Julian Hamann
Biographic Data
| ID | 159183 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Julian Hamann |
| GIVEN NAMES | Julian |
| FAMILY NAME | Hamann |
| SIGNATURE | HAMANN J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3196-908X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 46 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Is There a ‘Cancel Culture’, and if so, for Whom? Rank‐Based Differences in Restrictions on Academic Freedom
This article investigates the relationship between academic career ranks and restrictions on academic freedom. Drawing on a representative survey of 9083 full‐time academics at German higher education institutions, we examine how academics across different career ranks assess their freedom in teaching and research. Although precarious employment conditions and professional hierarchies may suggest otherwise, our findings show that doctoral candida…
Between “Cancel Culture” and Campus Culture: Debate and Dissent in the Discursive Space of the University
This article investigates how German universities function as collective “discursive spaces” for academic freedom amid debates often framed as “cancel culture.” Drawing on a representative survey of 9,083 full-time academics across 158 institutions in mid-2024, we employed vignettes on four controversial issues – gender-sensitive language in exams, civil clauses in military research, the Middle East conflict, and explanations for crime rates of i…
Academic socialization: On a neglected effect of competition in science
Competition is usually considered a mechanism for the allocation of scarce resources. This paper draws attention to a neglected effect of academic competition: competition provides participants with a normative orientation about field-specific values by informing them about which activities will be rewarded. We conceptualize this as a socializing effect. We study the socializing effects of competition for postdocs because this group is especially…
Meritokratie als Problem: Leistungsbezogene Bewertungen in Berufungsverfahren
Als Prinzip für die Herstellung und Legitimation sozialer Ordnung gilt Meritokratie entweder als normativer Maßstab moderner Gesellschaften oder als eine von der Empirie sozialer Ungleichheiten laufend widerlegte Ideologie. Der Beitrag wählt einen anderen Ausgangspunkt und widmet sich den Herausforderungen der konkreten Umsetzung des abstrakten Leistungsprinzips. Anhand von Berufungsakten zu 145 Berufungsverfahren aus der zweiten Hälfte des 20. J…
The discursive resilience of university rankings
If there is one thing all university rankings have in common, it is that they are the target of widespread criticism. This article takes the many challenges university rankings are facing as its point of departure and asks how they navigate their hostile environment. The analysis proceeds in three steps. First, we unveil two modes of ranking critique, one drawing attention to negative effects, the other to methodological shortcomings. Second, we …
The institutionalization of rankings in higher education: Continuities, interdependencies, engagement
In this article, we introduce the special issue of Higher Education that centers on the question of the institutionalization of rankings in higher education. The article has three parts. In the first part, we argue that the grand narratives such as globalization and neoliberalism are unsatisfactory as standalone explanations of why and how college and university rankings become institutionalized. As a remedy, we invite scholars to pay closer atte…
The Emergence of the Academic Candidate: Evaluation as textual dramaturgy
Our contribution sheds light on the dramaturgies of evaluation that precede candidate selection in academic organizations. The dramaturgies unfold across committee meetings, reviews, and reports that funnel the pool of candidates into a shortlist of prospective members. Because they are prolonged and not all stages involve copresence, the continuity and consistency of evaluative processes is a central dramaturgical problem. It highlights the cons…
The Nexus between Methods and Power in Sociological Research
This article develops an integrative perspective on the nexus between power and sociological research methods. By reflecting upon two of the most widely used methodological approaches in sociology – standardized survey research and qualitative interview research – we develop a comprehensive heuristic framework for examining the ways in which the use of sociological methods affects and intersects any social scientific practice: (1) the power effec…
Practices of Ethnographic Research: Introduction to the Special Issue
[no abstract available]
Governance by Numbers: A Panopticon Reversed
