Orchid compartment

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Orchid subject (rarer orchid discipline ) is a slang term for a fancy, unusual, rare subject that is only taught at a few universities or only attended by a few students. The opposite of an orchid subject is the mass subject . In university policy, the orchid subjects are listed as small subjects and mapped by the Small Subjects department (now Mainz University).

Etymology and usage

Orchids are among the earliest and most famous luxury ornamental plants in Western culture. They require a lot of maintenance and have no practical use. This led to the analogy of referring to a complex field of study that has little concrete use as an orchid subject.

An early mention of the term “orchid compartment” can be found in a 1965 book on the ethnology of Africa. From the 1970s the term became established in literature, and a frequently cited article by Herbert Hunger , the founder of the Vienna School of Byzantine Studies, with this term in the title - an “orchid subject” has established itself. - refers to this very research area.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, the term orchid theme has also been used for an unusual or rarely dealt with topic .

Characteristic

Orchid subjects usually have a high degree of specialization and, due to the small number of students, offer a good supervisory ratio (numerical ratio of lecturers to students ). As a rule, there is no numerus clausus for these subjects.

The term orchid subject is not only applied to courses or departments themselves, but also to rare or exotic specializations within a subject. In the early 20th century, quantum physics was seen as an orchid subject within physics. In the school sector, the term is also used for rare or unusual school subjects, which, however, by no means have to have the status of an orchid subject in the university sector. In general, the term is also used in a figurative sense for exotic disciplines or areas of knowledge.

criticism

These subjects are often criticized by the funding agencies. It is pointed out that it is not economically worthwhile to pay a professor and his staff for so few students. In this context, the orchid subject is also used as a derogatory term for a course of study that is assumed to be unfamiliar to the world, lack of social benefit and lack of career prospects and is therefore associated with high unemployment .

Examples

Current examples of orchid subjects are speech science , speech training , Sorabic studies , onomastics , African studies , Christian archeology , Celtology , Tibetology , crystallography and diaconal studies . It should be noted, however, that the classification of a subject as an orchid subject may change due to changes in the range of courses and the number of participants. In the early 1970s, for example, courses in cultural education were often viewed as orchid subjects, but this has not been the case since the 1980s. Further examples of such a changed classification are sinology and meteorology , which were also regarded as orchid subjects at the beginning of the 1970s. In the 18th century, physics also had the reputation of being an orchid subject.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Melanie Sachs and Sabine Sander: The permanence of the aesthetic . Springer-Verlag, April 15, 2009, ISBN 978-3-531-91472-5 , p. 163.
  2. ↑ Orchid compartment. In: The Duden. German universal dictionary. 6th edition. Dudenverlag, Mannheim / Leipzig / Vienna / Zurich 2007, ISBN 3-411-05506-5 .
  3. ↑ Little University ABC. University of Bonn, Psychology Student Council , 2009, archived from the original on September 26, 2009 ; accessed on March 17, 2014 .
  4. ^ Albrecht Behmel: Orchid compartment . In: Student-online , December 9, 2005, accessed August 13, 2012.
  5. ↑ a b Orchid compartment in the university jungle glossary . In: focus.de .
  6. ↑ a b c d monkey handle & onion fish. Terms borrowed from the animal and plant kingdom. In: The Code-Cracker - Lexicon of Codes. Retrieved July 24, 2009 .
  7. ↑ see homepage of the small subjects department at the University of Mainz
  8. ↑ Orchid blooms at the universities . In: Der Standard , May 26, 2008, online May 28, 2008.
  9. ↑ Barbara Frank: The role of the dog in African cultures . Köppe, 1965, ISBN 978-3-515-00851-8 , p. 29.
  10. ^ "Orchideenfach" in German literature (1940-2010) , NGRAM viewer.
  11. ↑ Historical magazine: special issue . R. Oldenbourg, 1983, p. 1.
  12. ↑ Cornelia Giebeler: Between protest and discipline: the feminist paradox . AJZ-Verlag, 1992, ISBN 978-3-86039-002-3 , p. 145.
  13. ↑ a b c d What is an orchid compartment . In: Hamburger Abendblatt , September 2, 2006.
  14. ^ Julian Nida-Rümelin : From politics and current events . In: The Parliament . No.  48 , 2006, ISSN  0479-611X , The university policy situation and the future of the humanities in Germany ( online (PDF) [accessed on March 19, 2014] special issue university policy. Supplement to "Parliament").
  15. ↑ Speech Science . ( Memento of the original from February 20, 2019 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: kleinefaecher.de , accessed on August 13, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kleinefaecher.de
  16. ^ Christian Werner: Orchideenfach Sorabistik. Just no Easter eggs . In: Spiegel Online , May 27, 2005.
  17. ↑ Carsten Heckmanm: Orchid subject onomastics. In the graveyard of words . In: Spiegel Online , June 27, 2001. Steffen Winter: Orchideenfach name research. It can be called Schokominza! In: Spiegel Online , January 14, 2010.
  18. ↑ University of Bonn receives endowed professorship for Christian archeology. In: Information Service Science. Retrieved July 24, 2009 .
  19. ^ Kilian Kirchgeßner: Orchid fan. The good managers . In: Die Zeit , No. 42/2007.
  20. ↑ Bernd Wagner: From the orchid subject to the numerus clausus. University courses for practical cultural fields . In: Werner Thole, Peter Cloos: Culture - Studying Pedagogy . Georg Olms, Hildesheim 1997, ISBN 3-487-10505-5 .
  21. ↑ Philipp Bleckmann: The Chinese Language - Difficult, but not impossible. In: China Today. Retrieved July 24, 2009 . See press release of the University of Hamburg from April 1, 2005 ( Memento from September 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ).
  22. ↑ Michael Ruoff: Hermann von Helmholtz . UTB 2008, ISBN 978-3-8252-3034-0 , p. 35 ( limited online copy in the Google book search).