Archiv der Kategorie: English

23|11|06: Other Christmas Carols 2023

This year’s collection of Other Christmas Carols. As usual a highly arbitrary sample of inspiring and reflective tunes. Kudos to apo.stoi for certain inspirations. I do not own the rights to any of these songs. Go and buy them. Last years‘ lists are archived here. The initial tracks (I edited many of them) are on Spotify. The complete playlist with the edited versions can be found below and on Soundcloud. Enjoy.

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22|06|21: Summer Songs 2022

Some summer songs. As usual a random selection of inspiring and reflective tunes. This year may be even more eclectic than usual, but hey. I do not own the rights to any of these songs. Go and buy the music. Lists from the past can be found here. See tracks (slightly modified and not remastered) also on Spotify and YouTube

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20|11|18: Happy birthday, Haim

Foundation of Tel Aviv, April 11, 1909, Creative Commons

Haim Harari is among many things one of the founding fathers of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria). Together with Olaf Kübler and Hubert Markl, Haim authored the Report of the International Committee published in 2006 which to this day serves as blue-print for the development of IST Austria. Before he assumed this function at IST Austria he had a spectacular career as particle physicist only matched by his spectacular career as president of the Weizmann Institute, omitting his eminent role as science educator and skipping his outstanding qualities as author. Since 2007 I had the honor to work with him at IST Austria. On November 18, 2020, Haim turned 80. To celebrate him a team at IST Austria collected texts of his fellow-travellers. Here is my take.

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20|11|09: Other Christmas Carols 2020

Here is this year’s selection of Other Christmas Charols. As usual a random selection of inspiring and reflective tunes. I do not own the rights to any of these songs. Go and buy them. Last years‘ lists can be found here. The tracks can also be found on the YouTube playlist and (in a redacted form) on Spotify.

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19|10|08: Screening of The Aftermath

And now for something completely different. In 2005, I had the honour to publish the book „The Nicobars Islands. Cultural Choices in the Aftermath of the Tsunami“ by my friend Simron Jit Singh, then a scholar at the Institute of Social Ecology Vienna. Simron is an Indian anthropologist who’s work on the Nicobar Islands proved to tremendously exceed the enormous scientific value of the publication in itself as it became the reference book for that part of the population of the Nicobar Islands who had survived the apocalyptic Tsunami of Christmas 2004. With this book the survivors were at least partly enabled to re-establish their culture in spiritual and material terms. At the same time the population had to struggle with a second aftermath, that of aid organizations, bureaucracy, and the general onslaught of „civilisation“. In 2014, Raphael Barth presented his film „Aftermath-The second flood“ re-telling these events and processes. The screening of this film next week at the Boku Kino will be followed by a panel discussion, among others yours truly participating, hosted by the formidable Verena Winiwarter and organized by BOKU – Universität für Bodenkultur Wien, Boku Kino, and Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. The book was published by Czernin Verlag and should still be in stock. The foreword can be found here. Do come.

Edit 19|10|08: The research project on the negative impact of disaster aid was conducted by Marina Fischer-Kowalski (Institute of Social Ecology) and her team, and funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). For more see abstract

Presentation of the book in September 2005 with Austria’s Federal President Heinz Fischer and a delegation from the Nicobars at the chancellery of the president in the former imperial palace in Vienna. / © Oliver Lehmann