Conferences

International and Interdisciplinary Conference: Ekphrasis in Late Antiquity. Political, Religious and Performative Dimensions

In late antiquity, poetic ecphrasis proves to be much more than a school exercise in rhetoric: when poets turn statues, churches, images or monuments into verse, they simultaneously negotiate sovereignty and claims power, religious interpretative authority as well as the conditions of their own, often virtuoso performance. Ecphrasis ties existing symbolic systems – iconographic formulas, epigrammatic topoi and stylistic features – to new sites and new addressees, creating meaning not in spite of, but by virtue of the fact that they re-use what is traditional. At the same time, these ecphrastic texts are occurrences: they are performed in certain places on certain occasions. Their aesthetic effect cannot be separated from this setting. Interpreting the political, religious and performative dimensions of ecphrasis enables one to conceive of late classical aesthetics as an entanglement of text, image and setting (in epigrams as well as in larger-format poems).

The international, interdisciplinary conference ‘Ecphrasis in Late Antiquity. Political, Religious and Performative Dimensions’ (as part of Tübingen’s CRC 1391 Different Aesthetics, organised by subproject C01 ‘Between Tradition and Triumph: Christian Poetics of Ecphrasis’, by Prof. Dr. Irmgard Männlein and Dr. Viola Palmieri) enquires into the functions of ecphrastic production in Eastern Greece from the 4^th to the 7^th century. Lectures engage with a wide spectrum of topics, ranging from the autobiographic poems of Gregory of Nazianzus and visual and performance culture in the works of Nonnus of Panopolis, to the ecphrastic Greek Anthology epigrams composed in a Constantinopolitan context, to the poems of Paul the Silentiary, John of Gaza and George of Pisidia. The discussion will focus on how Christian perspectives transform and re-semanticise traditional descriptive practices, how ecphrasis supports (or undermines) imperial and municipal representation and what role presentation, space, body and audience play in their aesthetic valency.

Downloads: Conference programme, Poster

Interdisciplinary Young Scholars’ Conference: GegenStand. Objects Between Performance, Presence and Affordance

Objects determine our daily and social lives, our actions, thoughts and feelings. We produce objects, use objects, interact with objects and communicate through objects. They influence or display our social status, they constitute identities, represent what is absent and symbolise the abstract. We consider objects beautiful, valuable and useful or ugly, worthless and useless. We collect objects, exhibit objects, associate memories and feelings with them, attribute agency to them, give them away, inherit them, recycle them and destroy them. They sometimes become objects of staging, veneration or fetishisation. Our relationship with objects is a recurring topic of social debate and can be accompanied by psychological and moral judgements.

The young scholars’ conference “GegenStand. Objects Between Performance, Presence and Affordance” focalises objects and their performative embeddedness in human behaviours, social or political contexts and discourses as well as religious staging. The spectrum ranges from aesthetically embedded everyday objects to regalia or cult items, and extends to objects in a broader sense, including textual, visual and auditory artefacts. The conference considers objects in relation to actors and networks, questioning the functional embeddedness of human and non-human actors, objects, and performative acts. It aims to facilitate exchange between perspectives of object and performativity research in an interdisciplinary context. 

Downloads: Programm Poster Call for Papers (German)

Interdisciplinary Young Scholars’ Conference: Topoi at Tübingen. Dimensions and Facets of ‘Topos’

Since Aristotle, various forms of the term topos have frequently been employed in rhetoric, poetry and other disciplines, with fruitful results. Building on the intensive research into the concept of topos from the mid-20^th century onwards and around the turn of the millennium, we want to pick up where current research has left off and provide new impulses to the investigation of topos. The symposium is coordinated by the project A5 (Abundance, Redundancy, Excess: Procedures of Amplification in Early Modern Epideictics) of the CRC 1391 Different Aesthetics in cooperation with the Institute of Rhetoric.

The aim is, on the one hand, to gain a clearer understanding of the influence that the rhetorical tradition of topics exerts on research within individual disciplines, thereby making an important contribution to the academic discourse within those subjects and beyond. On the other hand, the symposium will look at the genesis and historical development of the topos-concept, as well as its methodological implementation, such as in argumentative or literary analyses of topos.

