none of its cultural, political, historical and existential dimensions.  The aim of the 1998 ISIH conference is to bring together as many aspects of endings as possible and to include all the different meanings the term bears in various disciplines.

Without a doubt, one cannot talk about an absolute ending nor about an absolute beginning without running straight into dialectical difficulties.  But it is possible to focus on ideas of endings which play an important part in historical, political and philosophic thought.  The ideas of the world coming to an end, e.g. range from the deluge to dying forests.  The theme of "the ending of the world" clearly challenged and continues to challenge theologians, philosophers and political thinkers.  This is simply one approach to dealing with endings; another would be to work out the existential dimension in the ways humans address the phenomena of death and dying.  Here medical theory and practice would come into consideration alongside issues of the social dimensions of such questions.

Supposing that something has come to an end and becomes obsolete is in itself a relevant phenomenon, one of a "second order" so to speak.  Whatever was deemed "overcome", "obsolete", "not up-to-date", "pre-modern" was also dealt with in practical terms--sometimes by replacing it with something "new", sometimes by simply forgetting about it.  There are stories to be told of demolition, of destruction (deconstruction?), of iconoclastic and anti-clerical movements, of the fading out of the "fashionable", etc.  The history of social institutions and of human behavior could tell us more about these sorts of endings.  Political and social history are themselves challenged, in turn, by what we call "revolutions" as well as radical transformations of culture.  Ending is not just the reverse side of new beginnings, but usually rather the part of any history we have for some reason come to care less about.

In a narrower sense, the topic of endings is about the loss of legitimation, especially political legitimation.  The history of constitutions shows that there always was a time when some older forms became less credible and consequently less vigorous, effective, respected.  How could we explain this phenomenon of political history?  How should we tell the endings of the Roman republic, of the Ancien Régime, of the Holy Roman Empire, and of modern monarchies?  Twentieth century experiences of such political endings should not be excluded from intellectual history here: e.g. fascism, National Socialism, and communism.  Is liberalism a recent winner in Europe, or simply just "what remains"?

A traditional approach to the topic of endings has been through the history of art.  How and why do styles change?  How and why do dominant forms become out-of-date, whether in architecture, painting, music and so on?  There was a time when intellectual conversation was fascinated by the ending of literary genres like the novel, the drama, or other forms of art.  This fascination seems itself to be a recurrent feature of modernity.  Do we still feel that it is?  Or has the interest in bringing things to an end itself ended?

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Plenary Talks & Panels

Wednesday, June 10, 1998
Plenary Talk, 6:30 p.m.:
M. Meyer (Zurich): "Geschichten vom Ende der Geschichte" ["Histories of the End of History"]

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Thursday, June 11, 1998 

Plenary Talk, 9:30 a.m.: 
O. Breidbach (Jena): "Entwicklung ohne Enden--Darwinismus oder Teleologie ohne Ende?" ["Development without Endings--Darwinism, or Teleology without End?"]

Plenary Talk, 11:30 a.m.:
W. Oechslin (Zurich): "Die Architektur kann nicht sterben--oder, von der Trägheit des Geschaffenen" ["Architecture Cannot Die--or, On the Inertia of What Has Been Created"]

Panel A:  Zeitenwandel/ "Times they are a'changin"
(In cooperation with the Centre Marc Bloch)
Chair: M. Middell (Leipzig) & E. Tortarolo (Turin)
W. Breckman (Philadelphia): "Democracy Beyond 'Foundation': Cornelius Castoriadis and Claude Lefort"
G. Newey (Sussex): "'For to end yet again' . . . Political Philosophy's Terminal Optimism"
M. Gawlina (Naples): "Zum 'Ende' der Politik" ["On the 'End' of Politics"]
A Brendecke (Munich): "Jahrhundertwende--Zeitwende?--The End of Centuries--A Story of Endings?"

Panel B: Noch Einmal: Vom Ende der Geschichte/ The End of History Revisited (I)
Chair: C. Friedrich (Munich)
L. Niethammer (Jena): "Vom Geschichten, die im Posthistoire enden" ["On Histories that End in Post-history"]
P. Anderson (Los Angeles/Berlin): "Exit to the Stars"
L. Moreva (St. Petersburg): "Reflections on the Poetics of History and the Rhetoric of Ending"
V. Serbinenko (Moscow): "Zeitgenössische Diskussionen über 'das Ende der Geschichte' und die eschatologische Problematik in der russischen religiösen Metaphysik im XIX. und XX. Jahrhundert [given in Russian with a summary in German] ["Contemporary Discussions of 'the End of History' and the Eschatological Problematic in Russian Religious Metaphysics in the 19th and 20th Centuries"]

Panel C:  Jenseits des Kolonialismus/ Beyond Colonialism
Chairs: T. Bremer (Halle), S. Klengel (Halle), T. Orozco (Berlin)
L. Yilmaz (Paris): "The Vanishing East: A Dead Past"
U. Fleischmann (Berlin): "Mestizos and Mulattoes: The Ending of the 'Pure' Nation"
A. Nicolas (Bonn-Haiti): "The Caribbean--Fin de Siècle? Postcolonialism and the Caribbean Discourse"

