A General Theory of World Constitutionalism
Daimler Fellow Bruce Ackerman identifies three sets of actors that play key roles in different forms of constitutional legitimation: revolutionary outsiders, established insiders, and a combination of established insiders and political elites previously excluded from the system.
Presentation of the Spring 2015 Fellows
The American Academy in Berlin heartily welcomed its thirty-fourth class of fellows at the Hans Arnhold Center on the evening of January 19, 2015.
Methlabs and Late Industrial Alchemy in Rural Missouri
Anthropologist and Bosch Public Policy Fellow Jason Pine looks at small-scale methamphetamine manufacture in rural Missouri to ask how meth cooking and consumption are used to enhance or “get more life.”
Whistling Up A Storm – Toward a History of Emergency
How differently do we now understand and approach emergencies, and what does it mean in 2014 -- philosophically, medically, politically, emotionally -- to “be prepared for” emergencies? In this lecture, cultural historian and translator Hillel Schwartz investigates the history and changing conditions of the term "emergency."
The Solid-Light Works and Other Projects
Artist Anthony McCall discusses the evolution of his solid-light works in the 1970s, the appearance of vertical installations, as well as horizontal installations from 2004 onwards.
The Genealogy of a Gene
Myles Jackson, Bosch Public Policy Fellow in the Fall 2014, explains how he has used the CCR5 gene as a heuristic tool to probe three critical developments in biotechnology from 1990 to 2010: gene patenting, HIV/AIDS diagnostics and therapeutics, and race and genomics.
Toward a Quantitative History of Data
We live in a time of data. Around us, tools for creating, storing, communicating, and manipulating data grow ever more sophisticated and ubiquitous. Data flows constantly among our computers, handheld devices, cell phones, and an entire “internet of things” from refrigerators to burglar alarms. Yet, the cultural and intellectual frameworks that underlie our present data-saturated…
Evolving Regulatory & Governance Developments
Mary L. Schapiro, the former Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), on evolving regulatory and governance developments in the United States.
Interdependence and Responsibility
Javier Solana, Richard von Weizsäcker Distinguished Visitor at the American Academy in Berlin in Ocotber 2014, discusses the question of responsibility in an interdependent world.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Obama’s Foreign Policy
Dirk Ippen Fellow Jeffrey Goldberg speaks at the Academy about President Barack Obama’s policy in the Middle East and Europe, the focus of his most recent book project, which aims to explain the “diabolical complexities” of the Middle East.