Dagmar Schäfer

Empires and their aftermaths were massive planning institutions; in the past two hundred years, the natural and social sciences emerged—at least in part—as modes of knowledge production for imperial planning. Yet these connections are frequently under-emphasized in the history of science and its corollary fields. The Planning Moment explores the myriad ways plans and planning practices pervade recent global history. The book is built around twenty-seven brief case studies that explore the centrality of planning in colonial and postcolonial environments, relationships, and contexts, through a range of disciplines: the history of science, science and technology studies, colonial and postcolonial studies, urban studies, and the history of knowledge. If colonialism made certain landscapes, populations, and institutions legible while obscuring others, The Planning Moment reveals the frequently disruptive and violent processes of erasure in imperial planning by examining how "common sense" was produced and how the intransigence of planning persists long after decolonization. In recognizing the resistance and subversion that often met colonial plans, the book makes visible a range of strategies and techniques by which planning was modified and reappropriated, and by which decolonial futures might be imagined. Contributors: Itty Abraham, Benjamin Allen, Sarah Blacker, Emily Brownell, Lino Camprubí, John DiMoia, Mona Fawaz, Lilly Irani, Chihyung Jeon, Robert Kett, Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach, Karen McAllister, Laura Mitchell, Gregg Mitman, Aaron Moore (†), Nada Moumtaz, Tahani Nadim, Anindita Nag, Raúl Necochea López, Tamar Novick, Benjamin Peters, Juno Salazar Parreñas, Martina Schlünder, Sarah Van Beurden, Helen Verran, Ana Carolina Vimieiro Gomes, Alexandra Widmer, and Alden Young

Empires and their aftermaths were massive planning institutions; in the past two hundred years, the natural and social sciences emerged—at least in part—as modes of knowledge production for imperial planning. Yet these connections are frequently under-emphasized in the history of science and its corollary fields. The Planning Moment explores the myriad ways plans and planning practices pervade recent global history. The book is built around twenty-seven brief case studies that explore the centrality of planning in colonial and postcolonial environments, relationships, and contexts, through a range of disciplines: the history of science, science and technology studies, colonial and postcolonial studies, urban studies, and the history of knowledge. If colonialism made certain landscapes, populations, and institutions legible while obscuring others, The Planning Moment reveals the frequently disruptive and violent processes of erasure in imperial planning by examining how "common sense" was produced and how the intransigence of planning persists long after decolonization. In recognizing the resistance and subversion that often met colonial plans, the book makes visible a range of strategies and techniques by which planning was modified and reappropriated, and by which decolonial futures might be imagined. Contributors: Itty Abraham, Benjamin Allen, Sarah Blacker, Emily Brownell, Lino Camprubí, John DiMoia, Mona Fawaz, Lilly Irani, Chihyung Jeon, Robert Kett, Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach, Karen McAllister, Laura Mitchell, Gregg Mitman, Aaron Moore (†), Nada Moumtaz, Tahani Nadim, Anindita Nag, Raúl Necochea López, Tamar Novick, Benjamin Peters, Juno Salazar Parreñas, Martina Schlünder, Sarah Van Beurden, Helen Verran, Ana Carolina Vimieiro Gomes, Alexandra Widmer, and Alden Young

Leipzig ist besonders. Kaum eine zweite Stadt in Deutschland hat im Verlauf der Jahrhunderte so viele au erordentliche Pers nlichkeiten hervorgebracht oder angezogen. Einige der klugen K pfe haben sich einen Namen gemacht, andere hingegen sind mehr oder weniger vergessen. Und so finden sich im Buch bekannte Namen neben weniger bekannten - Christian F rchtegott Gellert und Adam Friedrich Oeser, Johann Wolfgang Goethe und Friedrich Schiller, Benedikte Naubert und Carl Gustav Carus, Eduard Friedrich Poeppig und Theodor Fontane, Ethel Smyth und Gerda Taro ... Sechzehn historische Portr ts als kleine Auswahl, die andeutet, wie viele Leipziger Lichtgestalten noch zu entdecken sind.

The last decades of the Ming dynasty, though plagued by chaos and destruction, saw a significant increase in publications that examined advances in knowledge and technology. Among the numerous guides and reference books that appeared during this period was a series of texts by Song Yingxing (1587-1666?), a minor local official living in southern China. His Tiangong kaiwu, the longest and most prominent of these works, documents the extraction and processing of raw materials and the manufacture of goods essential to everyday life, from yeast and wine to paper and ink to boats, carts, and firearms. In The Crafting of the 10,000 Things, Dagmar Schafer probes this fascinating text and the legacy of its author to shed new light on the development of scientific thinking in China, the purpose of technical writing, and its role in and effects on Chinese history.

The last decades of the Ming dynasty, though plagued by chaos and destruction, saw major advances in knowledge and technology. Among the numerous guides and reference books that appeared during this period was a series of texts by Song Yingxing (1587-1666?), a minor local official living in southern China. His "Tiangong kaiwu", the longest and most prominent of these works, documents the extraction and processing of raw materials, and the manufacture of goods essential to everyday life, from pearls and wine to boats, carts, and firearms. In "The Crafting of the 10,000 Things Dagmar Schafer" probes this fascinating text and the legacy of its author to shed new light on the development of scientific thinking in China, the purpose of technical writing, and its role in and effects on Chinese history. Meticulously unfolding the layers of Song's personal and cultural life, Schafer places the Tiangong kaiwu squarely in its original milieu - both practically and theoretically - and thus develops a new understanding of scientific and technological thinking. Even as she vividly sets the Chinese scene, Schafer offers incisive comparisons between seventeenth-century China and Europe. Sinologists and historians of science alike will be engrossed by this book, the first to place Song's writing in a broader context.