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AIAS & Center for Sociological Studies Event: Research Group Meeting on Systems Theory

Talk: Communicative Differentiation in Totalitarian Societies (Revisiting Luhmann in the Light of Soviet and Nazi Public Interaction)

Info about event

Time

Thursday 15 December 2016,  at 14:00 - 16:00

Location

AIAS Conference room 203, Building 1632, Høegh-Guldbergs Gade 6B, 8000 Aarhus C

AIAS is hosting the next Research Group Meeting on Systems Theory, Center for Sociological Studies at Aarhus University. At the meeting, AIAS Fellow Kirill Postoutenko will give the talk 'Communicative Differentiation in Totalitarian Societies (Revisiting Luhmann in the Light of Soviet and Nazi Public Interaction)'

Abstract

Departing from G. W. F. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, Georg Simmel saw human history as an unstoppable social differentiation, and even attempted to extend his principle to the evolution of communication. Rather unexpectedly, this approach to the history of communication has been implicitly accepted by Niklas Luhmann who ascribed a low degree of communicative diversification to the so-called “tribal” communities. Based on rarely used (and partially unpublished) documentation of public and private communication in Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, the presentation disputes this teleological view, revealing its empirical spuriousness and also showing its incompatibility with Systems Theory.

Participation

The talk is open to all - just show up.