Panel D: Untergang und Übergang/ Decline and Fall
Chair: W. v. Rahden (Berlin)
H. R. Brittnacher (Berlin): "Apocalypse Now.  Literarische Katastrophen- und Untergangsvisionen" ["Apocalypse Now.  Literary Visions of Catastrophe and Collapse"]
A. B. Renger (Heidelberg/Stanford): "Der Sonnenkult im Übergang von Mythos und Geschichte" ["The Cult of the Sun in the Transition from Myth to History"]
A. Spahr (Berlin): "Das Ende der Gutenberg-Galaxis" ["The End of the Gutenberg Galaxy"]
H. Illig (Munich): "Das Ende als manipulierter Anfang: Die simulierte Jahrtausendwende" ["Ends as Manipulated Beginnings: The Simulated Turn of the Millenium"]
V. Reinhardt (Fribourg): "Die Dialektik von Endzeiterwartung und Modernisierung" ["The Dialectic of the Expectation of an End-of-time and Modernization"]

Panel E: Erzählende/ Literupture - (I)
Chair: J. P. Hunter (Chicago)
Ch. Alunni (Paris): "Thomas Mann aux confins de l'histoire" ["Thomas Mann within the Confines of History"]
S. Ollivier (Dublin/Bordeaux): "La Notion de rupture dans les oeuvres de Dmitri Lakhatchov" ["The Notion of Rupture in the Works of Dmitri Lakhatchov"]
T. Verschaffel (Louvain): "The Historian's Last Words: The Modernization of Historiography and the Endings of Historical Texts in 18th Century Belgium"
A. Makolkin (Toronto): "The Myth of Endings and Neverending Human Dilemmas"

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Friday, June 12, 1998

Panel A: Zeitenwandel/ Times they are a'changin - (II)
In cooperation with the Centre Marc Bloch
Chair: M. Middell (Leipzig), E. Tortarolo (Turin), J. Scherrer (Paris/Berlin)
G. Bordjugov (Moscow): "Die russischen Historiker nach dem Ende der Sowjetunion - I: Die Geschichtsschreibung Russlands" ["Russian Historians after the End of the Soviet Union - I: The Historiography of Russia"]
L. Pimenova (Moscow): "Les Historiens russes après la fin de l'USSR - II: L'Historiographie de l'Occident" ["Russian Historians after the End of the Soviet Union - II: Historiography of the West"]
J. Scherrer (Paris/Berlin): "Kommentar zu Bordjugov und Pimenova" ["Commentary on the Papers of Bordjugov and Pimenova"]
C. Miller (Middletown, Ct.): "The Dimming of the Enlightenment"

Panel B: Abrisse/ Demolitions
Chair: W. Ernst (Cologne)
K. Barck (Berlin): "'Abriss' der Geschichte: Avantgarde als Endzeitmythos" ["Dismantling History: The Avant-garde as Myth of the End of Time"]
B. Siegert (Berlin): "[...] Desunt quaedam: The Demolition of the Res Gestae"
P. Krapp (Konstanz/Paris): "PHRACK--Hacker im Archiv" ["PHRACK--Hacker in the Archive"]
I. Scherbakova (Moscow): "Das Ende der Sowjetmacht und die Offnung der Archive: Oder schon wieder Schliessung?" ["The End of Soviet Power and the Opening of the Archives: Or, Their Closing Once Again?"]

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Panel C: Fin de Siècle
Chair: W. Connell (Rutgers)
S. Rogari (Florence): "An Ideology of Social Conservation in Ending Rural Italy"
W. R. Everdell (New York): "The Shadow of the Black Cat Cabaret: Fin de Siècle Follies and Twentieth-Century Thought"
N. J. Tollebeeck (Louvain): "The Suicide of Ages"
F. Nethercott (Fribourg): "Endings and Ends in Early Soviet Philosophical Culture: The Case of Plato's Republic"

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Panel D: Epochen/ Epochs
Chair: M. Kross (Potsdam)
N. Fugmann (Oxford): "Postmodern Critique and Intellectual History"
R. Sampath (Berkley, CA.): "Superceding Deconstruction: Blanchot, Hegel and the Theory of Epochs"
S. Moser (Innsbruck): "Zum Problem der Periodisierung in der Kunstgeschichte: Der Stil" ["On the Problem of Periodization in Art History: Style"]
P.R. Blum (Budapest/Mönchen-Gladbach): "Die Sühne kommt vor der Schuld: Kriminalgeschichten rückwärts gelesen" ["Atonement Comes Before Guilt: Reading Criminal Stories Backwards"]

