Working Groups

The conceptual work of the CRC is promoted by working groups of different formats, especially by those focusing on the cross-sectional topics ‘Canonisation and Revision’, ‘Re-use and Creativity’ and ‘Object and Performance’. Each member of the CRC contributes to one of the cross-sectional topics. The cross-sectional working groups seek to determine and theoretically validate the ‘coordinates’ of a different aesthetics. On this basis, each cross-sectional working group prepares a CRC conference in which the proposed ‘coordinates’ are put up for discussion.

Second funding phase

Cross-sectional Topic 'Object and Performance'

Chair: Ulrich Barton, Iris Brahms and Cristina Murer

This cross-sectional topic deals with the field of tension between object and performance, investigating objects (acts and artefacts) both with regard to their self-logic (materiality, mediality and processual nature) and with regard to their firm entrenchment in social practices (performance, performativity), whilst paying greater attention to the heterological dimension.

Annual conference: 25.–27. June 2026

Cross-sectional Topic 'Re-use and Creativity'

Chair: Jörg Robert, Jan Stellmann, Thomas Thiemeyer, Andrea Worm and Thalia Vollstedt

This cross-sectional topic deals with aesthetic practices of re-use, which were omnipresent and highly relevant in the pre-modern arts but have long been devalued, especially in relation to notions of creativity and innovation associated with aesthetic autonomy (newness, invention, genius). Recent scholarship has focalised re-use as a principle of artistic production, particularly in the pre-modern era. The cross-sectional topic analyses practices of re-use which stand in tension with concepts of newness and the unprecedented. It determines their role in the constitution of a ‘different’ aesthetics.

Annual conference: 26.–28. June 2025

Cross-sectional Topic 'Canonisation and Revision'

Chair: Katharina Fezer and Johannes Lipps

The cross-sectional topic ‘Canonisation and Revision’ addresses the three focal points of canonisation – mostly handled separately in scholarship on the subject – from a new perspective. The topic investigates the pre-modern production of canons, as well as the later reception of the pre-modern era in relation to this production. In doing so, it specifically enquires into the correlations between these aspects, their historical convergences and differences and their consequences for the academic history.

Annual conference: 4.–6. July 2024

Smaller working groups supplement the work within the cross-sectional topics. They are more like workshops resulting from questions and issues raised by individual projects or resulting from cooperations between projects. They address basic questions or explore new perspectives on the concepts informing the CRC.

Idea Lab

The Idea Lab aims to open-endedly reflect on, refine and further develop the theoretical, methodological founding of the CRC Different Aesthetics. It takes on the following tasks:

Conceptual development with attention to terminology
Reflection on methodology
Reception and evaluation of the aesthetic in scientific history

First funding phase

cross-sectional topic 'Materiality and Mediality'

Chair: Jan Stellmann and Daniela Wagner

The cross-sectional topic discusses questions of materiality and mediality, taking praxeological approaches into account. It aims at making comprehensible the productivity of materials and media that unfolds in aesthetic acts and artefacts.

Annual conference: 2.–4. March 2022

cross-sectional topic 'Norm and Diversity'

Chair: Sandra Linden and Sarah Dessì Schmid

This cross-sectional topic deals with the question of how acts, artefacts and practices relate to norms – a central issue for a ‘different aesthetics’. We address this question by pursuing three main strands: 1) respect for the canon, 2) transgression of the canon, 3) formation of the canon.

Annual conference: 11.–13. November 2021

Cross-sectional Topic 'Individual and Collective'

Chair: Angelika Zirker

The cross-sectional topic ‘Individual and Collective’ is concerned with the relation of the single author/creator and a community as manifest in aesthetic acts and artefacts, both in their production and reception.

Annual conference: 12.–14. November 2020

Seminar in Aesthetic Theory

Chair: Marion Darilek and Anna Katharina Heiniger

Digital reading group

Dr. Falaschi (SNS Pisa) is offering a digital reading group covering Pliny the Elder and his monumental work Naturalis Historia. The focus of the collective reading will be the so-called “stone books” (NH 33-37), with the central enquiry being: what is the function of art within the framework of natural history? The text will be provided in two languages (Latin-German or Latin-English) before the session.

Dates: 14.05.2021, 21.05.2021, 04.06.2021, 11.06.2021, 18.06.2021, 25.06.2021 from 2pm to 6pm
Location: online via Zoom, please register by email: stefania.cecerespam prevention@uni-tuebingen.de
Languages: German, Italian, English

Workgroup on Aesthetics

In the ‘Workgroup on Aesthetics’ the CRC 1391 discusses fundamental aesthetic questions. In three sessions during the summer semester 2021, associated members will lead discussion on the following topics:
Monday, 17.05.2021, 4pm–6pm: Dietmar Till: Rhetoricism - Poetics - Aesthetics
Monday, 07.06.2021, 2pm–4pm: Jörg Robert: Aesthetics and Autonomy
Monday, 28.06.2021, 4pm–6pm: Annette Gerok-Reiter: Aesthetics and Knowledge

Location: Online via Zoom

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