This commentary is concerned with a specific form of power and discipline that is exerted through governance by numbers. Because of its many parallels to classical Foucauldian panopticism, governance based on numbers can be coined ‘numerocratic panopticism.’ Yet, going beyond similarities between classical and numerocratic panopticism, the commentary suggests three features specific to numerocratic panopticism that actually reverse characteristic…
Career gatekeeping in cultural fields
The making of professors: Assessment and recognition in academic recruitment
How do academics become professors? This paper considers the making of 'professor' as a subject position through which academics are acknowledged in both organizational contexts and disciplinary fields. The paper examines social processes of recognition in 145 appointment procedures for professorships in the discipline of history at sixteen German universities between 1950 and 1985. Based on an analysis of over 1500 documents from archived appoin…
Boundary Work between Two Cultures: Demarcating the Modern Geisteswissenschaften
This contribution applies the sociological boundary work approach to debates in the late nineteenth century to analyze how the Geisteswissenschaften emerged as one component of the two cultures. Boundary work is scattered in programmatic manifestos, lectures, and speeches, and it can be found in historicism, philosophy, and not least in the natural sciences. Revealing how local boundary work brings about the Geisteswissenschaften as a stable and …
Macht in Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft: Diskurs- und feldanalytische Perspektiven
Wie entstehen wissenschaftliche Subjekte
Berufungsakten als Datensorte für die Geschichte der Soziologie
Macht in Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft: Diskurs- und Feldanalytische Perspektiven
Peer Review post mortem. Bewertungen in akademischen Nachrufen
"Let us salute one of our kind." How academic obituaries consecrate research biographies
Inhalt / Contents
Die Geisteswissenschaften und ihr Bildungsdiskurs / The German Humanities and the Discourse of Bildung: Zur Kartierung eines vernachlässigten Gebiets der Wissenschaftssoziologie / Toward Mapping a Neg…
Der Beitrag rekonstruiert die diskursive Konstruktion geisteswissenschaftlicher Bildungsbegriffe und den Wandel des geisteswissenschaftlichen Feldes seit Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts. Die Untersuchung zeigt anhand geisteswissenschaftlicher Selbstbeobachtungen, wie die diskursive Konstruktion von „Bildung” einerseits auf Veränderungen des sozialen Feldes reagiert, in das der Bildungsdiskurs eingebettet ist, andererseits aber auch über Beharrungskrä…
Bildung ’ in German human sciences: The discursive transformation of a concept
[[Bildung disciplinesdiscourse analysisfield analysisGeisteswissenschaften Germanyhumanitiessocial sciences and humanities studies ]] This article analyses the transformation of the notion of Bildung that is constructed in the German human sciences. From a perspective of field theory and discourse analysis, the article reveals how the notion evolves and stabilizes during a first stage (1810–60), how it comes under pressure because of the contextu…
"Let us salute one of our kind." How academic obituaries consecrate research biographies
The making of professors: Assessment and recognition in academic recruitment
How do academics become professors? This paper considers the making of 'professor' as a subject position through which academics are acknowledged in both organizational contexts and disciplinary fields. The paper examines social processes of recognition in 145 appointment procedures for professorships in the discipline of history at sixteen German universities between 1950 and 1985. Based on an analysis of over 1500 documents from archived appoin…
Career gatekeeping in cultural fields
The Nexus between Methods and Power in Sociological Research
This article develops an integrative perspective on the nexus between power and sociological research methods. By reflecting upon two of the most widely used methodological approaches in sociology – standardized survey research and qualitative interview research – we develop a comprehensive heuristic framework for examining the ways in which the use of sociological methods affects and intersects any social scientific practice: (1) the power effec…
Governance by Numbers: A Panopticon Reversed
This commentary is concerned with a specific form of power and discipline that is exerted through governance by numbers. Because of its many parallels to classical Foucauldian panopticism, governance based on numbers can be coined ‘numerocratic panopticism.’ Yet, going beyond similarities between classical and numerocratic panopticism, the commentary suggests three features specific to numerocratic panopticism that actually reverse characteristic…
