Special Lectures

'Eine Geschichte der ästhetischen Theorie im Angesicht aktueller Fragestellungen innerhalb und außerhalb der Künste'

'Was die Gegenwartsästhetik von der Vormoderne lernen kann’

The onset of an aesthetics of autonomy in the late 18th century led to a significant increase in the social value of art. In the German-speaking world in particular, art became imbued with utopian aspirations and stark truths, while its possibilities were simultaneously curtailed. Therefore, looking back to the time before an aesthetics of autonomy can help us to rediscover old forms of articulation. The special lecture will discuss and expand upon this thesis using a personal poem.

Special Lecture by Prof. Dr. Georg Bertram (FU Berlin)

'Kunst als Improvisation auf menschliche Praktiken – eine andere Rekonstruktion ästhetischer Differenz'

The lecture grapples with the question of what it means for people to reflect on other practices through art. The thesis put forward is that ‘reflection’ in this context should be understood as an improvisational endeavour: art provides open-ended impulses for the further development of other practices (whereby these impulses are themselves subject to critical evaluation). Such an understanding of art allows for a reconstruction of aesthetic difference that understands art in its autonomy not as separate from other practices, but as connected to them – in the sense that it generates open-ended impulses for these practices’ further development.

Downloads: Poster

Special Lecture by Prof. Dr. Avinoam Shalem (Columbia University, New York City)

'Ut ekphrasis pictura: When Words Take Shape in Sir John Chardin’s Drawings of Muhammad’s Tomb in Mecca'

Violence might involve the fixation of our memorized images in words, because, as Italo Calvino says: “once fixed in words, they are erased”. The continuing defamation of the imagined image of the prophet Muhammad in Europe, and the imagined descriptions of holy spaces associated with Him, like the Haram in Mecca and His tomb in Medina, became topoi. Fixed in words, these images were not necessarily erased but rather function as tools and strategies of rhetoric. At the focus of this study are two drawings from the ex-collection of the Londoner writer and gardener John Evelyn (1620-1706). They display the earliest European renditions of the imaginary ground plan of the sacred enclosure of Mecca. Deepening into Calvino’s sense of violence of erasure that involves representations, namely into the specific process when the object of our imagined or memorized image is made visible, either by words or by drawings, I would like to contemplate on late medieval and early modern representations of Mecca in European art as a visual sphere, in which the memorized image is lost and novel visual presence appear.

Special Lecture by Prof. Dr. Ittai Weinryb (Bard Graduate Center, New York City)

'Toward Mercantile Aesthetics: Rethinking Distance, Difference, and Design'

The lecture is set to explore the rise of mercantilism in proto-capitalist Europe as a way for us to reconsider medieval and early modern aesthetic thinking. Examples from the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea, will help uncover how newly discovered fetishistic notions regarding image and thing, helped generate new aesthetic categories based on perception not grounded in philosophical or theological scholasticism.

Special Lecture by Prof. em. Dr. Kaspar Maase

‘Auf der Suche nach einer ‚anderen Ästhetik‘ im Alltag: Empirische Kulturforschung im Feld des Schönen’

The presentation will outline fundamental elements of empirical-cultural methodology for researching and characterising everyday aesthetic phenomena. At the core of this research lies the question: What do systems of aesthetic value and practical uses of aesthetics look like for ‘normal people’? What do people do to enjoy the gratification of aesthetic experience? Such an approach raises substantial theoretical and practical research questions. With reference to John Dewey and Antoine Hennion, a model of aesthetic interactions will be introduced which helps pursue these topics. Ultimately, the question becomes: to what extent can the relativisation of positions of aesthetic autonomy be attributed to almost ‘cultural-revolutionary’ changes in the aesthetic landscape of modern societies, and to the ‘aestheticisation of everyday life’ in particular?

Downloads: Poster

Special Lecture by Prof. Dr. Lara Harb (Princeton University)

'The Aesthetic as a Form of Knowledge in Classical Arabic Thought'

Literary aesthetics in classical Arabic literary theory and poetics were tightly intertwined with processes of gaining knowledge: the aesthetic was defined by an experience of discovery. This experience, which is associated with the pleasures of wonder, could be an end in and of itself. However, given its link to discovery, it also had a role in communicating knowledge. Thus, far from being dispensable embellishment, the literary arts were instrumental in communicating knowledge ranging from the profane and philosophical to the religious and mystical. By looking at Arabic works of literary theory and philosophy mainly from the ninth to the twelfth century, this talk will explore the added value of the aesthetic as conceived in Arabic and its implications on the shape of poetry and narrative prose in classical Arabic literature.

Special Lecture by Prof. Dr. Jürgen Trabant (FU Berlin)

'Fatto dagli uomini: vom Menschen gemacht. Giambattista Vicos Philosophie des Selbstgemachten'

With his philosophy of the man-made world, Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) challenges the whole of European thought, which has so far only been concerned with the natural world. There are two types of human creation, poiesis and praxis, whose manifestations Vico discloses in a grand construction of world history. Poetic and political or practical creation go hand in hand. The skills of the craftsman (techne, ars) who knows how his produce is manufactured turn into the assured knowledge that the world is self-made and thus into science. Being an alternative to mainstream thought, this kind of science is new: Scienza nuova (1730/1744). Therefore, Vico’s philosophy, at the same time aesthetical and practical, develops an approach which could be worth considering for the CRC Different Aesthetics.

