Research Area 3: Cultural Transformation and Performativity Studies
The Research Area 3: Cultural Transformation and Performativity currently explores the tension between the body as a theoretical concept and embodiment as a (lived) practice.
PROGRAM
In the past two terms (winter semester 2023/2024 and summer semester 2024), we have engaged with phenomenological conceptualizations of bodies and practices of embodiment. In the winter semester 2024/2025, we will start our exploration of affect. In the following summer semester 2025, we will study the topic of embodied resistance.
SCHEDULE
Winter Semester 2024/2025
November 2024: Theories of Affect (Spinoza, Deleuze, Massumi) – Paul Kaletsch
Readings:
Spinoza: Ethics (https://justfind.hds.hebis.de/Record/HEB462498727) Pages: 123-133 and 161-178 (or Book 2 "Of the Nature and Origin of the Mind" From Proposition 13 up to and including Proposition 18, and Book 3 "Of the Origin and Nature of the Affects" Beginning up to and including Proposition 20)
Deleuze: https://deleuze.cla.purdue.edu/lecture/lecture-07-0/ (Seventh Lecture of his Seminar on Spinoza: The Velocities of Thought, 20 January 1981)
Massumi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1354446 (The Autonomy of Affect)
December 2024: The Affective Turn – Emilio Aguas Rodríguez
January 2025: Performativity and Affect – Burcu Bacanak Sahin
February 2025: Resistance and Affect – Hatunnur Ciftci
Each session will be chaired by a different RA member and we will discuss freely based on several texts. We will provide a selection of preparatory materials. Just read whatever you find interesting or suits your research interests! Contact us in case you would like to suggest texts (academic/non-fiction/fiction) or videos, lectures, movies, and so forth. We are planning on organizing an event on affective resistance at the end of the semester, in the break, or at the start of the summer semester 2025. If you would like to help, participate, or share your thoughts, please reach out.
DESCRIPTION
The area primarily discusses readings, movies, artworks, or other media/cultural products together.
During term times we usually meet once a month on a Monday. If you’re interested, please check out our channel on Mattermost or reach out to Paul (634248@soas.ac.uk).
Participants: Paul Kaletsch (speaker), Burcu Bacanak Sahin (co-speaker), Emilio Aguas Rodríguez, Hatunnur Ciftci, Onur Karaköse, Dr. Deborah Aline de Muijnck, Antonia Jungwirth, Julia Latzel
DISCUSSION SERIES: AMBIVALENT AESTHETICS
Beate Absalon and Juliane Saupe are running the Discussion Series “Ambivalent Aesthetics. Sexual Culture and its (re)presentations”. This discussion series is associated with the RA but decentrally organized by Beate (beate.absalon) and Juliane (Juliane.Saupe).
Please contact them if you are interested in joining upcoming events, would like to co-create an event, or want to receive more information.
Discussion Series: Ambivalent Aesthetics. Sexual Culture and its (re)presentations
Sexuality eludes representation – and is at the same time omnipresent. How do we know that a depiction is referring to something sexual? Is it the nudity? The rubbing of gendered organs? The uneasy feeling evoked in viewers? The way it is censored? This discussion series is currently invested in the aesthetic qualities of the so-called sexual. We are not only discussing artworks and popular culture and the way they are produced and presented, but also the philosophical implications of ‘aisthesis’, taking into account somatic-sensual ways of being affected. We wish to look at different cultural practices of sexualization using our special interest in performativity's double-edged character that cuts between success and failure. Meaning that those practices never happen in fixed and stable contexts and can therefore have unintended and seemingly erroneous outcomes, creating surprisingly new meanings that require explication.
The series will be of particular interest to researchers in the fields of art history, sexuality, feminism, gender and queer studies, but it also offers valuable insights for scholars working on different topics that similarly navigate delicate intersections of intimacy and the public sphere (e.g. mental health, emotions, death, trauma, …) as well as researchers interested in the ‘how’ of their material: How is it made visible or invisible? How is it designed, presented, staged, narrated, displayed? How does it suggest to be used and what other ways of engaging with it could be possible? Your active participation will enrich the depth and diversity of the discussions, fostering a supportive environment for emerging scholars to explore these critical questions.
Participants: Beate Absalon, Juliane Saupe
TRANSFORMATIVE AGENCY OF THE ARTS
This independent study group of the Research Area 3 operates decentrally.
Please reach out to the participants if you have any questions.
Participants: Katharina Hacker (katharina.hacker), Helene Heuser (helene.heuser), Cara Illert (Cara.Illert), Onur Karaköse (onurkarakose99)
14.11.2023
Masterclass with Jennifer Doyle: "About Sex"
- How do we recognize sexuality within artworks? To what extent is our ‘radar’ influenced by highly subjective, subconscious, as well as socially ingrained desires? Can we rely on our methodical lens, and what are its blind spots?
- How do affects like arousal, shame, or disgust come into play when interpreting such artworks? Should we incorporate them in our research - how (not)?
- What language should we employ to convey our findings? How does an objective jargon sterilize the message or perpetuate the hegemonic methods of Western "scientia sexualis"? Conversely, would a more colloquial or poetic "ars erotica" overstimulate and distract from academic findings?
This Masterclass will be of particular interest to researchers in the fields of art history, sexuality, gender and queer studies, but it also offers valuable insights for scholars working on different topics that similarly navigate delicate intersections of intimacy and the public sphere (e.g. mental health, emotions, death, …). Your active participation will enrich the depth and diversity of the discussions, fostering a supportive environment for emerging scholars to explore these critical questions.
Keynote Lecture: "Scientia Sexualis - A Curatorial Project"
In this lecture, Jennifer Doyle shares her collaboration with Jeanne Vaccaro on Scientia Sexualis, an exhibition of contemporary art which takes up the intersection of sex and science. She will share the exhibition's defining questions and challenges, reflect on the history of queer and feminist work in this space and situate this project in relation to the ongoing fight for bodily autonomy and sexual liberty. Scientia Sexualis will open in the fall of 2024 at the Institute for Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and is part of PST ART: Art & Science Collide, a regional festival sponsored by The Getty.
11.07.2023
Seminar mit Insa Härtel: "Ästhetik des Sexuellen - Formen des 'Übergriffs' in Tseng Yu-Chins 'Who's listening 5'
Keynote-Lecture: "Aesthetics of the Sexual - On Sheaths, Scenes, and Screens"
He brings a condom into play, she – mocking him – blows it up like a balloon. This sequence from "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" (USA 1977) is quoted in the film "Test" (USA 2013), set in the gay 1980s San Francisco modern dance milieu. Based on the composition of such scenes and going beyond the actual use of the condom, this lecture deals with interlayers and screens, the performance character of sexuality and the aesthetic constitution of the latter.
Prof. Dr. Insa Härtel is a Permanent Senior Research Fellow at the University of Art in Linz at the Department of Cultural Studies / Institute of Fine Arts and Cultural Studies and works as a psychotherapist for children, adolescents and young adults in Hamburg . From 2012-2022 she was a Professor of Cultural Studies with a focus on cultural theory and psychoanalysis at the International Psychoanalytic University Berlin (IPU). Currently she is working on a book entitled “Aesthetics of the Sexual” (Ästhetik des Sexuellen). Selected publications: „Reibung und Reizung. Psychoanalyse, Kultur und deren Wissenschaft“ (ed.), Hamburg: textem Verlag 2021; “Kinder der Erregung. »Übergriffe« und »Objekte« in kulturellen Konstellationen kindlich- jugendlicher Sexualität”, Bielefeld: transcript 2014. Insa Härtel is a participant of the editorial board at „RISS. Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse“.