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Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 1h

Claim: "Rousseauianism's plateauing obsequiously" is the only proposition in the English language that contains both
(1) a truth
(2) and four consecutive vowels in every word that it's made up of.

Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 16d

Here's a link to the article: archive.org/details/Haus...

And a useful summary (in German): geschichtedergegenwart.ch/gender-studi...

Gender Studies und die „Polarisierung der Geschlechtscharaktere“. Ein alter Text verdient es, neu gelesen zu werden.

Gender Studies gelten als rotes Tuch: als eine angebliche Pseudo-Wissenschaft, die „entlarvt“ werden müsse. Doch diese Kritik entlarvt sich selbst, weil sie an das intellektuelle Potential z.B. der Ge...

geschichtedergegenwart.ch

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Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 16d

Roughly, Hausen argues that post-Enlightenment discourse gave rise to a rigidly domestic essence of femininity, thereby stabilising the public-private distinction along gender lines. The title translates to "Polarisation of 'gender roles': Reflecting the separation of work and family life".

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Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 16d

I just finished Karin Hausen's 1976 article "Die Polarisierung der 'Geschlechtscharaktere': Eine Spiegelung der Dissoziation von Erwerbs- und Familienleben".
Is anyone aware of an English translation? It's influential in the German context, yet fairly unknown beyond that.

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Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 16d

I'm super looking forward to your book, JP! So refreshing to see metanormative theory put to practice

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Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · Aug 8

Power phrases to impress your colleagues at the next post-work aperitivo

Paragraph from page 79 of Cao Xueqin, "A Dream of Red Mansions" (Peking: Foreign Language Press 1978)

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Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · Jun 12

Really nice to see this piece published (co-authored with the great @yvette-wang.bsky.social). It's basically an endorsement of counter-paradigmatic research disguised as a symposium report ;-)

exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/ex...

What Does It Mean to Explain? An interdisciplinary symposium report: An interdisciplinary symposium report | Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal

exchanges.warwick.ac.uk

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Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · Apr 20

Within ten years, England lost close to 75% of people identifying as "English-only" and almost tripled the percentage of "British-only" – simply because the census changed the order of these options. Sounds sus. Why wouldn't the numbers track (though potentially exaggerate) a real shift?

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Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · Apr 11

From the interstices between workweek and weekend:

"Thought arose in the course of the liberation from terrible nature (...). Pleasure is nature's revenge. In pleasure, human beings divest themselves from thought, escape from civilisation."

(Adorno/Horkheimer, DoE, Stanford 2008, p. 82)

Unassuming still life of an amber beverage and an e-reader against the background of an IKEA table

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Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · Apr 10

Just a local newspaper using "on every corner" on every corner.

"Ganter Beer is on every corner in Freiburg. And that's exactly what the brewery celebrates, with the slogan 'Drink local on every corner' for a campaign that celebrates local Ganter on every corner."

Article about a local brewery that seems to sell its beer on every corner, in the Freiburger Wochenschau

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Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · Apr 9

The FT dips a toe in the dialectic of enlightenment:

"In ever scarier times, it is soothing to believe that a secret plan is at work, even if it is a distasteful plan. ... liberal societies struggle to understand — or even to credit the existence of — irrational actors."

on.ft.com/4i6islx

The hopeless search for Trump’s cunning plan

Attempts to read grand strategy into the US president’s doings have run their course

on.ft.com

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Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · Apr 7

Source: on.ft.com/44emrJv

So much winning — in 15 charts

The fallout from ‘Liquidation Day’

on.ft.com

Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · Apr 7

On 1 April, the White House celebrated the beginning of the "Financial Literacy Month". Is this all just the punch line of a very elaborate practical joke?

Screenshot of an article in the Financial Times, which contains an excerpt of a message from the White House inviting Americans to "bolster their financial knowledge".

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Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · Apr 4

(2/2) "[...] The warfare among men in war and in peace is the key to the insatiability of the species and to its ensuing practical attitudes, as well as to the categories and methods of scientific intelligence in which nature appears increasingly under the aspect of its most effective exploitation."

Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · Apr 4

Horkheimer on the politics of galactic ambitions in late capitalism:

(1/2) "[M]an's avidity to extend his power in two infinities, the microcosm and the universe, does not arise directly from his own nature, but from the structure of society."

(Max Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason, 1947/1974, p. 74)

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Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · Mar 8

(3/3) "... and it’s certainly the most brilliant and rich defense of left-wing ideologies that have been on the rise in the last half-century. And I've benefited from reading Marcuse."

Weirdly, the last sentence is omitted from the transcript.

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Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · Mar 8

(2/3) "I think you have to read Marcuse for catastrophic errors in judgment and for a kind of repulsive politics in outcome. There are certain insights that can be salvaged from his work,...

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Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · Mar 8

(1/3) Good news, critical theorists! You might make it onto the syllabus of Christopher Rufo's seminar on the decline of Western civ

"Last question: You’re in charge of a curriculum, and you have to include one author you are opposed to ... Who do you pick?

Rufo: Without a doubt, Herbert Marcuse."

Opinion | The Anti-D.E.I. Crusader Who Wants to Dismantle the Department of Education (Gift Article)

Christopher Rufo’s mission to make universities feel “existential terror.”

www.nytimes.com

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Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · Mar 7

The webform of a large German funding body asks me to add "last-name prefixes". Among the options are:
- "Baron vom"
- "Ritter von"
- "dell'Isola"
- "L'Homme"
and of course
- "Freiherr v.u.z."
I'm feeling seen, though I'm mildly displeased that it won't allow me to specify the acreage of my estate

Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · Feb 27

Two days to go!

Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · Nov 28

🗣️📢 Criminal law theorists! Historians of political thought! Normative people! Hegelians and not-so-much-Hegelians!
Here's a call for abstracts for a cute conference on Hegel's concept of wrong, to be held in September 2025 in the equally cute city of Freiburg 🌲🌳🌲
#cfa #lawsky #philsky #crimsky

The Philosophy of Right and wrong

From 11 to 13 September 2025, the Independent Research Group “Criminal Law Theory” welcomes scholars from jurisprudence, philosophy, political theory, and adjacent fields to a collaborative and interd...

csl.mpg.de

Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · Feb 25

Cheered myself up by looking at recent polling for the Hungarian election next year.

Polls in Hungary show Tisza at 41% and Fidesz at 37%

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Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · Feb 24

Sorry, my phrasing was imprecise. I should have written: "Among all those who voted in 2025 but who did not vote in 2021 etc."

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Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · Feb 24

The numbers match the ones given by the main German broadcaster:
www.tagesschau.de/wahl/archiv/...

www.tagesschau.de

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Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · Feb 24

Among those who did not cast a ballot in Germany's previous federal election, close to a majority voted for the hard-right:

48% AfD
24% CDU
11% BSW
8% Left
7% SPD
3% Greens

Liberal democracy depends on passive disillusionment.

Illustration of voter shifts in Germany's federal election, highlighting the bloc of voters who did not vote in 2021

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Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · Feb 23

Saying you didn't intend the pun when you actually did is not dialectics!

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