Downloads: Conference programme, Call for Papers

International and Interdisciplinary Conference: An Aesthetics of Combinatorics. Images and Texts before 1500

Premodern art and literature use traditions of genre and material traditions in their creation processes, connecting and combining what already exists in a new way, into something new. In this context, recourse to authorities and fixed systems of symbols (such as in topical and iconographic expressions) plays a significant role in how they arrange the multitude of possible variations into something meaningful. As such, compilation, combination and recombination or reconfiguration, use and re-use can be described and understood as genuine and general phenomena of premodern aesthetic praxis. An approach based on combinatorics offers a way of operationalising such procedures, highlighting this characteristic feature of premodern art and literature in terms of its relevance to the question of a Different Aesthetics.

The interdisciplinary conference ‘Aesthetics of Combinatorics’, part of Tübingen’s CRC 1391 Different Aesthetics, discusses the role of combinatorial principles in premodern aesthetics. Selection, arrangement, ordering, categorisation, repetition, variation, attrition and alternative combinations have long been areas of observation in art history and literary studies that document the relevance of combinatorics as an aesthetic endeavour. At the same time, combinatorics serves as a heuristic instrument and can be made fruitful for understanding the textual and visual culture of the Middle Ages.

Downloads: Conference programme, Poster

International Conference: Early Islamic Narrative Aesthetics and Legal Culture

Scholarship on the formation of early Islamic legal culture tends to privilege accounts of the history of Islamic law: from Ḥijāzī “origins” to comparatively late processes of theorization and institutionalization, leading to the emergence of the Islamic legal schools and the development of legal hermeneutics. Qur’anic law itself often plays a marginal role in such accounts. This is not surprising since there are some noteworthy discontinuities between Qur’anic and Islamic law.

While the ties between Qur’anic and Islamic legal thought and expression remain to be investigated in greater detail, one important aspect of early Islamic legal culture remains especially under-explored: legal narratives.

We invite speakers to rethink the formative period of Islamic legal culture by identifying and discussing Qur’anic and early Islamic “legal stories.” These are narratives whose aesthetics helped diffuse and anchor societal norms and legal and ethical ideas. Such stories played a crucial role in shaping Qur’anic and early Islamic legal culture and, while suggesting societal transformations, they indeed also displayed continuities in legal thought and practice between the Qur’an and the Islamic tradition.

Downloads: Conference programme, Poster

International and Interdisciplinary Conference: NATURA & ceTERRA. The Aesthetics of Natural Sites in the Middle Ages

As topoi of nature, natural sites combine socially recognised knowledge and conventionalised forms of argumentation. At the same time, they function as aesthetic templates of society’s imaginative power which display great creative potential. Through cultural practices such as adaptation, variation, negotiation and attribution, natural sites are transformed into ambiguous, polyvalent and diverse spaces of interaction.

The conference thus examines fundamental questions of medieval social configurations in their relationship to nature, based on culturally shaped natural sites and the practices associated with them: How are abstract natural or naturalised concepts (i.e. homeland, heritage, lineage) connected to concrete places in nature and thus made physically tangible or sensually vivid? How are sites of nature (i.e. forest, desert, ocean) artistically orchestrated or functionalised argumentatively? How are discourse and certain themes imagined, visualised, metaphorised, narrativised or embodied as natural sites? How can these and other transformations be explored in historical material?

The aim of the conference is to discover, describe and interpret the ‘different’ aesthetics of natural sites in all their richness and diversity.

Downloads: Conference programme, Poster, Conference report

International Conference: Dream, Hallucination, Phantasmagoria. A ‘Different’ Aesthetics of the Demonic from the 17^th to the 19^th century / Rêve, Hallucination, Fantasmagorie. Une esthétique « autre » du démoniaque du XVII^e au XIX^e siècle

The international and interdisciplinary conference seeks to examine transformations of demonic illusion from the early modern area to the 19^th century. Expanding on three figures of aesthetic reflection – dream, hallucination and phantasmagoria – the conference will analyse texts, media practices and academic discourses to explore a ‘different’ aesthetics of the fantastical. The focus will be on the fields of literature, psychology and popular media.

