4 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2023
    1. Entsprechend groß war die Neugier seiner Schüler und Kollegen, die den Kasten analysieren wollten. Doch jahrelang stritten Luhmanns Kinder vor Gericht um den wissenschaftlichen Nachlass, an eine Aufarbeitung war lange nicht zu denken. Erst 2011 konnte die Universität Bielefeld Luhmanns geistige Hinterlassenschaften kaufen. Und nun, seit Anfang des Jahres, wird tatsächlich erforscht, was es auf sich hat mit diesem Kasten, der in Soziologenkreisen schon mal als Heiliger Gral bezeichnet wird.

      google translate:

      The curiosity of his students and colleagues, who wanted to analyze the box, was correspondingly high. For years, however, Luhmann's children fought in court about the scientific legacy, and for a long time there was no question of a reappraisal. It was not until 2011 that the University of Bielefeld was able to buy Luhmann's intellectual legacies. And now, since the beginning of the year, research has actually been going on into what this box, which sociologists have sometimes referred to as the Holy Grail, is all about.

      Bielefeld University sued Luhmann's estate (his children) over his intellectual legacy. In 2011 they were finally able to purchase his papers, but research on his papers and zettelkasten didn't begin until early 2015.

    2. Als der so liebenswerte wie kauzige Universalgelehrte 1998 starb, hinterließ er nicht nur ein Werk von Weltrang, sondern eben auch jenen Zettelkasten, um den schon zu seinen Lebzeiten Legenden rankten.

      google translate:

      When the universal scholar, who was as lovable as he was odd, died in 1998, he not only left behind a work of world renown, but also that box of papers that was already the subject of legends during his lifetime.

      This article indicates that Luhmann's zettelkasten was legendary during his lifetime, but was this really the case? Luhmann indicated people's disappointment in his own writing (ZKII 9/8,3), but is there other anecdotal evidence that this wasn't the case?

      What does the lawsuit between the family and the Bielefeld over his papers indicate?

  2. Jun 2022
    1. Luhmann’s zettelkasten use case .t3_vlape5._2FCtq-QzlfuN-SwVMUZMM3 { --postTitle-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postTitleLink-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; } I was just thinking… I wonder what Luhmann’s use case for his zettelkasten was. By this I mean, was his original use for it for knowledge development, then his papers/books came as a successful bi-product? Or was his original intention to use it to actually write books/papers in the first place… Does anyone have any insight on this?

      When asked by Bielefeld University to report on his research projects, Luhmann famously replied:

      “Theory of society; duration: 30 years; costs: none”.

      In this there is a tremendously large nod to his zettelkasten to permit this work to be done.

      Though technically at the current price of $11.78 for 1,000 index cards on Amazon right now and a total of 92,000 cards, Luhmann should have better budgeted 1083.76 for the paper not to mention the cost of pens and pencils.

      Luhmann, N. (1997). Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft (2 vols). Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Suhrkamp. Published in translation as Theory of society (2 vols.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 2012–2013.