MA S. Theoretische Perspektiven auf audiovisuelle Darstellungen: Kritische Phänomenologie der Körper
Instructors: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Christian TedjasukmanaShortname: S. TheoPerspektiven
Course No.: 05.054.19_550
Course Type: Seminar
Requirements / organisational issues
Active and regular participation in all tasks, especially intensive text reading, argumentation and discussion, self-reflections, and submission of an academic term paper is required.Recommended reading list
Gunther, Lisa (2020): Critical Phenomenology. In: Gail Weiss, Ann V. Murphy, Gayle Salomon (Hg.): 50 Concepts for Critical Phenomenology. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP, 11–16.Husserl, Edmund (1950): Cartesianische Meditationen. Eine Einleitung in die Phänomenologie [frz. 1931]. Hamburg: Meiner.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1966): Phänomenologie der Wahrnehmung [frz. 1945]. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Contents
Whether dance moves, fitness workouts, tattoos, online pornography, or lecture hall seating, human bodies repeatedly become the object and starting point of cultural practices in everyday life. Involved in discourses of power, bodies are also sites of desire, self-care, technical optimization, and violence. People not only have bodies, they also are bodies that are always changing, growing, learning, falling ill, and aging.For centuries, the human body was understood as the dichotomous other of the mind and neglected in European traditions of thought. In contrast, and paralleling the emergence of cinematography (literally, motion recorder), the philosophical movement of phenomenology focuses on lifeworld phenomena (Husserl 1996) and the living body (Merleau-Ponty 1966). Against such a universal concept of the body, in turn, recent “critical phenomenology” (Guenther 2020), drawing on feminist, postcolonial, queer, and other theories, has pointed to the diversity of bodies that differ by age, skin color, ability, gender, sexuality, and social class and that are embedded in social power relations. At the same time, old and new phenomenology outlines possibilities for conceptually transgressing and socially liberating the body. What problems and relations of violence follow from the dualism of body and mind, and what alternatives do phenomenological approaches offer? What concepts in film, media and cultural studies exist to put the real diversity and complexity of bodies into perspective? Which political and epistemic conflicts around bodies play a role, and can audiovisual media and phenomenological thinking contribute to conflict resolution?
Additional information
ObjectiveThe aim of this master seminar is to examine the body in cinematic perception and beyond that in its everyday cultural situatedness in a critical way and to perspectivize it self-reflexively. The seminar also introduces the interdisciplinary theory, research and methodological direction of Critical Phenomenology and invites reflections on cultural diversity.
Method
The seminar combines the method of close reading of theoretical and autobiographical texts and films with practical reflections and writing exercises that connect to, rethink and expand the phenomenological method.
Dates
| Date (Day of the week) | Time | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 10/26/2023 (Thursday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 00 113 Seminarraum 9181 - Medienhaus |
| 11/02/2023 (Thursday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 00 113 Seminarraum 9181 - Medienhaus |
| 11/09/2023 (Thursday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 00 113 Seminarraum 9181 - Medienhaus |
| 11/16/2023 (Thursday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 00 113 Seminarraum 9181 - Medienhaus |
| 11/23/2023 (Thursday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 00 113 Seminarraum 9181 - Medienhaus |
| 11/30/2023 (Thursday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 00 113 Seminarraum 9181 - Medienhaus |
| 12/07/2023 (Thursday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 00 113 Seminarraum 9181 - Medienhaus |
| 12/14/2023 (Thursday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 00 113 Seminarraum 9181 - Medienhaus |
| 12/21/2023 (Thursday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 00 113 Seminarraum 9181 - Medienhaus |
| 01/11/2024 (Thursday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 00 113 Seminarraum 9181 - Medienhaus |
| 01/18/2024 (Thursday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 00 113 Seminarraum 9181 - Medienhaus |
| 01/25/2024 (Thursday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 00 113 Seminarraum 9181 - Medienhaus |
| 02/01/2024 (Thursday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 00 113 Seminarraum 9181 - Medienhaus |
| 02/08/2024 (Thursday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 00 113 Seminarraum 9181 - Medienhaus |