Category: Social Science

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Memory design

The progress in the field of genetic editing and design is astonishing. The research group of Johannes Graeff tested the “behavioral consequences of epigenetically editing the Arc promoter within engram cells”. Plasticity is a key feature of memory formation and the experimental evidence shows that this plasticity can also be interrupted. Moreover, the scientists were able to demonstrate a reversibility of retention or un unlearning of manifestations in memory of mice. The bidirectional reversibility of memory expression has potentially therapeutic value for traumatized humans eventually. However, if memory becomes part of a design feature of human species, the risks involved are just as important as the potentials. In totalitarian political systems techniques of “memory design” might be able to adapt such influences on memory, which used to be called brainwashing. Ethics commissions could get ready already to define safeguarding of human memory.  (Image: The fountain of Bacchus, Museum of Paris, 18th century wine merchant entry)

 

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Reason for war

In his “Propositions on Happiness”, the French philosopher Émile-Auguste Chartie, called in short Alain (1925), takes issue with the strange predilection for war. In his proposition XLII Agir, he writes on war: “Je crois assez fort que ce qui plaît dans la guerre c’est qu’on la fait”. In later paragraph   XLVII on Aristotle, he takes up his recurrent concern to explain happiness with the importance of agency in one’s own life and actions. “Faire et non pas subir, tel est le fond de l’agréable“. In taking both quotes together, we understand that for Alain the reason for war consists primarily in the desire to demonstrate agency. In order words, the position of power, of being in charge, being in control of the political situation are the prime reasons to go to war. With the first quote stemming from 1911 Alain had already a sound understanding of what would happen decades later in the 1st and 2nd World War. Even Putin‘s war in Ukraine is probably a cynic demonstration of agency in a seemingly otherwise rather paralyzed country. With this in mind, Putin‘s wars in the 21st century appear as another chapter in the endless pursuit of cynic reasoning. (Sloterdijk, 1983). (Image: Throne Room at Fontainebleau since 17th century). 

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Multilingual aging

Some myths, for example about the effects of multilingual competencies on brain health, continue to hunt people. The proponents of a monolingual world are widespread and have in some countries fatal historical heritage. The study by researchers  (Amoruso et al. 2025) use data from 86.000 persons in Europe  (SHARE Database, waves 1-9) from several countries. They show the better aging of brains for bilingual persons and even more so for persons practicing multilingual 2+ languages. The “domain-independent protective effect of multilingualism” for healthy brain aging is very robust and works after statistical accounting for other potentially intervening factors like socioeconomic or institutional factors. Some known stressors like migration, however, which operate often as psychosocial stressor, can have similar negative effects just as alcohol consumption and sleep disruption. Multilingualism and the correlate of multiculturalism keep a brain “on its toes” and contribute significantly to our healthy brains.  

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Typewriter history

The history of the typewriter and typewriter is comparatively short compared to the history of literature or other technologies as partners in the creative process. With the advent of AI (here as part of infografix, see image below) the skills of using and mastering a typewriter have become almost obsolete. The original design by Remington (timeline below) has dominated for almost 100 years the technology of typewriters. Then came the electronic IBM technique with an automated correction type, which was not only faster, but also more forgiving of “typos”, short for typing errors.
The craft of handwriting had suffered a tough blow, despite its almost intimate touch to it. Knowing the typewriter outline by heart allowed typing with closed eyes or a focus on another text or image as well as a parallel thought process. Scientists and writers (Claude Levi-Strauss) reported on their creative process as intrinsically being linked to their typewriter.
QWERTY outlines for English language typewriters still dominate the keyboard typing today. With the AI interaction on the rise, we might move away from typing as a “Kulturtechnik” a technology of our cultural era and focus more on human-machine interactions via our voice and microphones. The underlying question, however, remains the same: What is the best technology to enhance our thought process? This, in fact, tends to be a very personal human choice, where technology plays only a subsidiary role.