Meritokratie als Problem: Leistungsbezogene Bewertungen in Berufungsverfahren
Als Prinzip für die Herstellung und Legitimation sozialer Ordnung gilt Meritokratie entweder als normativer Maßstab moderner Gesellschaften oder als eine von der Empirie sozialer Ungleichheiten laufend widerlegte Ideologie. Der Beitrag wählt einen anderen Ausgangspunkt und widmet sich den Herausforderungen der konkreten Umsetzung des abstrakten Leistungsprinzips. Anhand von Berufungsakten zu 145 Berufungsverfahren aus der zweiten Hälfte des 20. J…
Boundary Work between Two Cultures: Demarcating the Modern Geisteswissenschaften
This contribution applies the sociological boundary work approach to debates in the late nineteenth century to analyze how the Geisteswissenschaften emerged as one component of the two cultures. Boundary work is scattered in programmatic manifestos, lectures, and speeches, and it can be found in historicism, philosophy, and not least in the natural sciences. Revealing how local boundary work brings about the Geisteswissenschaften as a stable and …
Peer Review post mortem. Bewertungen in akademischen Nachrufen
Bildung ’ in German human sciences: The discursive transformation of a concept
[[Bildung disciplinesdiscourse analysisfield analysisGeisteswissenschaften Germanyhumanitiessocial sciences and humanities studies ]] This article analyses the transformation of the notion of Bildung that is constructed in the German human sciences. From a perspective of field theory and discourse analysis, the article reveals how the notion evolves and stabilizes during a first stage (1810–60), how it comes under pressure because of the contextu…
Bildung ’ in German human sciences: The discursive transformation of a concept
[[Bildung disciplinesdiscourse analysisfield analysisGeisteswissenschaften Germanyhumanitiessocial sciences and humanities studies ]] This article analyses the transformation of the notion of Bildung that is constructed in the German human sciences. From a perspective of field theory and discourse analysis, the article reveals how the notion evolves and stabilizes during a first stage (1810–60), how it comes under pressure because of the contextu…
Inhalt / Contents
Die Geisteswissenschaften und ihr Bildungsdiskurs / The German Humanities and the Discourse of Bildung: Zur Kartierung eines vernachlässigten Gebiets der Wissenschaftssoziologie / Toward Mapping a Neg…
Der Beitrag rekonstruiert die diskursive Konstruktion geisteswissenschaftlicher Bildungsbegriffe und den Wandel des geisteswissenschaftlichen Feldes seit Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts. Die Untersuchung zeigt anhand geisteswissenschaftlicher Selbstbeobachtungen, wie die diskursive Konstruktion von „Bildung” einerseits auf Veränderungen des sozialen Feldes reagiert, in das der Bildungsdiskurs eingebettet ist, andererseits aber auch über Beharrungskrä…
Macht in Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft: Diskurs- und Feldanalytische Perspektiven
Peer Review post mortem. Bewertungen in akademischen Nachrufen
"Let us salute one of our kind." How academic obituaries consecrate research biographies
Macht in Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft: Diskurs- und feldanalytische Perspektiven
Wie entstehen wissenschaftliche Subjekte
Berufungsakten als Datensorte für die Geschichte der Soziologie
Boundary Work between Two Cultures: Demarcating the Modern Geisteswissenschaften
This contribution applies the sociological boundary work approach to debates in the late nineteenth century to analyze how the Geisteswissenschaften emerged as one component of the two cultures. Boundary work is scattered in programmatic manifestos, lectures, and speeches, and it can be found in historicism, philosophy, and not least in the natural sciences. Revealing how local boundary work brings about the Geisteswissenschaften as a stable and …
Career gatekeeping in cultural fields
The making of professors: Assessment and recognition in academic recruitment
How do academics become professors? This paper considers the making of 'professor' as a subject position through which academics are acknowledged in both organizational contexts and disciplinary fields. The paper examines social processes of recognition in 145 appointment procedures for professorships in the discipline of history at sixteen German universities between 1950 and 1985. Based on an analysis of over 1500 documents from archived appoin…
Governance by Numbers: A Panopticon Reversed
This commentary is concerned with a specific form of power and discipline that is exerted through governance by numbers. Because of its many parallels to classical Foucauldian panopticism, governance based on numbers can be coined ‘numerocratic panopticism.’ Yet, going beyond similarities between classical and numerocratic panopticism, the commentary suggests three features specific to numerocratic panopticism that actually reverse characteristic…
