Work areas
The research project is divided into three work areas: “Knowledge Networks,” “Knowledge Applications,” and “Knowledge Locations.”
Knowledge Networks
The first area, “Knowledge Networks,” will focus on the genesis, specific contexts of use, and interconnections of knowledge practices from a prosopographic perspective. To this end, it will also make use of tools employed in the digital humanities and in data mining, which will be refined and developed in a project-specific manner in collaboration with the Saxon State Library − Dresden State and University Library. The basis for this approach – and the resulting product − will be a database that clusters knowledge in terms of staff, topic, subject, and location and that tracks their use and citation. This will facilitate tracing the dissemination and cancelation of knowledge transfers and identifying the formation of personnel and generational clusters and networks that will become both the basis and the starting point for further analysis.
The objective of the area “Knowledge Networks,” then, is to reconstruct the dissemination and distribution paths of the knowledge produced at TH Dresden in order to understand its contribution to the dynamic development of power constellations and practices at the university as well as in society as a whole. The initial consideration is that this will form the basis upon which assertions about the role of the university, especially under National Socialism but also during other political system changes, can be refined and substantiated.
Knowledge Applications
The second area, “Knowledge Applications,” will examine in individual case studies the specific circumstances of the application of knowledge practices that were politicized at TH Dresden. The focus will be on the genuine contexts of use in National Socialism. At the same time, looking at the transformation phases will allow the identification of persistences, path dependencies, and ruptures.
The development of technical colleges in Germany was directly linked to the demand made by the state, society, and the military for knowledge relevant for armaments and war and the promotion of such knowledge. However, the contexts of applications that were of indirect significance for the war preparations that began with the Nazi dictatorship − by providing actionable knowledge for its economic and educational policies − must also be taken into account and understood in their personal and political dimensions.
The thesis of a “self-mobilization” of the sciences under National Socialism has been confirmed in contemporary historical research and extended by the concept of politics and science as “resources for each other.” Here, the question arises as to whether TH Dresden should be assessed as a “normal enterprise” or as a university paradigmatically serving National Socialism. At this point, the area “Knowledge Applications” intersects productively with the work area “Knowledge Networks” since the database developed in parallel will be fundamental in answering such questions. Only by using such a multi-layered and complex knowledge base will it be possible to answer the central question of what contributions to the National Socialist policy of exclusion and extermination TH Dresden and its personnel were responsible for.
Knowledge Locations
The third research area, “Knowledge Locations,” will investigate the attachment of knowledge practices to locations and the diffusion of knowledge. Practices and rituals of knowledge acquisition and transmission will be analyzed by looking at specific places and media. This approach assumes that knowledge systems are structured by the material constitution of knowledge acquisition and transmission. Scientific collections and the library of TH Dresden can be described as such places and, therefore, as possible topics for dissertations. Both functioned as central infrastructure facilities for research and teaching and, as such, played an important role in the internal power structure of TH Dresden, while at the same time influencing the city’s public sphere.