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From AI to xAI

As humans, we like the feeling to be in control of things. This applies even to immaterial things like religious beliefs. Generative AI has created problems with its hidden structures and lack of transparency of their applications of algorithms (and combinations of algorithms) to basic data bases of knowledge and information. The use of xAI, which stands for explainable artificial intelligence, can address some of the concerns about the lack of transparency and explanation of responses from AI systems. Many users want to know in advance about the consequences of the use of specific words or notions in an instruction to AI. The interpretation of each single word by xAI can inform about the precision of interpretation (cheap versus cheapest, for example) or highlight the sensitivity to gender-neutral language or not in its guidelines. Additionally, ex post the xAI could indicate alternative notions in a prompt and, briefly, how this would affect results.
Yes, there is a trade-off between brevity of answer and room for explanations. As in psychology, there some value in a “thinking aloud” procedure for respondents in order to better understand (implicit) the reasoning behind a reply. xAI takes us a step further in this direction of asking AI to think aloud or more explicitly in a human compatible way of logic and broader reasoning.
Put AI on the psychotherapist’s bench and xAI will be to the advantage of many more humans again. Humans just don’t like black box systems that lack the necessary as well as sufficient transparency. (Image on the right: Patrick Jouin, chaise solide C2, MAD digital humanism).

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Animals’ dialogue

The writing of Colette became prominent in France already after the publication of the “La chatte”, the Animals’ dialogues and the “Peace amongst the animals”. Cats and dogs were popular in literature long before “La bête est morte” and Orwell’s Animal farm appeared and became famous. “Toby-chien” and “Kiki-la-doucette” became forgotten, before they reappeared to get people to read more again rather than just watch “fail-collections” or cats and dog shorts on video platforms. Funny as well as sad or even terrible stories can be told through the metaphorical use of animals to represent humans. Maybe this old tradition,  dating back to La Fontaine and his fables, is only the precursor of the AI creations of “animal-like” chatbots or companionship. The sociology of the virtual or sociology of the animal-human relationship will bear fruit in analyzing the identification and differentiation between them and us. Tell me what kind of animals you like and a social or psychological profile is likely to be influenced by this (or vice versa). Social media platforms have tons of data already on this for better or worse.  

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Dynamic Equilibrium

The notion of a dynamic equilibrium is applied in several scientific disciplines. The search of the world wide web takes us first to the application in chemistry. The dynamic equilibrium denotes the state when reactants and products are continuously converted. Fascinating as a process, there are videos where you can watch the process evolve. Applications in economic or social theory are also common even if the time scales to observe such processes of dynamic equilibrium usually take longer to evolve than in chemistry of bubbles. In physics we ponder about dynamic equilibria in Newton’s view of gravitational forces between planets and the celestial system. With a more down to earth approach we might just admire the dynamic equilibrium of an artist on a rope, before we dive into the complex challenges of the new balance of power in international politics of the multipolar world. 

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Telework Challenge

There is a seminal trend that many employees prefer to have a choice to work on the premises of the employer or remote from home. This flexibility has become a major element of collective bargaining on work and time in larger companies in order to clarify rights and obligations.
In France it is about 1 in 5 of employees who do telework one day per month (1 in 6 in Nouvelle Aquitaine). The higher up in the hierarchy a person is, the more likely s/he is to do telework. Higher levels of educational attainment and seniority in a company also improve the access to and use of telework. There are still many employees who would like to do telework in their jobs, which technically could be done remotely, but who cannot do it (1 in 3). Most of those are denied the possibility by their employers.
Data from a survey in Germany from 2014 showed that before Covid-19 men were worked more often remotely than did women (Lott & Abendroth, 2019). The latest figures from France 2024 show that women have overtaken men as remote workers (Askenazy et al. 2025). As working from home has become more a part of the “standard employment relationship” today, the fears of loosing out on career opportunities due working from home seems to play less of a role nowadays, probably for both gender. Compared to 2014 the costs of equipment and availability and ease of installation of fast internet have become more affordable and might push the spread of telework even further.
The data from France show a strong positive correlation of remote work and commuting distance to work. Hence, long commuting distances “drive” more people into telework, which makes a lot of ecological sense, too.