Downloads: Conference programme, Poster

International Conference: Fragilité. Aesthetic trends in the 18^th century

In 18^th-century France, there was a particular emphasis on fragile forms of artistic expression: pastels, plaster casts and terracotta, but also glasswork and porcelain. At the same time, délicatesse, finesse and sensibilité were key categories in the art literature of the period. The aim of the conference is to trace a media history of fragilité, to develop it through exemplary case studies and in the context of art theory, art criticism and art literature, thereby incorporating a broader spectrum of contexts. The topics will be examined under key aspects such as liminality, vulnerability, materiality, production aesthetics, and socio-cultural and political change in a convergence of autological and heterological dimensions.

Interdisciplinary Conference: Building bridges – Metaphors and Symbols at the Interface between Literary Studies and Linguistics

Metaphors and symbols have long been a central means of expression in literature and in everyday language. Time and again, they also appear in contexts characterised by aesthetic aspirations and functions. The abundance of theories and approaches in German linguistics and literary studies attests to the relevance of both concepts – although a cooperation between literary studies and linguistics has remained marginal up until this point. This is where the conference comes in, exploring linguistic and literary considerations of metaphors and symbols, and aiming to build bridges between the two fields. The conference will highlight, classify, compare and discuss existing approaches and concepts, thus fundamentally questioning what metaphors and symbols are. Moreover, it will examine a wide variety of interfaces, including metaphors and symbols in contexts of literature, philosophy, language and politics. The programme will then conclude with a look at the aesthetic potential of metaphors and symbols.

Downloads: Conference programme, Poster

International and Interdisciplinary Conference: Music and Eighteenth-Century Spa Culture. Medicine – Recreation – Mobility

In the communication and interaction space of public baths and spa towns, music can be experienced, is performed and consumed. The balneo-musical interaction space emerges in the dynamic interplay of applied dietetics, artistic performance, social communication and theoretical reflection. While it is present in the history of medicine, art and literature, balneology is a neglected field in musicological research. The conference aim is to investigate musical activities and experiences in the spa towns – in eighteenth-century Europe and beyond – from an autological and heterological perspective. The interactions between practical dietetics, social convention, artistic performance and aesthetic reflection will be analysed. The paper sessions will focus on three central themes: 1) Spa Cultures, Leisure Towns, and Medicine; 2) Musical Manifestations in the Spa; and 3) Transcultural Connections and Mobility. A public concert with specialists for baroque music and instruments will add a more practical perspective. Set in a venue whose architecture is reminiscent of Bath itself, the ensemble will resound music from eighteenth-century England. The concert invites a broader public to reflect on the subject of the conference.

Downloads: Conference programme, Poster, Concert programme

Young Scholars’ Conference: Turning Old into NEW!? The Aesthetics of Re-Use and Creativity

Making new out of old? This concept has not only proved relevant today in terms of sustainability and recycling, but was also present in premodern times. Text passages were re-assembled, printing blocks (sometimes modified) re-used, buildings were and still are remodelled, music infused with counterfactuals. Re-use is an everyday occurrence in the premodern arts, serving as a fundamental principle both in a material and a formal respect. This conference pursues the idea that re-use is not mere imitation. It is neither uninspired nor unoriginal – quite the contrary: re-use is regarded as a creative practice that may even require a level of expertise. It involves an appropriate replication and reworking of images, texts, sounds and knowledge. Rather than beginning with the concept of ‘genius’ and (new) creation, we assume poetic continuation, variation and (re-)invention. Rather than devaluing instances of re-use in the premodern era, we seek to emphasise their creative execution – turning old into new!
The premodern appreciation of all types of re-use can serve as a backdrop for analysing repetition and its continued appeal. Even today, when re-use has taken on an entirely new dimension: AI takes images and texts that circulate the internet and, according to the user’s specifications, arranges them in a different, unusual, new way. With this, images are automatically generated, texts are summarised, knowledge is recompiled and reproduced. But is AI creative? Is repetition simply the interplay of pre-existing elements? And if so, how are we to interpret plagiarism?

