Projects from Dr. Martin Schmitt
Faculty of Arts and Humanities ? Historisches Institut ? Modern and Contemporary History
Interdisciplinarity between Informatics, Economics and Culture. A History of the Heinz Nixdorf Institute
Heinz Nixdorf, one of the biggest names among German computer manufacturers, initiated the foundation of an institute between informatics, business and culture with its commitment to funding in February 1986. The institute was established on 23 July 1987 after both the Federal Republic of Germany and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia each pledged ...
Duration: 02/2025 - 08/2025
Digitalization in the anthropocene: A digital environmental history since the mid 20th Century
Digital technologies are seen as climate-friendly, in some cases even as climate saviours. In contrast to smoking factory chimneys, data centres, for example, appear to be low-emission, quiet and clean. The metaphor of the cloud suggests a cloudy, non-physicality. However, if you look behind the shiny surfaces of servers and screens, the entire ...
Duration: 01/2024 - 12/2030
The alien tree? Forest experiments and co-construction of alterity in Spain and Germany in the long 19th Century
One of the Prussian state's largest research investments at the end of the 19th century concerned not coal and steel, but wood and trees. In 1880, at the behest of Otto von Bismarck, large-scale experiments with so-called "foreign trees" began. In a cultural history of technology and environmental history inspired by the digital humanities, the ...
Duration: 10/2023 - 10/2028