Best practice in transdisciplinary research - Swiss td-award Winners 2013

Transdisciplinary research plays an increasing role in topics of societal relevance and impact. The td-net of the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences awards innovative transdisciplinary research every other year. The last td-award was given in 2013. This special focus of GAIA features the six prize-winning projects, presenting short summaries of their work. Explaining its selection in the following introduction, the Jury of the td-net honours the awardees, and puts their work into a global perspective.

Cognitive effects of masculine generics in German. An overview of empirical findings

This article presents a series of experiments which were conducted among native speakers of German to determine the influence of different types of German generics on the cognitive inclusion of women. Results indicate that the inclusion of women is higher with ‘non-sexist’ alternatives than with masculine generics, a tendency which was consistent across different studies. The different alternatives, however, showed different effects which also varied depending on the context. These results are discussed with regard to their practical consequences in situations such as nominating women and men for awards or political offices.

Name your favorite musician: Effects of masculine generics and of their alternatives in German

Feminist linguists claim that masculine forms used in a generic sense (e.g. he referring to a doctor irrespective of sex) facilitate the cognitive representation of men compared to women and make women less visible. A number of experimental studies have confirmed this assumption with regard to the English language. Concerning other languages, however, this question has been addressed only in very few studies, although gender is a much more pervasive grammatical category and masculine generics are more prominent in languages such as French, Spanish or German. This paper reports three experiments with native speakers of German which were conducted to determine the influence of different types of German generics on the cognitive inclusion of women. Results indicate that inclusion of women is higher with 'non-sexist' alternatives than with masculine generics, a tendency which was consistent over studies. But the different alternative forms show different effects which also vary depending on the context. These results are discussed with regard to their practical consequences in situations such as nominating women and men for awards, political offices etc.

Printed Narrative: The Festival Books for Archduke Ernest of Austria from Brussels and Antwerp 1594

Workshop „The Narrative in Eastern and Western Art“, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto, 2-5 December 2013 Abstract by Ivo Raband, University of Berne Printed Narrative: The Festival Books for Ernest of Austria from Brussels and Antwerp 1594 During the early modern period the medium of the festival book became increasingly more important as an object of ‘political narration’ throughout Europe. Focusing on Netherlandish examples from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, my talk will focus on the festival books printed for the Joyous Entries of Archduke Ernest of Austria (1553–1595). Ernest was appointed Governor General of the Netherlands by King Philipp II in 1593, being the first Habsburg Prince to reside in Brussels since 30 years. In Brussels and Antwerp, the Archduke was greeted with the traditional Blijde Imkomst, Joyous Entry, which dates back to the fourteenth century and was a necessity to actually become the sovereign of Brabant and Antwerp and to uphold the privileges of the cities. Decorated with ephemeral triumphal arches, stages, and tableaux vivants, both cities welcomed Ernest and, at the same time, demonstrated their civic self-assurance and negotiated their statuses. In honor of these events of civic power, the city magistrates commissioned festival books. These books combine a Latin text with a description of the events and the ephemeral structures, including circa 30 engravings and etchings. Being the only visual manifestation of the Joyous Entries, the books became important representational objects. The prints featured in festival books will be my point of departure for discussing the importance of narrative political prints and the concept of the early modern festival book as a ‘political object’. By comparing the prints from Ernest’s entries with others from the period between 1549 and 1635, I will show how the prints became as important as the event itself. Thus, I want to pose the question of whether it would have been possible to substitute a printed version of the event for the actual ceremony.