Downloads: Conference programme, Call for Papers (German)

International Conference: Precarious Aesthetics. Body metaphors as vehicle for divine appearance

In mysticism, it is often corporeal forms of representation that contribute to the aesthetic character of the texts. They attempt to concretise the appearance of the divine to make it ‘tangible’. However, any attempt to concretise the appearance of God in this way must remain problematic. The divine not only transcends any linguistic manifestation, but also every concretising concept. These forms of representation become ‘precarious’ especially when they exert such a power of fascination in their respective materialisations that the interest in the intangible divine threatens to fade into the background. In that sense, corporeal representations in particular prove to be borderlines that often imply complex aesthetic negotiations. The interdisciplinary and international conference of project C3 aims to analyse such borderlines. Based on textual sources from different mystical traditions in various religions, the conference aims to open up interreligious and transcultural approaches to the topic of body metaphors as vehicle for divine appearances.

Downloads: Conference programme, Poster

International Conference: Theory and Practice of a Regulator in Rhetoric, Linguistics and Literary Studies

This international, interdisciplinary conference grapples with the dynamic, multifaceted concept of appropriateness (prépon / aptum / decorum). Lectures in linguistics, rhetoric and literary and cultural studies will span the period from antiquity to modernity, discussing the influence, particularities and transformations of this concept. Appropriateness is considered a guiding principle for the production, performance and reception of texts, but also encompasses other areas and can thus be viewed as a standard for all sorts of human activity. The conference will investigate how this standard has been formulated and negotiated within many different text types. It will also consider how norms of appropriate behaviour and speech are communicated, what role different cultural contexts play and where the line is drawn between an acceptable and an indecent breach of appropriateness.

Downloads: Conference programme, Call for Papers (German)

International Conference: Diagrams in Dialogue. Visual Configurations and their Contexts

The conference represents a cooperation between the DFG/FWF-project ‘History as a Visual Concept. Peter of Poiters' Compendium historiae’ with the research project B4, CRC 1391 Different Aesthetics and the Centre of Premodern Europe (ZVE, Zentrum Vormodernes Europa). 

Diagrams as media for understanding philosophical, mathematical, and scientific concepts have played a significant role in multiple histories: the history of ideas, the history of science, the history of visualization. But diagrams have also had their own history independent of the disciplines they have served over the centuries. Between the textual and pictorial, diagrams enable ways of thinking beyond text and picture. Their visual and abstract character is suited not only to mapping and modelling, but also to symbolizing abstractions, such as infinity and perfection. And yet, the allure of symmetry and geometry can derail these purposes. Often found decoupled from text, diagrams thus tend to acquire figural features or attract diagrammatic companions. In turn, collections of diagrams became works in their own right. A widespread phenomenon in the medieval Latin west, the clustering and proliferating of diagrams reveals much about methods of production and reproduction, as well as about imagination and re-imagination, throughout the Middle Ages. This conference investigates how medieval diagrams, in dialogue with one another, begat new conceptual and aesthetic paradigms. Speaking to more than how diagrams map out space, time, and elusive philosophical and theological concepts, these contributions address how likely and unlikely pairings, copies and miscopies, as well as material and pictorial interventions have changed history.

Downloads: Conference programme, Poster

International Conference: Change in Aesthetics and Elite Interaction in the Greek World between the 6^th and 5^th century BC

Scholars have long drawn connections between the social and political transformations between the late archaic and classical periods and the stylistic changes in the visual representation of human beings (and anthropomorphic gods) that took place at the same time. While systematic discussions of this problem have long been the exception, recent years have seen the emergence of a sustained debate on the topic. While some scholars vigorously affirm the connection between socio-political developments and aesthetic changes during this period and point, others emphasize the internal logics of artistic production and regard social, political, and cultural developments as secondary factors. A third group rejects any direct connection between aesthetic and political change but accepts longer-term socio-cultural developments as drivers of stylistic transformations. Consensus on the question has not yet emerged.
Our conference aims to forge a new path in this debate by inviting participants to reflect on what we consider to be a central aspect of the problem: the relationship between personal elite interaction, the aesthetic practices that characterized these interactions, and the changing modes of visual representations of human beings in sculpture and vase painting. We focus on elite interaction because of the important role the personal, face-to-face interaction played in the socio-political life within Greek communities of the age. Aesthetic practices played a major role in negotiations about influence and status. In contrast, there is the aesthetic logic of the production of artefacts: Although the production and illustration of symposium ceramics, for example, or the specific design of statuary sculpture cannot be thought of independently of their concrete cultural contexts, the question nevertheless arises as to whether the particularities and changes in form and style can be explained by seemingly obvious political transformations, or whether this does not at least partially fail to recognise the complexity of the connection between the specific design of visual media, the changing use of objects and socio-political practice. The conference will therefore have to consider socio-political, cultural and art autonomous factors in equal measure.