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Panel E: Ende der Naturwissenschaften/ The End of Scientific Knowledge
Chair: S. Lestition (Princeton)
J. Jantzen (Munich): "Das Ende der Elemente im späten 18. Jahrhundert" ["The End of the Elements in the Late 18th Century"]
F. Dombois (Berlin): "Erdbeben und Apokalypse" ["Earthquakes and the Apocalypse"]
A. Scheib (Ludwigshafen): "Das Ende der Metaphysik der Physik" ["The End of the Metaphysics of Physics"]
C. Friedrich (Munich): "Abschluss und Offenheit in der Ethik" ["Conclusion and Open-Endedness in Ethics"]

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Evening Plenary Lecture (7:00 p.m.) -- at the "Einstein-Forum", Potsdam 

S. P. Rouanet (Brazil/Prague): "The End of History in the Thought of the Enlightenment"

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Saturday, 13 June 1998  

Plenary Talk, 9:30 a.m.
M. Lutz-Bachmann (Frankfurt): "Vom Wissen um die begrenzte Zeit" ["On Knowing Limited Time"]

Plenary Talk, 11:30 a.m.
Ann Thomson (Caen/Paris): "The Death of the Soul"

Panel A: Ende der Therapie/ End of Therapy
Chair: M. Heinze (Berlin)
R. Schlesier (Paderborn/Berlin): "Freuds Hermeneutik der endlichen und unendlichen Analyse" ["Freuds Hermeneutics of Finite and Infinite Analysis"]
B. Görlich (Wiesbaden): "Das Ende der Unschuld--Konsequenzen der Freudschen Kulturbetrachtung" ["The End of Innocence--Consequences of the Freudian View of Culture"]
M. Schwartz (Gates Mills, Ohio): "Why Psychotherapy When There Is a Pill for Every Mood?"
A. Böhle (Berlin): "Psychoanalytische Beziehungen und ihr Ende" ["Psychoanalytical Relationships and their End"]

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Panel B: Noch Einmal: Vom Ende der Geschichte/ The End of History Revisited (II)
Chair: C. Friedrich (Munich)
G. Hartung (Berlin): "Endzeitvorstellungen im Zeitalter der Reformation: Johannes Lichtenbergers politische Prophetie" ["Ideas of the End of Time in the Reformation: Johann Lichtenberger's Political Prophesying"]
J. Kreutzer (Wuppertal): "Wie Geschichten anfangen: Augustins Geschichtsdenken" ["How Histories Begin: Augustine's Historical Thinking"]
A. Demand (Berlin): "Finis historiae?" 

Panel C: Endkultur/ Ending and its Variations
Chair: D. Kelley (New Brunswick, NJ)
S. Gaukroger (Sydney): "The Transformation of Natural Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century and the Construction of a Scientific Persona"
H.F. Cohen (Twente): "How the Modern World Arose from Europa--What Did Science Have to Do with It?"
B. Domingues (Juiz da Fora): "Modernity or Modernities? The Problem of Iberian Modernity"
M. Feingold (Boston): "The End of Baroque Scholarship"

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Panel D: Philosophia Finis
Chair: U. J. Schneider (Leipzig)
T. Kobayashi (Leipzig): "Kirschblüte, Tod, Nation" ["Cherry Blossoms, Death, the Nation"]
V. Malachov (Moscow): "Vom 'Ende der Geschichte' zum 'Krieg der Kulturen'" ["From the 'End of History' to the 'War of Cultures'"]
L. Heidbrink (Lüneberg): "Vom Sinn der Geschichte nach ihrem Ende" ["On the Meaning of History After its End"]
M. Boenke (Munich): "Entelechisches und utopisches Denken" ["Thinking in Terms of Entelechy and Utopia"]

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Panel E: Erzählende/ Literupture (II)
Chair: W. v. Rahden (Berlin)
W. Sparn (Erlangen): "Wissenschaften um 1900" ["The Sciences Around 1900"]
U. Richter (Münster): "Die Geschichte endet nie--Geschichten immer: Die Dialektik gelebter Zeit und erzählten Lebens" ["History Never Ends--Always Stories: The Dialectic of Lived Time and Narrated Life"]
T. Birkenhauer (Berlin): "'Der Vorhang senkt sich langsam': Ende im Theater" ["'The curtain falls slowly': On Ends in the Theater"]
F. Bugliani-Knox (London): "Poetry at War with Death"

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Sunday, 14 June 1998  

Film-Workshop, 10:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.
In Cooperation with the Freunde der deutschen Kinemathek/ In Cooperation with the German Cinematographic Society
Location: at the Arsenal-Kino, Berlin-Schöneberg

U. Gregor (Berlin): "Das Ende im Film als Rückkehr in die Wirklichkeit" ["Film Ending as a Return to Reality"]
H. Kappelhoff (Berlin): "Der Untergang der Titanic--Ende des 19. und des 20. Jahrhunderts" ["The Sinking of the Titanic--End of the 19th and the 20th Centuries"]

Discussion led by: S. Schulte-Strathaus (Berlin)

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