Walter Benjamin and the Inhumanities: Towards a Pedagogical Anti-Nietzscheanism

The following discussion is intended as a critical intervention into recent debates about the “crisis of the humanities,” reading the symptomaticity of crisis in the medical sense of a turning point. It does so from the perspective of the work of Walter Benjamin, whose own transdisciplinary practice of thought has been characterized as a “philosophy directed against philosophy” and a “philosophizing beyond philosophy,” and stands as a model for the kind of intellectual and para-academic activity evoked here. Historically re-situating Benjamin’s famous allegory of the Angel of History from the twentieth-century context of the “crisis of culture” to the contemporary “crisis of education,” it attempts to reconstruct a dialectical understanding of pedagogization within Benjamin’s work, which is used to sketch out the contours of a critically reimagined pedagogy of the Inhumanities.

Twentieth Century Modern Architecture and the Countryside: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's design for a country gold clubhouse for the Krefeld Golf Club Association

This paper investigates relationships between modernity and monumentality in the architecture of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. In his Modern Architecture, the critic and historian Kenneth Frampton separated Mies’ work into two historical periods, 1921-1933 and 1933-1967; the first he entitled ‘Mies van der Rohe and the significance of fact,’ the second ‘Mies van der Rohe and the monumentalisation of technique.’ The two historical periods correspond to two different geopolitical phases of Mies’ career, the first in Weimar Germany the second in the United States. By looking at a number of designs and texts made by Mies in the 1930’s and 1940’s, this essay questions the validity of separating Mies’ architecture into such clear-cut categories, where each one can enjoy a seeming independence from the other. The fulcrum for the discussion is Mies’ design of 1930 for a country golf clubhouse for the industrial town of Krefeld in north-western Germany. Our attention to the golf clubhouse design was prompted by the recent installation (2013), in which a 1-1 model of the design, made primarily from plywood, was erected in a field close the the site of Mies' original proposal.

Towards a Critique of Educative Violence: Walter Benjamin and ‘Second Education’

Although modern systems of mass education are typically defined in their opposition to violence, it has been argued that it is only through an insistent and critical focus upon violence that radical thought can be sustained. This article seeks to take up this challenge in relation to Walter Benjamin’s lesser-known writings on education. Benjamin retained throughout his life a deep suspicion about academic institutions and about the pedagogic, social and economic violence implicated in the idea of cultural transmission. He nonetheless remained committed to the possibility of another kind of revolutionary potential inherent to true education and, when he comes to speak of this in his Critique of Violence, it is remarkable that he describes it as manifesting an educative violence. This article argues that Benjamin’s philosophy works toward a critique of educative violence that results in a distinction between a ‘first’ and ‘second’ kind of education and asks whether destruction might have a positive role to play within pedagogical theories in contrast to current valorisations of creativity and productivity.

Windkracht 13 : het potentieel van kleine en middelgrote windturbines in kaart gebracht

In tegenstelling tot fotovoltaïsche systemen van gelijkaardige grootte, maken kleine en middelgrote windturbines in Vlaanderen nog geen deel uit van het vertrouwde energielandschap. Aan de hand van het demo-disseminatieproject Windkracht 13 wil de Universiteit Gent, in samenwerking met Tecnolec en met de steun van het Agentschap Ondernemen, de barrières voor kleine en middelgrote windturbines wegwerken en goede locaties in Vlaanderen in kaart brengen. De knelpunten die kleine en middelgrote windturbines ondervinden, kunnen onderverdeeld worden in vijf afzonderlijke maar toch vaak samenhangende thema’s: juridisch, economisch, ruimtelijk, technisch en sociaal, de zogenaamde JERTS-invalshoeken. Het doel van het Windkracht 13-project is het openbreken van de markt voor kleine en middelgrote windturbines in Vlaanderen, door demo-installaties te plaatsen, te monitoren en de opgedane kennis te verspreiden.