Downloads: Conference programme, Poster

International Conference: Literature and Art 'for occasions'. Continuities and Transformations in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

Occasional poetry and occasional speeches have fundamentally shaped text production in the German language since the early 17th century. At the same time, the question of artistically valid practices of writing, speaking and publishing 'upon occasion' came into the focus of aesthetic discourse. This relationship shifted towards the end of the 18th century, as the increasing autonomy of the literary field coincided with the growing attractiveness and programmatic development of aesthetics based on genius and autonomy. From the perspective of educational history, the rhetorical and compositional paradigms of classical language teaching receded in the face of instruction in modern German. As a result, the institutional entrenchment of occasional literature was reduced, so that it occupied a niche in aesthetic discourse and gradually lost prestige.
Nevertheless, the crisis of the rhetorical paradigm in no way signifies the end of occasional literature. The monumental Handbuch des personalen Gelegenheitsschrifttums in 31 volumes (2001-2013) shows that the production of occasional lyric poetry increased in some German-speaking areas towards the end of the 18th century. This results in a disconnect between theory and practice, which potentially challenges accepted divisions of different periods in literary history. In other words, the exploration of continuities and changes in occasional literature over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries promises a wealth of new literary-historical insights and re-evaluations.

Downloads: Conference programme, Call for Papers

International Conference: The Aesthetic Vocabulary of the Premodern Era. New Approaches to Historical Semantics

The CRC 1391 Different Aesthetics explores the aesthetics of texts, pictures and objects of pre-modern Europe. Project B3 is dedicated to the semantics of the aesthetic in German literature of the Middle Ages. It assumes that the vocabulary with which texts attempt to grasp their own origin, design or effect forms an access point to contemporary understandings of the aesthetic. For this reason, the project would like to compile such lexemes as are relevant in the context of literary self-description and explore their aesthetic meaning. Within the framework of the CRC 1391 Different Aesthetics, the aim is to evaluate the extent to which aesthetic semantics in medieval and early modern texts refer to the autological, creative as well as to the heterological, social dimension of acts and artefacts. According to the proffered hypothesis, this is where a specificity in pre-modern aesthetic vocabulary might be located.
The conference “The Aesthetic Vocabulary of the Premodern Era. New Approaches to Historical Semantics” takes this hypothesis as a starting point. Given the approach and aims of the CRC 1391, we hope to broaden the range of source texts and passages studied so far, for example to include ‘Gebrauchstexte’ (‘functional texts’). It is also important to expand our understanding of the duality of autology and heterology on various levels. Therefore, the conference would like to examine words, word combinations, parts of speech, concepts, as well as types of texts, which particularly navigate the dynamic exchange between the autological creative form and heterological social pragmatism. To ensure a concise discussion and a speedy publication of the articles, the conference will be held after pre-circulating the papers. This means that contributions will be sent to all participants in advance so that the conference can be entirely concerned with discussion.

Downloads: Conference programme, Poster, Call for Papers

International Conference: The Menorah and the Seven-branched Candelabrum. Jewish and Christian Manifestations in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods

In both Jewish and Christian traditions, the Menorah plays a prominent role as an iconic artefact in medieval and early modern art and thought. As an implement of the Tabernacle as well as of Solomon’s Temple, its outstanding importance in the religious and national life of the Israelites is evident in the Hebrew Bible. After the destruction of the Temple, it became the quintessential symbol of the Jewish people — both in the Land of Israel and throughout the Diaspora. Christians, for their part, regarded the Tabernacle and Temple as prefigurations of the Church; the Menorah thus figures prominently in Christian exegesis and iconography as well. Since Carolingian times, seven-branched candelabra made of bronze or brass were placed in churches. The installation of such artefacts raises questions about their spatial aesthetics and liturgical and performative functions as well as the “Christian Menorah” as adaption or appropriation.