Downloads: Poster

Special Lecture by Prof. Dr. Nicola Suthor (Yale University)

'Die Heterologie der Skizze in der Fruehen Neuzeit'

The sketch, in its quickly executed sparse lines, holds two great promises; it should manifest the artist’s thought processes and inner being. However, the assumption of the material line’s ‘agency’, as defined by modern drawing practices and theories, does not hold for the early modern period because this assumption imbues the line with intellectual and spiritual capacities. The fluidity of the artistic handiwork in line sketches is often presented as the source of inspiration, without taking into account that this supposed naturalness is not a given, but carefully crafted. It is the result of intensive study and a process which is then reflected in the line. At the same time, such an approach obscures the centrality of the material line and undermines the interior imagination which the early modern sketch particularly makes concrete. This lecture seeks to provide a theory within which the sketched line could be viewed as the medium for the translation of inner images. By using some sketches as examples, it will also specifically determine how the engrammatic lines emerging here provide indirect access to the artist's imaginative world.

Downloads: Poster

Special Lecture by Prof. Dr. Klaus Müller-Wille (Universität Zürich)

'Mit dem Buch denken. Asger Jorns ästhetische Praxis'

Asger Jorn is primarily known as one of the most important Danish painters of the twentieth century, whose abstract expressionist paintings were often imbued with hints of a wildly primitive and anarchic gesture. The primal creativity of savages, children and lunatics has often been quoted as inspiration. However, in recent decades his programmatic involvement with various new post-war avant-gardes has been brought to the fore, spanning from the foundation of the CoBrA group to the initiation of the Bauhaus Imaginiste to the expansion of the International Situationist Movement. Despite this, his extensive works on aesthetics have gone largely unnoticed. This lecture will explore two works - Held og hasard (1952; Salvation and chance) and Pour la forme (1958). It will outline the relevance of Jorn’s theories to the theses of the CRC. To this end, emphasis will be placed on the interaction between book design and theoretic argumentation, between aesthetic theory and practice.

Downloads: Poster

Special Lecture by Dr. Hanno Rauterberg (Deputy Head, Feuilleton Department, DIE ZEIT, Hamburg)

'Parting with the Ego. On the Aesthetics of the General in Digital Modernity'

Thanks to digital technologies, both image production and image distribution are being democratised. The idea of the original is losing significance, the question of authorship is receding into the background, and the ideal of an individual, unmistakable creation is also eroding. For art, this is not without consequences. While high technology is driving an emergent folk art on the internet, the classical art world is following transhumanist fantasies of fusion, in which the artist's ego is replaced by collective ideas. The old concept of autonomy no longer seems relevant to the emerging aesthetics of the general. The ideals of transcendence and redemption once associated with art are projected onto the artifically intelligent machine, which alone is still assigned the role of genius. In a post-autonomy era, it is the different aesthetics of technology which are seen to hold the ultimate promise. 

Downloads: Poster

Special Lecture by Prof. Dr. Melanie Wald-Fuhrmann (Max-Planck-Institute, Frankfurt a. M.)

'Säfte, Nerven, Oszillationen: Theorien zu biologischen Grundlagen ästhetischen Erlebens und Wertens von Musik von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart'

One aspect that distinguishes pre-modern musical aesthetics from those of the modern age is their close connection to contemporary medical knowledge. Starting with Plato's ethics, the physical and psychological effects of music, as well as differences in tastes and evaluations, are traced back to biological mechanisms. On the one hand, this results in ethically based, functional applications for music, for example in education and in the context of state and religious ceremonies. On the other hand, it also provides norms for the composition and performance of music. With the emergence of psychology as a field of scientific study at the end of the 19th century, these debates were reopened and now form a well-known strand within psychologically oriented empirical aesthetics, or so-called neuroaesthetics. In this lecture, the history of biological aesthetics will be presented using selected examples, and the aesthetic norms derived from this approach will be critically examined.

Downloads: Poster

Special Lecture by Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Erika Fischer-Lichte (FU Berlin)

'Transformationsästhetiken'

The talk mainly focusses on the hypothesis that aesthetic perception (aisthesis) and experience can cause the person in question to enter into a state of liminality which is capable of bringing about a transformation.

The talk takes as its starting point rituals and other types of performances which can lead to different kinds of transformations. The latter shall be discussed in relation to relevant European as well as non-European theorizations of the aesthetic. In this way, a specific understanding of the term of ‘the aesthetic’ is to be developed.

Downloads: Poster

Special Lecture by Prof. Dr. Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin/University of Münster)

'Ars militaris: Militär als ästhetische Praxis im 18. Jahrhundert'

In the standard reference work Der vollkommene Teutsche Soldat from 1726, war is understood as a precisely predictable event within the framework of ceremony, and the art of war is conceived of as an ars strictly governed by rules. The rule books of the time reveal striking similarities between military exercises on the one hand and courtly ballet and ceremonial on the other. What these disciplines had in common was that they each followed the rules of geometry. In both cases, an important concern was aesthetic perfection, which as an ideal, however, proved to be a hindrance on the battlefield.