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Cut it short

The “Revue des sciences humaines” (Demanze and Gleizes, Nr. 355, 2024 pp. 7-16) provides an interesting reflection on the widespread practice to find (new) ways to cut long stories or insights short. Short by itself, this introduction to a longer special issue on the topic “Faire court” stresses 4 elements of the contemporary impetus to cut it short:
(1) The creative process may be subject to condensation of content, similar to the process of a “reduction” in the culinary vocabulary. The speed of creativity, inspiration, freedom of expression are exemplified by the twitterization of and aphorisms in literature. Roland Barthes, in his analysis of the “haiku”, raises awareness to the different associations of the short text forms in different societies.
(2) The observed shortening of time spans of attention and the competition and economy of attention have raised the stakes for longer formats and explain to a large extent the success of shorts in the digital age.
(3) The short format works to increase the intensity of the literary experience.
(4) In deconstructing the associations of long formats as “monumental” versus short formats as ephemeral, the “cut it short“ tendency serves to “demonumentalize” the big shots of literature, science and the humanities. Well, about time to cut it short, “hic et nunc”, here and now!

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Classic Farces

Molière’s theatre pieces were popular pieces. Born with the name Jean-Baptiste Poquelin and son of a rich “tapissier” of the rue Saint-Honoré in Paris, he made a tough choice to devote his life to touring as a ”farceur” and comedian, having studied also law in Orléans before. Only after his first successful performances, farces and theatre plays, he could afford to buy the theâtre du Palais Royal, despite a bankruptcy about 20 years earlier with his own theatre. The much later title “Troupe du Roi” (of Louis XIV) and a pension by the King assured a financial and political independence rarely found in this period of classic theatre.
Molière’s “Les fourberies de Scapin” was written towards the end of his life and as a classic farce in the 17th century. The story is full of funny scenes and witty dialogues, which make it a great “intergenerational” theatre play even today. The plot about the institution of marriage addresses a cleaving social and legal construct “marriage”, which continues to excite all generations and across centuries.
(Source: Histoire de la littérature française XVII siècle. Robert Horville  in (Georges Décote series editor)

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Sociology in Theatre

Thanks to the inspiring direction by Denis Podalydès of Molière’s “Les fourberies de Scapin” we can experience the fruitful application of sociology to classical theatre production. This combination of thoughts has been performed at the “Comédie Française” for more than 7 years in 2025-11. The accompanying booklet of the performance mentioned the ample inspiration of Denis Podalydès by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Personalities in Molière’s theatre are represented as incarnations of the “habitus” each character stands for. Such an interpretation of the roles in the theatre play, raises awareness about the subtle differences between personalities. Even two rich men may differ in their habitus, because their fortunes are of different size or kind, yet they may share even more personality traits. Molière was a particularly crafted author, director and actor to stage such subtle differences, which are embedded into societies often across generations.  

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Philosophy of Voyage

In an interview Claude Lévi-Strauss described himself as a philosopher of voyage. The excursions which lasted sometimes several months to live with indigenous people and study their languages, habits and culture became a scientific field of its own called social anthropology. He travelled with his wife and wrote down hundreds of notes and collected items. Only years later the concept of stuctural theory became evident to him. A voyage might go on after the end of traveling. It might start well before departure as well, not the least due to all the preparations. Colette, the French writer and polyartist, coined the phrase “ce qu’on sait faire, au fond, c’est de la route, ce  n‘est pas du voyage ” in the novel « La chatte ». In the pre- and immediate post 2WW years “taking to the roads” often had a gendered view of this with women being rare to hold a driver’s license. To “find meaning through voyages” or “the voyage is the meaning” fill whole libraries. For better or worse, travel books are still best selling books in a shrinking overall book market (less print books sold, but still higher value of sales).   

