Julian Hamann

Agreed, it's very important to make this distinction as clearly as possible.

Our survey also examines experiences with and expectations regarding restrictions on academic freedom. These aspects will be covered in a forthcoming paper. The present paper focuses on expectations regarding institutional responses - which, to be clear, are very much part of "reality".

Screenshot from the first page of the PDF showing the title, author names and abstract of the paper. Title: Between “Cancel Culture” and Campus Culture: Debate and Dissent in the Discursive Space of the University.

Based on a representative survey of academics at German universities, Christiane Thompson and I find little support for "canceling" controversial views on campus. Instead, universities are widely expected to facilitate debate on controversial issues. Our two main findings:
doi.org/10.1007/s110...

Doesn't this reflect the broader pattern: we let AI compose music and write poetry, while humans are still the ones scrubbing toilets and taking out the trash. In academia, we let AI do the fun stuff, like writing and analysis, only to be left with the bureaucracy and administration.

💸🚨I am hiring 2 Postdocs for my ERC-funded project SOCDEBT on #debt dynamics across countries. One position: #SocialStratification + strong quantitative skills. The other: qualitative research and #EconomicSociology. waitkus.github.io/SOCDEBT/ 🚨💸

The other explanation is that right-leaning respondents are in the minority on campus (1,4%) and thus rely less than left-leaning respondents (38,1%) on the deliberative means of academic discourse to resolve controversial issues in their favor.

Perhaps it's important to emphasize that there are different explanations for these political preferences: one is that the political orientations, by definition, imply preferences for either more deliberative or more authoritative approaches to deal with controversial issues.

2) Based on our descriptive analyses, political orientation seems to shape which institutional response academics prefer. Irrespective of the issue(!), left-leaning respondents seem to favor deliberative formats, right-leaning respondents prefer authoritatively responses to controversial issues.

1) Across disciplines, status groups, and genders, the majority of respondents expect their universities to create a discursive space for controversial issues and what we call "academic citizenship". Academic freedom thus emerges as a collective, institutional practice, not just an individual right.

Screenshot from the first page of the PDF showing the title, author names and abstract of the paper. Title: Between “Cancel Culture” and Campus Culture: Debate and Dissent in the Discursive Space of the University.

Based on a representative survey of academics at German universities, Christiane Thompson and I find little support for "canceling" controversial views on campus. Instead, universities are widely expected to facilitate debate on controversial issues. Our two main findings:
doi.org/10.1007/s110...

CfA KWI International Fellowships 2026/2027, Photo of current cohort

🚨 #Reminder #CfA: 1 month left to apply to be part of our next international #fellowship cohort (1 Oct 26 -31 Mar 27) here at KWI! We invite #Postdoc scholars in the #humanities, #socialsciences, or #culturalstudies to work in the rich academic landscape of the Ruhr area.

🔗 tinyurl.com/wxneha3z

Group picture of the recent cohort of KWI International Fellows

13 is your lucky number? Become part of KWI’s 13th International Fellowship cohort and apply by 28 Feb 2026! We invite #Postdoc scholars in the #humanities, #socialsciences, or #culturalstudies to join us at KWI from 1 Oct 26 until 31 Mar 27.
📢 Call: www.kulturwissenschaften.de/wp-content/u...

12 covers of German language books criticizing "wokeness"

The books about wokeness in question:

In light of record submission rates and a large volume of AI-generated slop, SocArXiv recently implemented a policy requiring ORCIDs linked in the OSF profile of submitting authors, and narrowing our focus to social science subjects. Today we are taking two more steps:
/1

Für mich ist die Sache damit von Tisch.

Die superintelligente KI-Forschung, sie steht wirklich ganz, ganz kurz bevor.
bsky.app/profile/juli...

