Werkstattgespräche Interview Archive, March–May 2014
In our Werkstattgespräche the concept of “planning” serves as a proxy for manifold notions and terms that historical actors have used to address and frame how to “make things work.” Whether offered by an individual, a community or a state, planning historically has meant approaching issues as dynamic and procedural activities; knowledge and skills were subject to purpose and having “made things work” was the gauge of success.
Every activity, even the most humble, involves an element of planning, a process of negotiating knowledge and action that aims at making things work: an objective is identified, possibilities and constraints are considered; materials, skills, tools, and techniques are allocated; thoughts and things are organized, managed or adjusted. Choices are made. It may happen implicitly or be made explicit, in most planning processes, general patterns attain validity as much through experience and empirical method as through theorizing and abstraction.
Scrutinizing “histories of planning” unpacks knowledge production in action, thus emphasizing the entanglement and dynamics of knowledge forms in their historical ‘making’. How did individuals, communities and states envision and fashion spheres for creativity and negotiation? And how did they then develop, experiment, and stabilize them to make things work?
- 11 Mar, 10:30-12:30 Hyunhee Park: World Maps Produced by Specific Planning in the Medieval World
- 18 Mar, 10:30-12:00 Georgio Riello: The World is Not Enough: Global History, Textiles and Divergence
- 01 Apr, 10:30-12:30 Richard Baxstrom: What Does a Plan Want? Fragments of a Response from Kuala Lumpur
- 13 May, 10:30-12:00 Ursula Klein: Knowledge in the Context of Planning: Examples from Prussia
- 20 May, 10:30-12:00 Tiago Saraiva: Cloning California: Oranges, Genetics, and the Mediterranean
- 27 May, 10:30-12:00 Volker Scheid: Medical Craftsmanship Between Subjectivity and Empiricism