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Home Wind energy noninvasive

The abundance of wind energy in some regions has made the use of this source of energy more popular. During long winter nights the harvest of wind energy is a wonderful source of free energy. Regulations and oversize wind turbines have tarnished the image of wind energy in some regions. However, even in France and not only in this small village of Asterix and Obelix who resist the Roman empire, that we can find tiny wind turbines providing small amounts of energy. For all those households that have a battery they can use this power whenever they may need it. Suddenly, we are looking forward to the stormy autumn season.  

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Colette The Cat

The novel “The Cat” (La chatte) was written by Colette with a view on the emancipation of women. The main character “Camille” freshly married to her husband is terribly jealous of the cat 🐈‍⬛ of her husband Alain. In order to deal with this situation she dropped the cat from a window in a moment of anger. As her husband seemed ready to divorce her due to this incident she claimed that her husband defended higher moral standards for the cat than for her psychological wellbeing. The novel certainly raises the issue of hierarchy of rights and duties. The moral dilemma highlights the schism of animal rights and/versus human rights. This specific issue seems to be resolved in the modern context, where both animal and human rights are protected in parallel. On a more abstract level, however, our relationship with animals and nature requires us to balance the rights and relationships again and again.

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Polypharmacy issues

As we age, we become more likely to confront polypharmacy issues. Polypharmacy is defined as taking 5 or more medications per day. The study reported in The Lancet healthy longevity by Payne et al. 2025 had participants with a median of 4 health conditions and a median of 8 prescriptions. Even a comprehensive set up which involved several experts from medical doctors and pharmacists did not manage to achieve a significant improvement in polypharmacy outcomes in this experimental study with otherwise carefully matched intervention and control group. However, the mental health (measured in patients as “health-care-related quality of life”) slightly increased and the “treatment burden” experienced by patients was slightly reduced.
In combination with a previous study the probability of errors in nurses, who are the prime persons responsible for the administration of medications in institutionalized settings, the reduction of potentials for errors like they are to be found in polypharmacy should continue to be a prime target of this research in future. Together with the knowledge about the prevalence of functional illiteracy at older ages, polypharmacy remains a critical issue on the public health agenda beyond the experimental settings in this study.

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Spring in Autumn

Can we have spring in autumn? Of course not, most people would answer. The definitions of spring and autumn are clearly defined as separate seasons. Depictions of the seasons in paintings in the Romantic or Impressionist periods are hard to imagine with somewhat blurred distinctions between seasons. And yet, climate change in the 21st century show surprising spring flowers in autumn across Europe. This leads to lots of confusion in nature’s time table.
From a life course perspective, we may ask, whether it is possible to experience a 2nd spring in the season’s view of the life course. More healthy years and spring feelings in the autumn of live have propelled a whole new industry around longevity and the mantra to “stay healthy for the wealthy”. The growing health inequality over the extended life course is a silent killer. The experience of spring in autumn remains a distant dream for most people with multi-morbidity.
Our experience of sequential or linear time, where one season follows the other, gets disturbed or at least blurred. The “Gleichzeitigkeit des Ungleichzeitigen” in English the “simultaneity of the non-simultaneous“ can be observed in the macro-world of everyday experience, albeit in a different way than Ernst Bloch defined the concept. On the other hand, it is no longer necessary to invoke Einstein’s theory of relativity or quantum physics to come up with apparently strange phenomena, but empirical facts allow us to question received wisdom, evidence based.

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Tether thy liver

There are few of us who take our liver seriously. Yet, this big organ plays a central role in our body to regulate metabolism. The obesity pandemic in western countries increases health risks, just as excessive alcohol consumption increases risks of liver dysfunction. Additionally, viruses increase the risk of failure of this organ.
Each of these risks as well as any combination of one of the risks with another one have led to rising public health risks. Several studies since 2020 have highlighted these increased risks for populations in general. The risks, however, have an unequal spread across subgroups of society. A recent comment based on the research of the INSERM U955 team in “The Lancet Regional Health” by Brustia et al. “Liver-related mortality strikes hardest where deprivation is greatest.” Health inequities consist in the lack of income available to buy healthy food or in untreated alcohol addiction, both more common in poor people.
In order to tackle the inequity, the team of medical doctors call for a shift in awareness. Structural reasons like diagnostic delay, remoteness or health literacy are just as important as individual predilections like nutrition or lifestyles. Inequality in access to health and ability to afford a healthy lifestyle have become serious drivers of social inequality in the 21st century.