Screenshot showing title, authors, and abstract of the paper. Title: Analyzing Constellations of Multiple Competition in Science and Higher Education Authors: Guido Buenstorf, Hanna Hottenrott, Anna Kosmützky, Georg Krücken, Frank Meier, Thomas Schaper, Uwe Schimank Abstract: Increasing competition in science and higher education has sparked contentious debate and scholarly attention in recent years. Despite their significant merits, prevailing accounts of competition fall short of capturing the competitive dynamics in science and higher education: Most of the time, actors in this sector are involved in not just one but several competitions. Universities as organizations, researchers as individual actors, and also state actors are simultaneously embedded in different, nested, and interdependent competitions, which we refer to as multiple competition. Individual and collective actors engage in heterogeneous—albeit interrelated—forms of competition for scarce symbolic and material goods like attention, reputation, ranking positions, research grants, high-quality publications, personnel, and employment. Furthermore, the multiplicity of competitions that individual academics, universities, and state agencies face might reinforce each other. Using theoretical resources from sociology and economics, we propose a new conceptual framework for analyzing constellations of multiple competition in science and higher education. We demonstrate the added value of this conceptualization for empirical studies by drawing on examples from different academic systems.

New publication from our DFG Research Group Multiple Competition, conceptualizing various ways in which different forms of competition in higher education and science can interrelate. Hot off the press in Minerva.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

One of the giants of social psychology was a serial sexual harasser.

This new report reveals how Miles Hewstone touched, bullied, and sexual harassed numerous women during his 18 years at the University of Oxford. It's amazing how often bullying and sexual harassment go together in academia.

Deswegen fände ich das passendere Bild: Man wartet, dass einem ein urteilender, richtender Boden unter die Füße geschoben wird, der normative Sicherheit gibt. Aber genau das passiert nicht: Der Boden bleibt weg und der Ton in der Schwebe.
bsky.app/profile/yora...

Es gab in der BoWa-Historie nur wenige Momente in denen klar war, dass etwas bzw. jemand (natürlich: charmant) vorgeführt wurde. Ich meine, dass das bei MB Sounds so war. Meistens bleibt der Ton in der Tat oft in der Schwebe, und je leichter das Urteil fallen würde, desto mehr kitzelt es einen.

Heute im ZEIT Wissen-Newsletter: "'Deutsche unterschätzen, wie nah wir an superintelligenter Forschung dran sind', sagte KI-Forscher und Unternehmer Richard Socher".

Aus der Reihe: Uniranking-Unternehmer erklären uns, wie wichtig Unirankings sind, Datendienstleister preisen den Impact-Factor.

Job Alert! Professur (Open Rank: W2 oder W1 mit Tenure Track auf W2) ,,Digitale Transformation in Arbeit und Gesellschaft". Gemeinsame Berufung von @tu-dortmund.de und @cais-research.bsky.social nach Jülicher Modell.
Ausschreibung unter:
service.tu-dortmund.de/documents/18...

What is the most profitable industry in the world, this side of the law? Not oil, not IT, not pharma.

It's *scientific publishing*.

We call this the Drain of Scientific Publishing.

Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Background: doi.org/10.1162/qss_...

Thread @markhanson.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy 👇

Danke!

Vielleicht - wahrscheinlich - ist meine Lesart historiografiegeschichtlich naiv, aber ist das nicht eine Abgrenzung gegen einen Historismus, der durchaus den Anspruch hatte, möglichst objektiv zu zeigen, wie es eigentlich gewesen ist?

Data on the number of monographs published and sold - not least in history - also suggests that claims like "The Death of the Monograph" are premature.
doi.org/10.1007/s121...

Table showing different types of publications (journal articles, monographs etc.) and decades from the 1950s to 2002.

No current data (but historical data going further back): Since the 1970s, more than 50% of the references in the American Historical Review refer to monographs, rather than other types of publication
doi.org/10.1108/0160...

Collage of three images. The first reads: "Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. Career. We're hiring." The second image shows bookshelves in the institute's library (Photo by Vivienne Rischke, 2024). The third image shows the MPIWG Summer Publications Slam held in the institute's library (Photo by Marvin Müller (2024).

Three new funded #DoctoralPositions in the International Max Planck School "Knowledge and Its Resources: Historical Reciprocities!"

🗓️ Deadline: Jan 15, 2026
🔗 bit.ly/4peeKez

#HistSci #DH #STS #HistSTM #EnvHum #PolSci #SocSci

Balkendiagramm Abgeschlossene Habilitationen an Hochschulen mit Habilitationsrecht 2022 nach Geschlecht und Fächergruppen

BuWiK 2025, S. 102:

Etwa 1.500 Personen/Jahr.