Downloads: Conference programme, Poster

International Conference: The Politics of Female Divinity in the Hellenistic Period

Downloads: Conference programme, Poster

International Conference: The Poetics of Greek Ekphrasis

Hellenistic Ekphrasis operates through a tension between word art and visual art. Well-known works of art, such as Myron's cow statue or Praxiteles' statue of Aphrodite, which were depicted several times during this period and through different media, were also repeatedly described and addressed in Hellenistic epigrams. The descriptions in these epigrams aim less at a detailed representation of the objects than at the aesthetic effects on and reflections of the perceiving subject (e.g. perception, attention, wonder, alienation, judgment). The reflections developed here represent a 'different' aesthetic in the sense of the CRC, insofar as they negotiate implicit aesthetic concepts (i.e. those reflected in the poetic texts themselves), techniques and modes.

Downloads: Conference programme, Poster

International Conference: Im Bad wöll wir recht fröhlich sein. Bath and Spa Music in the Early Modern Period

This interdisciplinary and international conference, including presentations and roundtables/workshops, aims to shed light on bathing and spa music in the communicative and interactive space of the public bath. This shall be investigated through the discussion of applied dietetics, artistic practice, reflective theory, as well as social and confessional communication, as reflected in text, image and sheet music. Due to the parameters of project A4, the focus shall be on the early modern period and on the German-speaking area; more comprehensive perspectives are welcome.

Downloads: Conference programme, Poster,  Call for Papers

International Conference: Demonology of Illusion. Semantics, Epistemology, Performance

The focus of the conference is the aesthetic potential of the illusio daemoniaca, i.e. an illusion caused by demons, which offers a 'different' prehistory for the concept of aesthetic illusion as it developed over the course of the 18th century. Based on demonological treatises (mainly from France and Germany), the conference traces the complex processes of demonological-aesthetic reflection in the fields of semantics, epistemology and performance. The conceptual fields of illusion (Latin praestigiae, fascinatio, French charme, prestige, etc.), formation and the interaction between pragmatic, narrative and dramatic texts (episteme) will be analysed, as well as the staging of demonic-aesthetic illusion in narrative texts and in the theatre (performance).

Downloads: Conference programme, Poster

Colloquium to mark the 60th birthday of Prof. Dr. Annette Gerok-Reiter on the topic "Textuality, Mediality, Performativity: On the aesthetic energy of medieval lyric"

The colloquium explores the 'aesthetic energy of medieval lyric', which is generated at the intersection of the inherent logic of the aesthetic textual artefact or performative act (autology) and its social integration and functionalization (heterology). Within the triad of textuality, mediality and performativity, the contributions aim to address the characteristic interplay of semantic density and ambiguity, of intra- and intertextual polyphony, of rhythm, sound and rhyme, of carrier medium, text and music, of body and voice that is found in medieval lyric. In doing so, the colloquium addresses Annette Gerok-Reiter’s research interests and the topics currently being addressed within the Tübingen CRC 1391 ‘Different Aesthetics’, which is generously supporting the event. Lectures will be given by Susanne Köbele (Zürich), Almut Suerbaum (Oxford) and Franz-Josef Holznagel (Rostock), three distinguished specialists in the field of medieval aesthetics and poetry. The evening lecture by the poet and medievalist Alexander Rudolph / Tristan Marquardt (Munich) will undertake an artistic-scientific approach to the dynamic exchange between literary studies and poetry.

Downloads: Programme

International Conference: Beautiful and Pure? – Standardization and Aesthetics in Linguistic Purism of the Early Modern Period

At the centre of this international and interdisciplinary conference are the socio-cultural conditions surrounding and interactions between individual European language purisms of the early modern period. At this time, the debate about 'pure language' was absorbed into a variety of standardization models which, due to different ideas of the (im-)pure and (un-) beautiful, stood in competition with one another. They form the theoretical foundation of institutionally anchored language and identity politics, which has affected all of Europe in different ways.

The conference examines standardization processes and debates around linguistic purism in Italy, France and Germany. These will be used to discuss how autological and heterological instances intertwine in different discourse and genre traditions - from language treatises, poetics, grammars and dictionaries to letters, translations and satirical texts. Specific practices, institutions and individuals within language standardization will be examined, as well as metaphors of language purity and/or purification.

Downloads: Conference programme, Poster, Call for Papers