Using the example of the so-called „Soldatenkönig“ (Soldier King) Frederick William I of Prussia, the talk pursues the question of how aesthetic concerns became independent from practical concerns in the military around 1700, before the „art of war“ then stopped being „art“ in the 19th century.

Downloads: Poster

Special Lecture by Prof. Dr. Christian Kiening (University of Zurich)

'Ästhetik und Pragmatik der Zeit im 16. Jahrhundert'

The lecture discusses two central tendencies of the intellectual, cultural and literary history of time in the 16th century: the trend of increasingly dealing with time as an aesthetic phenomenon as well as the trend of approaching questions on temporality with measurable dimensions or dimensions concerning everyday life or one’s own life span. By using examples from Jörg Wickram, Pontus de Tyard and others, the connections between these two tendencies will be analysed. Regarding the relationship between form of appearance and form of reflection as well as the praxeological dimension of the aesthetic, the lecture also touches upon programmatic aspects of the CRC 1391.

Downloads: Poster

Special Lecture by Prof. Dr. Mireille Schnyder (University of Zurich)

'Die Kunst des Wahns und die Ästhetik der Wirklichkeit'

In her talk, Mireille Schnyder takes up approaches from the CRC’s research programme and tries to connect them to other perspectives of a ‘different’ aesthetics within the Christian medieval context. Her starting point is the Old French Roman de la Rose, one of the most influential works of the 13th century. As she would like to show by bringing up the example of glass (as material, mirror and metaphor), materiality, technology and the conceptualization of perceptual processes are closely interwoven – an observation which is central to her considerations and which points to the CRC’s principal concept of figures of aesthetic reflection. At the same time, although this point is not elaborated on immediately, the implication is that the sensation of wonder can also be viewed as a figure of aesthetic reflection. Prof. Schnyder would like to elucidate the fact that ‘different’ aesthetics can be determined or at least adumbrated by means of these figures of reflection and puts forward the idea of an art of delusion and an aesthetics of reality.

Special Lecture by Prof. Dr. Barbara Schellewald (University of Basel)

'Monumentale Bildtechnik(en) im 12. Jahrhundert und ihre expliziten und impliziten Referenzen auf die Betrachter'

As its starting point, the talk takes the painting of the Church of St. Panteleimon in Nerezi (near Skopje) which was executed in 1164, originating from aristocratic circles. To date, research has focused especially on the commissioners, and the most striking feature of the images – the fact that the viewer is confronted, in the centre, with large-scale formats clearly designed to stir their empathy – has mainly been linked to theological and liturgical texts. The talk, however, will acknowledge that the materiality and the dominant aesthetic discourses also play a central role in making the images what they are. This leads to the question of how autological and heterological dimensions – a central element of the research programme of the CRC 1391 – relate to each other, which the talk shall discuss in order to develop an adequate interpretation.

Downloads: Poster

Special Lecture by Prof. Dr. Jürgen Trabant (FU Berlin)

'Fatto dagli uomini: vom Menschen gemacht. Giambattista Vicos Philosophie des Selbstgemachten'

With his philosophy of the man-made world, Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) challenges the whole of European thought, which has so far only been concerned with the natural world. There are two types of human creation, poiesis and praxis, whose manifestations Vico discloses in a grand construction of world history. Poetic and political or practical creation go hand in hand. The skills of the craftsman (techne, ars) who knows how his produce is manufactured turn into the assured knowledge that the world is self-made and thus into science. Being an alternative to mainstream thought, this kind of science is new: Scienza nuova (1730/1744). Therefore, Vico’s philosophy, at the same time aesthetical and practical, develops an approach which could be worth considering for the CRC Different Aesthetics.

Downloads: Poster

Special Lecture by Prof. Dr. Silke Leopold (University of Heidelberg)

'Tafelmusik. Musikalisches und Kulinarisches in der Vormoderne – und was das  Konzept der Anderen Ästhetik zu ihrem Verständnis beitragen kann'

With the help of selected musical sources (for example J.H. Schein, Banchetto musicale, H.I.F. Biber, Mensa sonora, G.P. Telemann, Tafelmusik), descriptions of festivities (such as the Burgundian Feast of the Pheasant), cookery books including documentations of banquets (such as Cristoforo di Messisbugo) as well as pictorial sources (such as Joachim von Sandrart, Friedensmahl in Nürnberg), the talk will reflect on the question of how the model of a ‘Different Aesthetics’ can help to avoid the dichotomy between ‘Kunstmusik’ (art music) and ‘Gebrauchsmusik’ (functional music), which is rather well-established in musicology.

Special Lecture by Prof. Dr. Adrian Stähli (Harvard University)

title: as yet unknown.

Special Lecture by Prof. Dr. Andreas Kablitz (University of Cologne)

'Ästhetik als Reflexion und Gestaltung von Welt'