Setting Standards

A new Research Focus at CAS addressing the topic of Standards illustrates how concerned the academic world is generally with modeling and reassessing relationships according to changing standards and with the establishment of normative values that this entails. The conscious reflection of this process and acceptance of the societal role involved is an important subject in many CAS research projects.

The Fine-Tuned Universe

The idea that the intricately balanced form of the universe in all its detail constitutes the basis of its existence and must therefore be more than simply a coincidence is not new. The fact that it has become a scientific argument in the field of astrophysics has provided us with the impetus to consider this subject from a range of different academic perspectives. Speakers of the lecture series include Helen Meskhidze (Cincinnati), George Ellis (CAS Fellow/Capetown) and Michela Massimi (CAS Fellow/Edinburgh).

13 May 2025, 7 p.m.
Kickoff of the Lecture Series with mit Prof. Philip Goff, Ph.D. (Durham) and Prof. Helen Meskhidze, Ph.D. (Cincinnati): Is Life Fine Tuned to Physics or Is Physics Fine Tuned to Life?

An App a Day Keeps the Doctor Away: Digital Media in the Self-Management of Chronic Illness

People with a chronic illnesses rely on many forms of support. Claudia Riesmeyer and Constanze Rossmann are researching how digital media can help.

8 May 2025, 6:30 p.m.
CAS Showcase: PD Dr. Claudia Riesmeyer and Prof. Dr. Constanze Rossmann: Digitale Medien im Selbstmanagement chronischer Erkrankungen

Zooming in, Zooming out

Two biologically separate species can no longer reproduce with one another. The work group of the Research Focus “Speciation“ is examining this puzzle, attempting to establish whether molecular mechanisms are responsible.

19 May 2025, 4 p.m.
Lecture by Prof. Dr. Tanja Schwander (Lausanne): The Evolutionary Causes and Consequences of Parthenogenesis: Insights from Stick Insects

How are the Digital Humanities changing research approaches and results, particularly in relation to the question of scaling? This broad topic will be addressed in a workshop held by the Research Focus Group “Scales“.

22 and 23 May 2025
Workshop under the direction of Prof. Dr. Julian Schröter (LMU): Scaling from Digital and Computational Perspectives

Intensive Phase

In the summer semester, the work of both CAS Research Groups will enter its final phase, in which they will hold their major concluding conferences and present their results.

23 and  24 June 2025
Workshop organized by Prof. Dr. Markus Paulus: The Nature of Human Normativity

3 July 2025, 6:30 p.m.
Lecture by Prof. Dr. Sahana Udupa: Deep Extreme Speech: Intimate Channels for Inflamed Rhetoric on WhatsApp 

Extending Networks

More than 40 fellows will work at CAS this summer. In addition to the two Research Groups that are already engaging in close cooperation with their international members, the research focuses have also invited top-level scholars to Munich: the human geographer Adrienne Johnson (Wilfrid Laurier University) is cooperating with the group “Planetary Health“. Andrew Hui (Yale-NUS College Singapur) and Lisa Regazzoni (Bielefeld) are enriching the work of the group “Scales“.

In the Short Term Fellowship Programm, Margarita Diaz-Andreu from Barcelona and Michael Pusch (CNR, Genua) are coming to Munich to work with their academic hosts (Philipp Stockhammer along with Annette Nicke and Christian Grimm).

The Second Book

Four postdocs will be working at CAS in the summer: Nikolina Hatton from English Philology is concerned with the topic of justice and revenge in English poetry from the 16th century to the present. The historian Sina Steglich is investigating concepts of nomadism and problems of social cohesion in 20th-century Europe. The anthropologist Anna-Maria Walter is conducting research on human interaction with mountain glaciers in the Karakorum, the Himalayas and the Alps. Philipp Wicke from the Center for Information and Language Processing is concerned with the integration of non-verbal signals, such as gestures and facial expressions, in AI systems.

Strengthening Methodical Foundations

The Young Center members Andreas Döpp (Physics) and Tom Sterkenburg (Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy) are starting a new CAS Research Focus in the summer semester on the topic of “Bayesian Reasoning“. The first event will be the workshop “How to Choose a Good Prior” on 19 May 2025.

Iván Díaz (NYU), in cooperation with the Young Center member Michael Schomaker, is developing “machine learning“ models to solve methodological problems in health research (CAS Research Focus “Medical Data Processing“).

Highlights

To mark the 100th anniversary of “Concrete Art“, Marie-Luise Heske (SKKD Ingolstadt) will provide insights into the work of artist Karol Bethke.

Marya Besharov is director of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Oxford. In the CAS Blog, she illustrates how companies can simultaneously realize economic and social goals.

CAS goes YouTube

CAS records many of its events on video. The recordings are available not only through LMU on iTunes, but since the beginning of the year on YouTube as well.

Art at CAS: Barbara Herold and Florian Huth – Real World Assets

What is natural, what is artificial? The works of the two artists move between real and virtual space and play with the concepts of authenticity, simulation and fakes.

15 May 2025, 7 p.m.
Vernissage. Introduction: Prof. Dr. Heiner Igel (LMU)

Art at CAS on Friedrichstraße: Friedrich G. Scheuer

Following the great success of Friedrich Scheuer’s exhibition at CAS in 2021, he is now displaying smaller, constructive works at Friedrichstraße 22 concerned with the formal language of science, extended through the additional dimension of color.