About
Welcome to the ICI Library! The ICI Library is a reference library to be used on site. We support the scholars of the ICI Berlin in their research by supplying them with the needed literature and bibliographical information. While we develop our collection in close connection with the collective research projects of the ICI Berlin, we use interlibrary loan services to make materials available that are needed by individual researchers.
The ICI Library is registered with the library code ISIL BE–1578 by the ISIL Agency of Germany, is a member of the GBV Common Library Network, the German Library Association (dbv e. V.), and of the Working Community of German Special Libraries (AspB e. V.)
It is a partner of the Specialized Information Service for Comparative Literature (SIS Comparative Literature/FID AVL) and supports the ICI’s publishing venture ICI Berlin Press.
Collection
The ICI Library houses a collection reflecting the multidisciplinary research undertaken at the Institute in general and the work on its core projects in particular, with a focus on research in cultural theory. The library also houses the ICI Edition, a collection of recordings of events organized at the ICI Berlin. All recordings published in the ICI Edition have an entry in the library catalogue, which contains a link to the video hosted on the ICI website. The library also archives the posters and flyers of ICI Events as well as press materials and literature reviews related to the ICI Berlin.
Information
The holdings of the ICI Library are recorded in the local catalogue as well as in the Common Union Catalogue (GVK) of the Common Library Network (GBV), carrying call numbers and location information. Please note, however, that the catalogue does not give information about the status of individual items, since the ICI Library uses an internal lending system not connected to the publically accessible GVK catalogue. Please inquire with library staff if the desired title is presently available.
Unfortunately, we cannot offer regular use of the ICI Library to our guests. You are welcome, however, to visit us and use our holdings on site. Please contact us in advance in order to make an appointment.
Service
The library staff is present and ready to assist you on:
- Tues 10:00 – 18:00
- Wed 10:00 – 18:00
- Thurs 11:00-17:00
- Fri 13:00-18:00
Anna R. Winder Salling (Librarian)
anna.windersalling@ici-berlin.org
Tel: 473 7291-26
Christian Cortés (Assistant Librarian)
christian.cortes@ici-berlin.org
Tel: 473 7291-29
Forthcoming: New Publication by former fellow Christiane Wagner - Environmental Aesthetics and the Arts: Nature, Urban Spaces, and Media
Designing an urban environment aimed at a smart city between physical and virtual spaces means visualizing the future. Christiane Wagner’s book, Visualizations of Urban Space, discusses the digital resources and the limits of human perception in the face of artificial intelligence applications and the Internet of Things, regarding automating various processes, simulations, and realities involved in the function of an urban city. Furthermore, it is an aesthetic-social approach to the effects of the fourth industrial revolution, focusing on sustainable development.
Routledge
Out now: New Publication by former fellow Natascia Tosel - The Juridification of Democracy: How Politics Travels from the Streets to the Courts, and Back Again
Juridification is often portrayed as a depoliticising, even democratising, process; it is frequently attributed to the logics of neoliberal governance. In this view, a small number of litigants appealing to a few unelected judges for political change seems to bypass representative institutions and, with them, the democratic will. This book challenges that narrative. By tracing the genealogy of juridification and examining its performative role in present-day democratic practices, it offers a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between juridification and democracy. Combining theoretical inquiry with case studies of human rights adjudication, it reveals how courts have become arenas of political struggle where the supralegal values of democracy are named, claimed, and contested, and how this process reverberates far beyond the courtroom, supplementing rather than supplanting democratic decision-making.
New Article by Visiting Fellow Annie Ring - AI Uncanny: Posthuman Entanglement and Biomachinic Ethics in "The Trouble with Being Born"
Imagine a sci-fi world in which vulnerability is not monopolised by humans, and machines are not powerful overlords. This article addresses the uncanny case of a biomachine that is more vulnerable than the humans around her in the Austrian sci-fi drama The Trouble with Being Born (2020), directed by Sandra Wollner. The film’s protagonist is an interactive child robot, Elli, whose simulation of human life enhances the capacities of her father/owner in transhumanist fashion, permitting him to grieve for his lost daughter while indulging in leisure time and sex with her biomachinic replicant. The article explores the film’s aesthetic representation of the transhumanist violence of the father/creator and the vulnerability of the biomachine, played out in their brightly surveillant Bauhaus-style home in the woods.