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All electric again

The “all electric society” has been identified by Dan Wang and Arthur Kroeber (2025 p.48) as one of the underlying driving forces of “The real China Model”. Despite the heavy reliance and pollution caused by China’s use of coal, the large share of electricity  (30%) of energy use is unmatched by the rest of the world except Japan. Investment in electricity grids and innovative ways of mobility around electricity will allow China to buzz rather than steam ahead. Solar cells, batteries for electricity storage and innovative ways of distribution of electricity through AI enhanced “learning” devices will widen the gap between China and other countries that suffer from inefficient path dependency.
Taking the advent of the “All electric society” seriously will free resources through the focus on future-proof technologies. We should not be afraid of the sparks of a short-circuited “All electric society”, the environmental challenges ahead for all of us, particularly China, ask to shift to high voltage solutions urgently. 

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Weaponized Interdependence

The shift in the international political system is clearly expressed in the contribution by Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman in “Foreign Affairs” (2025 (Nr. 5) p.25). “… governments must navigate a terrain with many more players, figuring out how to redirect private-sector supply chains in directions that do not hurt themselves while anticipating the responses of a multitude of governmental and nongovernmental actors.”
As the number of bigger global players increases, the complexity to identify best strategies increases as well. Going it alone is only second best to coordinated actions. New matches of interests may result in the medium term. This could entail enormous long term realignments.
Russia attempted to play the China, and subsequently the India, card to achieve new strategic partnerships in this multipolar world. Other international players test new forms of alliances and strategies (like hybrid wars) in this period of weaponized interdependence as well.
The weaponization of such interdependencies puts critical limits to the basic economic rationale and a world building on comparative advantages together with trade, rather than going it all alone or try the coercive way of exploiting dependencies of mineral resources, supply chains, computing power and AI.
(Image: Chess figures attributed to Charlemagne, dating from 1080-1100 ” BNF Galerie Mazarin 2025-10)

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Popular Sociology

Sociology, like other social science disciplines, has often difficulties in reaching bigger audiences. However, in combination with a museum which specializes in the history of a big city like Paris, the insights can suddenly become very popular. The “Musée Carnavalet of the history of Paris” has mounted an exhibition, which builds on the population censuses of 1926,1931 and 1936. The access to the complete original records of 3x about 2 millions of people has become a national treasure for social scientists and the public at large.
People flock to the exhibition. Some do it to learn about the past of their districts or streets. Others to learn about historical facts, which are sometimes linked to the family anecdotes and broader historical narratives. Out of this interest grows an understanding of macro- and micro-level social processes, which makes use of basic statistics.
People ask themselves: Is your (family) story unique or is it part of a more general pattern or social process like urbanization or social mobility.
(Image: original census recording sheet – Paris)

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Opera design

France celebrates 150 years of the National Opera Garnier in Paris. The exhibition in the splendid building traces the history of the building from the competition for the design to the legendary performances and celebrities attending. The stairs outside and even more so inside are built to enhance the glamour around operas and dance. The drawings by Garnier are a highlight as much as the videos about celebrities walking up the stairs of an Opera building.
Charles de Gaulle, as many French Presidents before, dressed and took the famous stairs to impress the official invitees. The image of de Gaulle together with Konrad Adenauer is another interesting example of opera politics showing the authentic friendship after the fierce fighting of the 2 WW, the Nazi-terror and Shoa.
The design of the Paris Opera 150 years ago made for an impressive ritual performance of state diplomacy enhancing international reputation.
(Images: 150 years of Opera Garnier Paris – 3 designs, winning design by Garnier on the right).

