The Unit of Steel Construction and Mixed Building Technology was happy to host Prof. Daniel Rittel from the Technion in Haifa as AIANI-Fellow from 28.01.-12.02.2017. During his stay in Innsbruck, Prof. Rittel held a guest lecture with the title “Adiabatic shear across the scales: the engineer’s perspective”. In addition, Prof. Rittel held a series of private lectures for the staff members of the Steel Construction and Mixed Building Technology department about the failure of materials. Besides the lectures, topics including fatigue, fracture and general failure analysis were the subject of daily discussions.
Being Prof. Rittel’s first visit to Innsbruck, the working group was happy to show him the beauty of Innsbruck including a visit to the Seegrube and an introduction to Austrian winter sport activities.
As for the near future, the working group is looking forward to the second part of Prof. Rittel's visit, when he will join the department again for two weeks. Furthermore, one of the working group’s PhD students is planning to visit Prof. Rittel’s Laboratory for a research stay soon.

Public Space Allocation per person (PSA), Network Density (ND), and Average Destination Distance (ADD). Prof. Hillel Schocken has been Principal at “Schocken Architects” since its establishment in 1978, leading projects in a large variety of building types and programs, including Urban Planning, Museums, Educational facilities, Offices, Housing, Industry and Conservation. Prior to his obtaining his diploma of the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London he earned a B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering and Management at the Technion in Haifa. In parallel to his professional activity, Schocken is an Associate Professor of Architecture at the Azrieli School of Architecture at the Tel Aviv University and served as its director between 2004 and 2008. Throughout his career he has been teaching in Architecture schools throughout the world.

On December 12, 2016, Dr. Alon Segev held a guest lecture on “Hannah Arendt – The Jewish Writings” at the Department of Philosophy. In his lecture, Dr. Segev exposed the basic assumption in Hannah Arendt’s The Jewish Writings, and discussed her critique of Jewish life and the Zionist entity—later the Jewish state—in Palestine. Dr. Segev suggested, that Arendt´s basic assumption is that politics could only exist as a dynamic process, as an interplay between different players with different worldviews and interests. Thus, politics could not be reduced to a state of inertia. According to Arendt, adherence to such inertia would lead to the destruction of politics and the loss of any chance to conduct a normal and fully productive life. The Zionist movement – as Dr. Segev presented - was fixed from its very inception in a state of inertia and thus introduced into its own definition of a permanent antagonism toward other nations. Dr. Segev discussed what this means for the State of Israel and what Hannah Arendt thought about this topic in her writings. He presented Arendt’s main claims and then criticized them by pointing at the merits and flaws in her thesis. The guest lecture took place during the course “Sozialphilosophie und Politische Philosophie: Hannah Arendts Vita Activa“, taught by assoz.-Prof. Dr. Andreas Oberprantacher, MA.

Prof. Liliane Weissberg visited the University of Innsbruck in November 2016. The Professor of German and Comparative Literature (Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor in Arts and Science) from the University of Pennsylvania is an expert on German-Jewish Literature and focused extensively also on the Holocaust. Liliane Weissberg has taught courses on the relationship between trauma and memory, and thinkers who have written on the Holocaust such as Hannah Arendt and Karl Löwith.
She wrote on the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust memorial sites in Germany and elsewhere, and individual figures such as Charlotte Salomon, just to give one example.
In Innsbruck she gave different guest lectures on topic ranging from “Interviewing the Victim: Changing Media and the Documentation of the Holocaust from the American Liberator´s Accounts to Wire and Video Tapes, TV Series, and Beyond”, to “Postcards from the Avant-garde: Else Laser Schüler in Exchange with Franz Marc”, “Writing Before the Shoah, and Reading After: Charlotte Salomon’s ‘Life or Theater’ and its Reception” to “Sigmund Freud liest Lessing: Die Parabel von den drei Ringen”.
Prof. Weissberg came as AIANI-Fellow to Innsbruck and was hosted by the Brenner Archiv. Her stay was supported by the City of Innsbruck.

In January 2016, AIANI applied for an Erasmus+ grant to engage in a staff mobility project with the Holon Institute of Technology (HIT). HIT is a technical college founded in the 1960s as part of the Tel Aviv University (TAU) and became an independent college in 2000. Still, the college has close ties to the TAU, the Weizmann Institute of Science and many other institutions and medical centers in Israel. It´s 4.000 students focus in the areas of Engineering, Design, Technology Management, Instructional Technologies and the Sciences. All research projects are tackled in a multidisciplinary way and in close ties to the high-tech industry. As such, the HIT is an interesting partner to the University of Innsbruck in establishing joint projects and complementing each other in different areas of research and teaching. The delegation from HIT included Dr. Refael Barkan, M.D., Head of Research, Development and External Relations Authority and CEO of A.Y.Y.T. (HIT´s Technology Transfer Office) and Dr. Guy Yoskovitz, deputy director, Development and External Relations Authority. AIANI organized a visiting program that included meetings with colleagues of several departments at the University of Innsbruck as well as exchanges and learning opportunities between the administrative offices involved. Many areas of possible cooperation could be identified and future joint projects were discussed. Both sides learned a lot from each other and are looking forward to the next steps in student and faculty exchange as well as scientific collaboration. The delegation was also invited by Rektor Märk to a reception.

More about the visit of HIT at the University of Innsbruck here: Website of HIT