Practices of Ethnographic Research: Introduction to the Special Issue
[no abstract available]
The Nexus between Methods and Power in Sociological Research
This article develops an integrative perspective on the nexus between power and sociological research methods. By reflecting upon two of the most widely used methodological approaches in sociology – standardized survey research and qualitative interview research – we develop a comprehensive heuristic framework for examining the ways in which the use of sociological methods affects and intersects any social scientific practice: (1) the power effec…
The discursive resilience of university rankings
If there is one thing all university rankings have in common, it is that they are the target of widespread criticism. This article takes the many challenges university rankings are facing as its point of departure and asks how they navigate their hostile environment. The analysis proceeds in three steps. First, we unveil two modes of ranking critique, one drawing attention to negative effects, the other to methodological shortcomings. Second, we …
The institutionalization of rankings in higher education: Continuities, interdependencies, engagement
In this article, we introduce the special issue of Higher Education that centers on the question of the institutionalization of rankings in higher education. The article has three parts. In the first part, we argue that the grand narratives such as globalization and neoliberalism are unsatisfactory as standalone explanations of why and how college and university rankings become institutionalized. As a remedy, we invite scholars to pay closer atte…
The Emergence of the Academic Candidate: Evaluation as textual dramaturgy
Our contribution sheds light on the dramaturgies of evaluation that precede candidate selection in academic organizations. The dramaturgies unfold across committee meetings, reviews, and reports that funnel the pool of candidates into a shortlist of prospective members. Because they are prolonged and not all stages involve copresence, the continuity and consistency of evaluative processes is a central dramaturgical problem. It highlights the cons…
Meritokratie als Problem: Leistungsbezogene Bewertungen in Berufungsverfahren
Als Prinzip für die Herstellung und Legitimation sozialer Ordnung gilt Meritokratie entweder als normativer Maßstab moderner Gesellschaften oder als eine von der Empirie sozialer Ungleichheiten laufend widerlegte Ideologie. Der Beitrag wählt einen anderen Ausgangspunkt und widmet sich den Herausforderungen der konkreten Umsetzung des abstrakten Leistungsprinzips. Anhand von Berufungsakten zu 145 Berufungsverfahren aus der zweiten Hälfte des 20. J…
Academic socialization: On a neglected effect of competition in science
Competition is usually considered a mechanism for the allocation of scarce resources. This paper draws attention to a neglected effect of academic competition: competition provides participants with a normative orientation about field-specific values by informing them about which activities will be rewarded. We conceptualize this as a socializing effect. We study the socializing effects of competition for postdocs because this group is especially…
Is There a ‘Cancel Culture’, and if so, for Whom? Rank‐Based Differences in Restrictions on Academic Freedom
This article investigates the relationship between academic career ranks and restrictions on academic freedom. Drawing on a representative survey of 9083 full‐time academics at German higher education institutions, we examine how academics across different career ranks assess their freedom in teaching and research. Although precarious employment conditions and professional hierarchies may suggest otherwise, our findings show that doctoral candida…
Between “Cancel Culture” and Campus Culture: Debate and Dissent in the Discursive Space of the University
This article investigates how German universities function as collective “discursive spaces” for academic freedom amid debates often framed as “cancel culture.” Drawing on a representative survey of 9,083 full-time academics across 158 institutions in mid-2024, we employed vignettes on four controversial issues – gender-sensitive language in exams, civil clauses in military research, the Middle East conflict, and explanations for crime rates of i…
Sociology (11 works) · Political science (10 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Higher Education Governance and Development (6 works) · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice (5 works) · German Social Sciences and History (5 works) · Higher education (5 works) · Humanities (5 works) · Law (5 works)