 

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Balance and justice

Justice is often represented with the symbol of a balance. This dates back at least to the Roman times when the Roman law reached an unprecedented spread across Europe. The philosophy of law dating even further back to the Greek philosophers, notably Aristotle, founded comparative law with his comparison of constitutional principles in various Greek city states of his time. Striking the right balance, therefore, is encrypted into law, legislation and the American constitutional principle of checks and balances. In Paris the sculpture in the “Parc du Palais Royal” of heavy metal balance at the opposite end of the park is moving as well. Facing the ”Conseil d’état” and the “Le conseil constitutionnel”, this is a forceful reminder of the basic principles of a republic and democracy.
In the 21st century, particularly, since the weights attached at each end of the balance pull more forcefully at the moment in several countries.
Institution building and safeguarding the existing ones have become “the challenge for democracies in 2025 in many “centuries-old” democracies.
(Image: Sculpture by Raul Mourao in Parc Palais Royal, Paris 2025-10)

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Fighting the Beast

The earliest post 2nd WW cartoon stems from Calvo in France, published in its first edition in 1945. After the first part entitled “When the beast became unchained”, the second part could report on the happy ending “When the beast was overturned”. Amongst the admirable comprehensiveness to talk about the preparation of war, the battles and atrocities committed by the wolves, the allied forces of animals gained the upper hand. The role of women in the fight against the beast takes almost a whole page in the historically precise narrative of the 2 WW. With a fine sense of necessary historical detail, the reporting of British women (the female dogs in the cartoon) as essential part in the war effort to win the war against the beast(s). Women exercised professions were not previously allowed to enter. Gender awareness as early as the mid 1940s was rather advanced at the time.
Great topics to talk about with your children or grand-children.

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AI as individualizer

In a one pager in the journal “Rolling Stone” (2025, p. 9) Bruno Patino writes about the legendary David Bowie who was the first rock musician to launch a new song on the internet before it became available as CD (Telling Lies, 1996). As a pioneer in co-creation, Bowie anticipated somehow the trend and wish of people to personalize preferred songs even further and distribute such versions among friends. In this process, AI has become a powerful tool to push individualization even further and the digital social media allow even broader audiences beyond a more narrow circle of friends. Music maybe setting the trend  for some in the same field, other creative fields might follow the footsteps. The need to co-create collective experiences and participate in collective musical moments is likely to rise again as well.
Good news for music festivals across the world. Live concerts are the new form “collective individualism”.

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Colette Bewitched child

The English translation of the libretto written by Colette “L’enfant et les sortilèges” is translated to “the bewitched child”. The first representation was performed in Monte-Carlo in 1925 before it was represented in Paris at the Opéra Comique in January 1926.  The printed edition of Ravel’s orchestration classified the work as Fantaisie Lyrique based on a poem by Colette. This opus constitutes a forgotten forerunner of the much more popular musical “Cats” . In the end of Colettes narrative the animals call the child her “mama” and praise the good and wise child. It probably remains a forgotten 100’s anniversary, despite the fact that the topic of humans and animals, or nature in more general terms, have become more and more unbalanced over the last 100 years. 

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Colette Home

  1. The home of Colette, the French writer of the first half of the 20th century, is an interesting example of the high attributed value for her later creative career. The home and the gardens around, seemingly had a huge and lasting impact on her imagination.Her writings are firmly embedded into not just her home of childhood and adolescent years, but also the changoof homes and contexts literally made Colette. The documentation of this in the “Musée Colette”, which presents the different phases of her life course, allows to get a better understanding of the interconnected world of experiences and artistic work. It takes an especially broad set of influences to form such a polyartist. The libretto for an opera orchestrated by Maurice Ravel or a model for Matisse, stand for the openness to new experiences and take risks when she embarked on new creative endeavors. (Image Musée Collette catalog p. 6)  

