Slammer 2017
Jochem Gummersbach, Staatlicher Hofkeller Würzburg
What do you like about the Science Slam format?
As this is the first time I’ve taken part in an event like this, I’m just going to let myself be surprised. But it’s definitely a challenge to speak in front of so many people!
What will you be talking about?
I’ll be talking about the ‘eventisation’ of everyday life, using wine tastings as an example!
What has been your best experience so far during your time at university?
That’s none of your business!!! (laughs)
Judith Gabel, Physics, JMU
What do you like about the Science Slam format?
I think it’s important to make research and science accessible to the general public and to share my own fascination with it with others.
What will you be talking about?
The challenge of developing new materials and understanding their properties.
What has been your best experience so far during your time at university?
Those ‘aha’ moments when you understand (or even discover) physical phenomena and can explain and even calculate them. But I find it just as wonderful and exciting to share these insights and this knowledge with others.
Prof. Frank Zieschang, Law, JMU
What do you like about the Science Slam format?
It’s all about the challenge: can a law professor actually be funny?
What will you be talking about?
Thanks to their broad education, lawyers generally have a very wide range of career options open to them. But be careful: not every profession is suitable for a lawyer.
What has been your best experience so far during your time at university?
Every semester, I’m delighted by the many students who take an interest in my courses.
Prof. Ulrich Gartzke, Social Work, FHWS
What do you like about the Science Slam format?
I attended as a visitor last year and the atmosphere was brilliant. Concise and interesting talks from a wide variety of fields and a fantastic audience.
What will you be talking about?
I’d like to talk about the ways in which we can solve social problems using entrepreneurial means – and about bowel movements.
What has been your best experience so far during your time at university?
My university life, both as a student and now as an alumnus and lecturer, has been full of wonderful experiences, exciting events and inspiring encounters, especially when I’ve looked to the left and right along the way. Just the other day, when I was filling up my car at the Jet petrol station at 10.30 pm, a former student pulled up and shouted: “Mr Gartzke, I’ve got a job now!”
Prof. Hans-Georg Weigand, Mathematics, JMU
What do you like about the Science Slam format?
That you get insights into scientific fields in a short space of time, presented in a way that is brief, concise, to the point and, hopefully, light-hearted – perhaps even funny.
What will you be talking about?
Mathematicians are often seen as odd, introverted and out of touch with reality. It is therefore worthwhile to take a peek inside a mathematician’s mind and see how mathematicians really think. In doing so, you realise that mathematicians are not always odd, not always introverted and not always out of touch with reality.
What has been your best experience so far during your time at university?
Seeing how students gradually, or sometimes suddenly, realise that mathematics is like a diamond: very hard, but wonderfully beautiful and incredibly useful.
Dr Stefan Zimmermann, Lecturer at the Chair of Human Resource Management and Organisation
What do you like about the Science Slam format?
As part of the audience, I always loved hearing about a wide variety of topics in an entertaining way. How will I like the format from the other perspective? I’m curious myself...
What will you be talking about?
About a true universal genius of the 20th century and what we can learn from him about management.
What has been the best experience so far during your ‘time at uni’?
Looking back, I naturally think of the great freedom to engage with so many exciting things. And we laughed a lot – sometimes with the students, sometimes at them.
Looking ahead, I think that given the current organisational, leadership and incentive structures at the university, we’ll need a great deal of humour in the future...
Felix Pfeil, PhD student at the Chair of Marketing, JMU
What do you like about the Science Slam format?
The large number of enthusiastic visitors at these thoroughly scientific events gives me hope in times of perceivedtruths. In moments like these, it becomes clear that hard facts are still relevant and, above all, interesting; you just have to communicate them properly (the marketer in me would say: sell them).
What will you be talking about?
About marketing, i.e. hot air. And about the fact that people are seriously willing to pay money for hot air.
What has been your best experience so far during your time at uni?
For me, the exam and revision periods are still the best experiences at university. It’s remarkable how hard the students in the Economics Faculty work during this period, after having sat in my lectures looking tired all semester long.
In my position, one could sit back with a certain sense of schadenfreude (which I – needless to say – do not do!). Back when I myself used to sit listlessly in lectures, the only days I really looked forward to were those when, for once, the coffee machine in the Sanderring cafeteria wasn’t broken. And the smoking breaks between lectures.
