Welcome to the International Max Planck Research School “Knowledge and Its Resources: Historical Reciprocities”!

A central goal of the IMPRS-KIR is to identify how resource regimes have evolved in different periods and places and what kinds of knowledge have contributed to the identification, development, and use of material and immaterial resources. At the same time, the IMPRS-KIR traces how knowledge itself depends on and is shaped by resources ranging from political systems to technological infrastructures, material objects, social interactions, and media technologies.

The IMPRS-KIR pursues this approach within three overarching research strands. The first focus is on the physical and material preconditions that enable, sustain, and limit knowledge in and across different times, cultures, and spaces. Second, the IMPRS-KIR addresses knowledge as a resource itself—a resource that needs to be shared if it is to be effective and protected from misinformation and misuse. Third, the research projects shed light on long-term developments in resource economics, because practices of exploiting material and immaterial resources, along with human beings’ bodily, mental, and social capacities to apply those practices, have changed over the centuries.

Bringing to light the plurality of knowledge systems in their own right, we also wish to address the connections and tensions between local worldviews and broader, cross-cultural conventions, uncovering the processes by which some knowledges are consolidated and become hegemonic terms of reference, while others are disregarded or abandoned.

The first year starts with two courses, offered as master’s-level seminars and also open to select master’s students of the Berlin universities.

Course 1 focuses on key readings in a range of disciplines, including the history of science, technology, and medicine, media studies, Science & Technology Studies, anthropology, and art history. Course 2 applies our approach of “critical resource studies” to distinct thematic fields from different disciplinary angles. Members of the Principal Teaching Faculty (PTF) teach these courses jointly, reflecting the interdisciplinarity of the School’s research agenda.

In a monthly jour fixe, students discuss their work in progress with the PTF. The campus curriculum offered at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) consist of Methods Intensive Master Classes, Digital Humanities tutorials, and workshops with eminent guest scholars. The campus curriculum is open to all members of the Institute, in order to facilitate communication and exchange across the IMPRS-KIR and the MPIWG. 

Doctoral students start their archival work and research trips early on in the program, completing these during year 2. Additionally, they can opt to spend one term at one of our international partner universities in Philadelphia (University of Pennsylvania) or Singapore (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore University of Technology and Design).

During the writing-up phase, which starts in year 3, students will be closely mentored by their Dissertation Advisory Committee, consisting of a PTF supervisor, a co-supervisor, and a mentor.

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_{J. H. Lambert, Beschreibung einer mit dem Calauschen Wachse ausgemalten Farbenpyramide, Haude und Spener, Berlin 1772.}