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Polyartist Colette

It is a complex task to do justice to a polyartist like Colette. The curators of the exhibition “Les mondes de Colette” (BNF 2025) Bouvard, Dimerman, Le Bras do a great job to present the biography of Colette, the writer, journalist, dancer in music halls, model (for Matisse) and entrepreneur in all facets of her activities. The role model of an emancipated women as early as the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s. The struggle of women artists in the early years of the 20th century to make a living from art is well documented already. To make a living of writing has always been a challenge if you do cherish your independence and liberty of expression. Versatility in artistic production is one escape route. Colette made a strength of this in diving into different forms of art and professional activities close to the artistic and creative world. In a quite unique way, she became her own muse for her own artistic work; and a character and inspiration exploring many facets of live. The economic misfortune experienced her parents became a source and force of inspiration.
Contrary to the expectations of the market of arts and literature, she did not feel like sticking to just one activity. Her most lasting achievements, probably, were her literary accomplishments for most people, although Matisse immortalized her in his specific style of abstraction.
Polyartists just like Polymaths, make more comprehensive contributions to our experiences.
(Image:Lithographie by Henri Matisse of Colette, exhibition Colette at BNF 2025).

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Digital Social Networks

Social networks have become the place to be. The need to distinguish the digital social networks from the social networks of people in the analog or “real” world is important, as we realize that many young persons seem to suffer from loneliness despite a hundred personal links in the digital social networks. This paradox of digital and non-digital social networks needs careful attention of researchers because of the opportunities and risks involved in the transferability of contacts from one network to another.
There is s a kind of “conversion rate” of digital contacts into face-to-face contacts and even purchases for marketing purposes in the world of business. The sociology of the virtual has to deal with these paradoxical social relationships and study the increasing phenomenon of being «alone together». Increasingly we are alone, but together. Over the life course this phenomenon and the digital social network paradox change as well.
To research such a topic we need rather intrusive, personal data and access to the digital traces of people as they construct and deconstruct either form of social networks. 

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Social Anthropology

Dina Dreyfus, married several years to Claude Lévi-Strauss, has shared with Claude the long anthropological expedition to Brazil in the 1930s. They jointly studied the social organization of indigenous people across Brazil. Their abundant notes of field studies have now been digitized and the BNF is making this accessible.
Additionally, an exhibition on these field studies reveals the close collaboration of both partners. Returning to France in 1939 meant that soon after the return due to their Jewish decent had to interrupt their academic careers in France and some notebooks were lost during the Nazi occupation of France. After the war both separated and Claude Lévi-Strauss embarked on the drafting of the structuralist theory, Dina became influential in the field of the philosophy of education and teaching philosophy herself.
Besides all these lasting achievements, the exhibition shows the typewriter which had accompanied them for many years. The German language layout is quite remarkable as this asked for an additional mental versatility in putting their thoughts and experiences into the form of a manuscript. According to Claude Lévi-Strauss the use of this technical device allowed him to detach himself emotionally from his analytical work.
(Image: Exhibit: typewriter Claude Lévi-Strauss, BNF 2025-10)

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Sponge Mofs

Many people might have come across “SpongeBob” as a TV-series. Well, in 2025 it is time for an update. The Nobel Committee has awarded the Chemistry prize not to SpongeBob, but the research linked to the sponge-like Mofs, i.e. metal-organic frameworks to Kitagawa, Robson, Yaghi. These Mofs have in fact properties  similar to a sponge or cages in some applications. They consist of porous materials, which have large surface areas in relation to their apparent volume. Due to the modelling of network structures the surface of a grid can be expanded drastically.
Due to the application of such modelling techniques, the combinations of materials/organics and, thereby, the applications to modern technological challenges have increased tremendously. The exponential growth of research papers based on these foundations largely justify this honourable award. Not only the potential of carbon capture, but also the storage capacity of batteries as well as medical applications might benefit from this basic research and findings, eventually.
Playing around with a sponge, doing your dishes – also for men, or watching Spongebob might be considered differently from now on. Maybe, just start with a virtual visit of the Nobel museum for further inspiration.