The interdisciplinary study of aesthetics, media, mediality and intermediality is at the core of this research platform. Our aim is to organize events on the topic at hand, foster existing strengths within the faculty, and develop new research and teaching avenues. The field ‘media and aesthetics’ is topical and branches out into numerous concerns that touch on academic practices and daily modes of being in the world. We all engage with various media, are affected by their aesthetics, and interpret their content based on the forms in which it is delivered. While cultural studies have tended to emphasize cultural artifacts’ conditions of origin, discursive interconnections, and thematic contents, we want to focus on aspects of form, format and mediation. We will join and add to recent approaches such as new formalism, postcolonial and praxeological genre poetics, style theory as well as media aesthetics, comparative media studies and intermediality. This research platform provides a forum for all researchers interested in the form, functioning and social performativity of media, be they images, sounds, language, bodies and choreographies (movements, communication, affects, etc.), artifacts, or other thing-space arrangements. We are scholars from various disciplines, including literary studies, theater studies, art history and visual anthropology, and welcome new members who want to join the group. We focus on various interdisciplinary aspects such as the following:
a) aesthetics of politics / politics of aesthetics: forms of activism
b) historical and global mobility of forms, formats and genres
c) media change, medial dissolution and intermedial configurations
d) the interface of aesthetics, media and affects
e) materiality of form and style
f) forms, formats, genres and digital cultures
g) media environments and environmental media
Members
- Prof. Dr. Nicolas Detering (Germanistik) - Co-Speaker
- Dr. Sofie Behluli (Amerikanistik) - Co-Speaker
- Prof. Dr. Giovanna Cordibella (Italienische Literaturwissenschaft)
- Prof. Dr. Beate Fricke (Kunstwissenschaft)
- Dr. Johanna Hilari (Theaterwissenschaft)
- Dr. Aglaia Kister (Germanistik)
- Felix Lempp, MA (Germanistik)
- Dr. Viola Marchi (Englische und Amerikanische Literatur)
- Prof. Dr. Malika Maskarinec (Germanistik)
- Dr. Thomas Nehrlich (Germanistik)
- Dr. Hannah Piercy (Englische Literatur und Mediävistik)
- Prof. Dr. Gabriele Rippl (Amerikanistik/Anglistik)
- Prof. Dr. Michaela Schäuble (Sozialanthropologie/Media Anthropology)
- Dr. Yvonne Schweizer (Kunstwissenschaft)
- Prof. Dr. Peter Schneemann (Kunstwissenschaft)
- Malaika Sutter, MA (Amerikanistik)
- Prof. Dr. Christina Thurner (Theaterwissenschaft)
- Dr. Alberto Tondello (Englische und Amerikanische Literatur)
- Prof. Dr. Bénédicte Vauthier (Spanische Literaturwissenschaft)
- Dr. Julia Wehren (Theaterwissenschaft)
- Julia von Bergen, student assistant
Satellite Events in 2023/2024
- 10 March 2023: Workshop “Die Heilige Johanna in den Künsten”, co-organized by Dr. Thomas Nehrlich
- 23-26 April 2023: Conference “The Senses: Present Issues, Past Perspectives”, co-organized by Dr. Hannah Piercy
- 27 April 2023: Talk and Workshop with Prof. Dr. Sabine Schneider on “Form”, co-organized by Prof. Dr. Gabriele Rippl
- 4 May 2023: Talk and Workshop with Prof. Dr. Julietta Singh on “Archive”, co-organized by Prof. Dr. Michaela Schäuble
- 26 May 2023: Symposium “Reading Reading: Literary Practices”, organized by Dr. Sofie Behluli and Malaika Sutter
- 16 May 2023: Talk on “Cancel Culture” by Adrian Daub, organized by Prof. Dr. Nicolas Detering
- 6 September 2023: WBK Research Platform Members’ Retreat
- 21 September 2023: Talk by Prof Dr. Allan Hepburn “Telefiction: Television Aesthetics in Contemporary American Fiction”, co-organized by Dr. Sofie Behluli and Malaika Sutter
- 29/30 September 2023: Workshop with Prof. Juliane Vogel on “Drama and the Aesthetics of Making an Entrance / Auftritte”, organized by Prof. Dr. Nicolas Detering
- 26-28 October 2023: Workshop “Literature and Politics”, organized by Prof. Dr. Gabriele Rippl
- 7. December 2023: Guest Lecture "Revealing and Filling Gaps through Ekphrasis" by Dr. Sofie Behluli und Malaika Sutter in "Gaps – How Do I Write Art History?”, organized by Prof. Dr. Beate Fricke
- 15.-16. March 2024: Workshop "Religious Poetry Between Medium and Practice", organized by Prof. Dr. Nicolas Detering
- 16./23. April 2024: Workshop "Text-Botany" with Dr. Sophia Jochem, organized by Felix Lempp
- 25. April 2024: Guest Lecture "Stitching Memories: Intermedial and Cross-modal Representations of Embroidery in Swedish Comics, Poetry, and Art Works" by Dr. Nina Ernst, organized by Malaika Sutter
