Society

Urban Water Management
“Water to Go” and a Floating Farm

Cities are growing around the world, and the need for more drinking water is growing right along with them. Here are a few ideas for making water management more sustainable. 

Rescuing Food
Can This Still Be Eaten or Does It Have to Go?

Almost 13 million tons of food goes to waste in Germany every year. The Ministry of Food and Agriculture has ambitious plans halve domestic food waste by 2030, a problem private initiatives have already begun addressing. 

Climate Change and Neocolonialism
Climate Colonialism as a New Power Structure

Wasteful use of the earth’s resources is a leading cause of environmental disasters, and the wealthy industrialized countries are benefiting from the exploitation of developing countries, says author Petra Schönhöfer.

Working in summer: herb gardener
“People should be able to recognize a herb”

Summer is peak season in the idyllic herb garden of Heidi Knappe: collecting, cooking, marveling. Who would have thought that there’s so much in plantain, woodruff and company?

Frankly ... Posthuman
How technology helps us in times of crisis

As interpersonal human contact has become a health risk, Liwen Qin outlines how advances in digitalization and information technology can help us cope with the global COVID-19 pandemic.

City and Country
Home Is Where Your WiFi Is

You read and hear in the media at regular intervals that people are either moving to the country or moving away from it. What is really going on? Is it an urban or a rural exodus? Where are Germans going?

Digitalisation
Digitally Sidelined

Signing petitions, booking a visit to the local swimming pool, home schooling – all kinds of everyday things work digitally today. Those who have no access to the internet or who have only limited digital skills could be marginalized in our society.

Coding da Vinci
The digitalisation of culture

Visitors to museums and archives usually interact with exhibits locked in display cases in darkened rooms. Yet modern technology has given us ways to more directly experience art and cultural artefacts. Coding da Vinci is an open, cultural data hackathon that digitally brings museum pieces to life.  

Computer Games Collection
A frontrunner in preservation

Germany is set to have the largest collection of computer games in the world. Over 50,000 titles of individual collections are to be documented with the support of government funding, and then pooled together.

Diversity in the Media
“Good intentions are not enough”

Too few journalists with an ethnic minority background or from disadvantaged social groups: how can we manage to reflect social diversity in the members of editorial teams? 

Yangon
Myint Zaw, author and environmental activist

During the pandemic, we wondered out loud in various online discussions: How much power do we have as individual activists, artists and writers? Are we powerless against institutions and structures? In other words, does nothing we do matter? Or can institutions and structures change when individuals engage in agency? In other words, does everything we do matter?

Reflections on a post-corona-time
Day-Afterthoughts

A virus is showing us how globally networked and yet how fragile our public life is. What does the pandemic mean to and for each of us and for society as a whole? Here are some responses from intellectuals and artists around the world with regard to our present predicament and what lies in store for us afterwards.

COVID-19 pandemic
How the coronavirus is changing our lives

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has held the world in thrall since spring 2020. Drastic changes to our everyday lives are supposed to slow its spread, and the coronavirus could have a lasting impact on some areas of our society. We look at developments so far.

Coronavirus
The impact of health and safety

The ongoing debate on whether the restrictions were justified during the coronavirus crisis emphasises the weaknesses in the biopolitical decisions federal and state governments make. Historians Hedwig Richter and René Schlott argue about the consequences for democratic societies.

Conspiracy Myths
“It Will Wipe the Smile Right off Your Face”

People are more vulnerable to conspiracy ideologies when they fear a loss of control, making the corona pandemic the perfect storm. In an interview, political scientist and net activist Katharina Nocun explains how we should react when encountering people who subscribe to conspiracy theories.

Intersex
Gender diversity

At the beginning of 2019, population registers in Germany were amended to include a third gender category. The option box is headed ‘divers’, which translates as ‘miscellaneous’ or ‘other’, and it was introduced for a dual purpose: to remove the burden from parents faced with deciding an intersex child’s future and to show that being different can also be normal.

Interdisciplinary education
The universal approach to research becomes more important

University teaching has become increasingly specialised over the centuries. But the topics addressed in research today increasingly require an interdisciplinary approach.  Leibniz Association president Matthias Kleiner sees a renaissance of universal research. 

Podcasts
The attractiveness of the auditory experience

One in every four Germans listens to podcasts, and in the United States it is one in every two people. What makes the audio programs so popular and who is involved in the German-speaking podcast scene?

Record of some Losses #1
Wuhan, Central Hospital, a Nurse

The 24-year-old Ye Qi worked for a month without interruption.

Repatriation Debate
The Restitution of Colonial Artefacts Is Going Slowly

Where do they belong? Ownership claims to cultural assets from the colonial period are often controversial and negotiating possible restitution is frequently a fraught and drawn-out process. Germany is taking some initial steps towards a resolution.

Romani
Traces of language

Romanes is the language of the Roma. Most of their words come from India. But on the Roma's way to Europe, Romanes came into contact with many European languages - influenced them and was influenced by them. In Bulgaria, Greece and Sweden, for example.

New working cultures
The call of the city

To present themselves as an attractive place to live, Germany’s urban centres are embracing innovative concepts for the modern world of work. 

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