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Michael E. Brown's book, The Concept of the Social in Uniting the Humanities and Social Sciences, demonstrates that prominent attempts to account for the social dimension of human affairs rely on an unstated notion of a “course of activity,” that is diametrically opposed to the conceptualization of sociality that is presumably intended to realize it. I want to focus on the idea of a “course of activity” in order to locate his work in and clarify its importance to the development of dialectical reason from Heraclitus through Hegel and beyond. Of special importance is the bearing of his research on the critique of contemporary theories of agency and sociality, and, since considerable attention has been paid, in this regard, to the arts and humanities, some of what I will say about this refers to art and its avant-garde moments—-particularly in my work on Dada and Brown's account of two avant-garde theatrical performances. 

This chapter examines what is entailed by separating agency from individuality and what it means for the idea of a “course of activity,” (going on) and its relation to the concept of sociality. This also bears on questions of ontology, as Brown's course of activity is generative and nonrepeatable. The course of activity and nonrepeatability are linked to both avant-garde practice and theoretical notions that reframe our temporal understandings. These include the avant-garde of dada and surrealism, and the reformulations of bourgeois time of Jean Duvignaud, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, and Jean-Paul Sartre. The question raised here is that of a teleological understanding—how we link the present course of activity with future events.

Within the last two decades, entrepreneurship education has become institutionalized in Germany. It is offered as a stand-alone program or as part of a business degree, combining academic knowledge, practical skills, and personal development to enhance the entrepreneurial success of university graduates. While entrepreneurship education has experienced similar growth worldwide, its emergence in Germany is closely tied to the country’s political and economic developments. The significance of entrepreneurship education for a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem and contemporary economic policy has been instrumental in advancing its academic recognition. This chapter provides a historical analysis of the academization of entrepreneurship in Germany. It explores the recursive and often idiosyncratic processes involving state and financial institutions, companies, and universities that have created, respecified, and mutually reinforced a subdiscipline and field of study. Academic entrepreneurship knowledge successively not only became relevant for starting a business but also for employment within the entrepreneurial infrastructure and beyond. This chapter follows a chronological order, highlighting three key stages in the academization of entrepreneurship education. First, the academic, financial, and political roots (I) of entrepreneurship up until the 1970s. Second, it explores the transformation (II) of entrepreneurship into a viable policy alternative and the challenges faced in establishing complementary research and education in higher education institutions during the 1980s. Finally, it sketches the institutionalization (III) of entrepreneurship as a central driver of government economic policy, allowing for the late bloom of entrepreneurship education and research at universities around the turn of the millennium.