Complex-order forced van der Pol oscillator

In this paper we consider a complex-order forced van der Pol oscillator. The complex derivative Dα1jβ, with α, β ∈ ℝ+, is a generalization of the concept of an integer derivative, where α = 1, β = 0. The Fourier transforms of the periodic solutions of the complex-order forced van der Pol oscillator are computed for various values of parameters such as frequency ω and amplitude b of the external forcing, the damping μ, and parameters α and β. Moreover, we consider two cases: (i) b = 1, μ = {1.0, 5.0, 10.0}, and ω = {0.5, 2.46, 5.0, 20.0}; (ii) ω = 20.0, μ = {1.0, 5.0, 10.0}, and b = {1.0, 5.0, 10.0}. We verified that most of the signal energy is concentrated in the fundamental harmonic ω0. We also observed that the fundamental frequency of the oscillations ω0 varies with α and μ. For the range of tested values, the numerical fitting led to logarithmic approximations for system (7) in the two cases (i) and (ii). In conclusion, we verify that by varying the parameter values α and β of the complex-order derivative in expression (7), we accomplished a very effective way of perturbing the dynamical behavior of the forced van der Pol oscillator, which is no longer limited to parameters b and ω.

Complex order van der Pol oscillator

In this paper a complex-order van der Pol oscillator is considered. The complex derivative Dα±ȷβ , with α,β∈R + is a generalization of the concept of integer derivative, where α=1, β=0. By applying the concept of complex derivative, we obtain a high-dimensional parameter space. Amplitude and period values of the periodic solutions of the two versions of the complex-order van der Pol oscillator are studied for variation of these parameters. Fourier transforms of the periodic solutions of the two oscillators are also analyzed.

The TREAT-NMD DMD Global Database: Analysis of More than 7,000 Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Mutations.

Analyzing the type and frequency of patient-specific mutations that give rise to Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is an invaluable tool for diagnostics, basic scientific research, trial planning, and improved clinical care. Locus-specific databases allow for the collection, organization, storage, and analysis of genetic variants of disease. Here, we describe the development and analysis of the TREAT-NMD DMD Global database (http://umd.be/TREAT_DMD/). We analyzed genetic data for 7,149 DMD mutations held within the database. A total of 5,682 large mutations were observed (80% of total mutations), of which 4,894 (86%) were deletions (1 exon or larger) and 784 (14%) were duplications (1 exon or larger). There were 1,445 small mutations (smaller than 1 exon, 20% of all mutations), of which 358 (25%) were small deletions and 132 (9%) small insertions and 199 (14%) affected the splice sites. Point mutations totalled 756 (52% of small mutations) with 726 (50%) nonsense mutations and 30 (2%) missense mutations. Finally, 22 (0.3%) mid-intronic mutations were observed. In addition, mutations were identified within the database that would potentially benefit from novel genetic therapies for DMD including stop codon read-through therapies (10% of total mutations) and exon skipping therapy (80% of deletions and 55% of total mutations).

Inneming van Tavasthus in Finlant

Täydellinen nimeke: Inneming van Tavasthus in Finlant, door den Graef van Apraxin etc. nevens de groote nederlage der Zweden, met verlies hunner Trommels en Velt tekenen, en een groot getal van Krygs benden; voorgevallen den 6 van Wynmaent 1713 = Tavasthusa in Finlandia expugnata a Comite Apraxino etc. cum magna clade Suecorum, et jactura tympanorum et vexillorum, multarumque copiarum militarium 6 die Oct: an: 1713.

Mare Balticum. Amstelodami, Apud. F. de Wit. ; Nieuwe pascaert van de Oost Zee t Amsterdam Gedruckt by F. de Wit

Pahville liimattu

Nieuwe paskaart voor een gedeelte van de Oost-Zee = Nouvelle carte hydrographique d'une partie de la Mer Baltique = Nya pass cort öfwer yen dehl af Oster-Siöön = The new sea map of the second of the East-Sea

Sisältää myös kartakkeet: Pastkaartje van de Noord Bodem, Suomenlahden itäosa ja Laatokka

Nieuwe paskaart voor een gedeelte van de Oost-Zee = Nouvelle carte hydrographique d'une partie de la Mer Baltique = Nya pass cort öfwer yen dehl af Oster-Siöön = The new sea map of the second of the East-Sea

Sisältää myös kartakkeet: Pastkaartje van de Noord Bodem, Suomenlahden itäosa ja Laatokka