• Diagnosis of the present
• History of sustainability
• Historical semantics of loyalty
• Nationalism and war in German history
• Subjectivation research and practice theory

1. from the protest movement to the "intentional" community. Origin, change and economic cycle of sustainability-orientated community concepts

The associated sub-project of the joint project "Transformation through community. Processes of Collective Subjectivisation in the Context of Sustainable Development" traces the origin, transformation and current boom of sustainability-oriented community concepts in their social-theoretical and time-diagnostic significance. The aim is a diachronic reconstruction of the discursive conditions of the emergence of the sustainability communities investigated in the joint project. The citizens' initiatives that emerged in the wake of the 1968 movement not only embraced new forms of political participation, expanded them and created new forms of political action, they also developed a specific "aura of resistance" (Schäfer 2015) and a "language of criticism" (Etzemüller 2005: 215) that was able to name social upheavals beyond ideological rhetoric and thus make them negotiable. Through this language and specific life practices (Reichardt 2014), the environmental question, which had already been thematised in the 1960s, could be transformed into a discourse on sustainability, which came to fruition in new drafts of an almost euphorically experienced collective subjectivity (Pettenkofer 2014). A corpus of sources from mass journalistic, programmatic and autobiographical writings from the context of the ecological movement will be analysed using the methods of narratologically informed historical discourse analysis (Landwehr 2008; Koschorke 2012; Viehöver 2001).

Literature: Etzemüller, Thomas (2005): 1968 - Ein Riss in der Geschichte? Social upheaval and the 1968 movements in West Germany and Sweden. Konstanz: UVK; Koschorke, Albrecht (2012): Truth and invention. Fundamentals of a General Narrative Theory. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer; Landwehr, Achim (2008): Historical discourse analysis. Frankfurt am Main et al: Campus; Reichardt, Sven (2014): Authenticity and community. Left-wing alternative life in the seventies and early eighties. Berlin: Suhrkamp; Pettenkofer, Andreas (2014): The emergence of green politics: cultural sociology of the West German environmental movement. Frankfurt am Main et al: Campus; Schäfer, Alfred (2015): 1968 - Aura des Widerstands. Paderborn: Schöningh; Viehöver, Willy (2001): Discourses as narratives. In: Keller, Reiner / Hirseland, Andreas / Schneider, Werner / Viehöver, Willy (eds.): Handbuch Sozialwissenschaftliche Diskursanalyse, Vol. 1: Theorien und Methoden. Opladen: Leske & Budrich, pp. 177-206.

2 Motives of docility. On the historical semantics of loyalty in German history

How rule and allegiance interact in a political community is revealed in situations in which the cohesion of this community is threatened. Wars are among the most extreme challenges for a political community. In order to be able to wage them, the state attempts to mobilise the "docility" (Max Weber) of the ruled that has been practised in times of peace. In the event of war, the docility of the military is required first, symbolised by the oath of allegiance to the flag. However, loyalty concepts also contribute beyond the military sphere to ensuring the loyalty of citizens to the state and making them subservient to the war effort. The self-binding nature of obedience to conscience adds an inner dimension to the external subjugation of the subject by the state. Since nationalism became the most powerful integration ideology in Europe around 1800, "loyalty to the fatherland" became the pivotal point for the political mobilisation and military disciplining of society. The research project explores the semantic ramifications of the discourse of loyalty and examines the contexts of its use in social practice. At the centre is the intertwining of techniques of domination and practices of subjectivation. The aim is to explore the significance of loyalty concepts for the establishment of political loyalty and military allegiance in German history between the age of Napoleon and the World War II epoch.

Literature: Buschmann, Nikolaus / Murr, Karl B. (eds.): Treue. Political loyalty and military allegiance in the modern age. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008; Lange, Sven: Die Geschichte der Schwurverpflichtung im deutschen Militär. Bremen: Edition Temmen, 2002; Prodi, Paolo: Das Sakrament der Herrschaft. The political oath in the constitutional history of the Occident. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1997; Siegel, Eva-Maria: High Fidelity. Configurations of fidelity around 1900. Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2004; Twellmann, Marcus: "Ueber die Eide". Discipline and Criticism in Prussia during the Enlightenment. Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2010.

1. genealogy of sustainability

The joint project "Reflexive Responsibilisation. Responsibility for Sustainable Development", examines prominent blueprints for a sustainable society since the 'ecological revolution' around 1970. These are read as reality-creating narratives that are intended to orientate human perception and action towards the realisation of a sustainable society: In a 'symptomatological' reading of the relationship between humans and nature, they diagnose undesirable developments in the present, which they trace back into the past and extrapolate into the future, sketching out a supposedly better, sustainable future on this backdrop and postulating measures to pave the way to this future. The aim of the study is to reconstruct the narrative 'building blocks' that make up sustainability narratives with regard to the problematisations, forms of knowledge and basic assumptions they contain. Of particular interest here is which (historical) narrative figures take centre stage in the narratives, how these narrative figures are made compatible with one another and how they are condensed into coherent narratives. Finally, we will also examine how the various sustainability narratives relate to each other and how they always produce the differentiation from and de-thematisation of alternative perspectives.

Literature: Buschmann, Nikolaus: Sustainability as a diagnostic programme. In: Thomas Alkemeyer / Nikolaus Buschmann / Thomas Etzemüller (eds.): Gegenwartsdiagnosen. Cultural Forms of Social Self-Problematisation in the Modern Age. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2019, pp. 439-459; Buschmann, Nikolaus: Responsibility for the future. On the diagnostification of the relationship between humans and nature after 1945. In: Nikolaus Buschmann / Anna Henkel / Lars Hochmann / Nico Luedtke (eds.): Reflexive Responsibilisation. Responsibility for sustainable development. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2018, pp. 211-231; Buschmann, Nikolaus / Sulmowski, Jędrzej: Von "Verantwortung" zu "doing Verantwortung". Subjectivation-theoretical aspects of sustainability-related responsibilisation. In: Nikolaus Buschmann / Anna Henkel / Lars Hochmann / Nico Luedtke (eds.): Reflexive Responsibilisation. Responsibility for sustainable development. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2018, pp. 281-295.

2 War and the founding of the nation state: the interpretation of war in public discourses between the revolution and the founding of the empire

In the two decades before the foundation of the German Empire, the German public's debate about war and nationhood was characterised by conflicting national-political options for the future. The study conducted in the Tübingen Collaborative Research Centre 437 "War Experiences. War and Society in the Modern Era" analyses the perception of a phase of German history shaken by wars and crises on the basis of daily newspapers, political journals and entertainment magazines. At the centre of its investigation are contemporary ideas about modern war, strategies for its legitimisation, religious aspects of the perception of war, as well as images of the enemy and fantasies of threat. It becomes clear that the war offered a projection surface for national self-interpretation that was open to different ideological orientations. This contributed significantly to anchoring the nation as a frame of reference for political and cultural orientation in the contemporary imagination - albeit at the cost of the wartime mission statement of "defenceless unity" becoming the vanishing point of national self-identification.

Literature: Buschmann, Nikolaus: Encirclement and brotherhood in arms. The public interpretation of war and nation in Germany 1850-1871. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003.