Research Area 3: Cultural Transformation and Performativity Studies
The Research Area 3 intends to examine cultural issues from a performative perspective, while also considering the transformative power of performance in society. The group meets at least once a month to discuss selected texts. Meetings are held in person at the GCSC and can also be organized in a hybrid format if needed.
The structure of each semester is shaped according to the expectations and interests of the group members. Each session is chaired by one member, leaving space for open discussion and collective reflection. Researchers and scholars from both within and outside the GCSC may also be invited to join the meetings. The ultimate aim of the group is to create opportunities for mutual learning and to share this knowledge with others through organizing academic and/or artistic events.
In previous semesters, we discussed both theoretical and experimental texts on phenomenology, embodiment, and affect. In the summer semester 2025, we began to explore a new yet related theme — “Other Ways of Knowing” — by examining diverse examples such as verbatim theatre and video essays as forms of knowledge production.
For the winter semester 2025/26, we intend to further expand this topic with the contributions and dynamism of new members. Discussions can take any form: reading a text, engaging with video or audio materials, experimenting with embodied practices, visiting an exhibition or a performance — or even taking a walk together.
The ways of doing are limitless — and so are the ways of knowing.
Possible Discussion Areas:
- Gender, Sexuality & Disability – Performative and social constructions of identity
- More-than-Human / Environment – Knowledge beyond human-centered perspectives
- Religion & Spirituality – Belief systems as ways of knowing
- Theatre & Performance – Verbatim/documentary theatre and creative enactments
- Indigenous Knowledge – Situated and traditional epistemologies
- Media & Technology – Digital storytelling, video, and sound as knowledge tools
- Embodiment & Affect – Experiential and sensory ways of knowing
- Art & Aesthetics – Creative practices producing knowledge
- Collective & Participatory Practices – Collaborative learning and knowledge-making
- Philosophy & Theory – Epistemology, situated knowledge, posthuman perspectives
If you are interested in the group or would like to receive more information, please reach out to the speaker, Burcu Bacanak-Sahin.
📧 burcu.bacanak-sahin@gcsc.uni-giessen.de
Participants: Burcu Bacanak-Sahin, Emilio Aguas Rodriguez
UPCOMING EVENTS
PAST EVENTS
January 21st 2025, 6 - 8pm - Keynote Lecture by Prof.*in Dr.*in Antke Antek Engel
"Queerversity as an Aesthetic Principle"
International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture,
Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen
Otto-Behaghel-Str. 12
Conference Room
Queerversity, a refined version of diversity, arouses interest in the complexity of difference – its intersectional interdependency and aesthetic or re/presentational modes. It strengthens modes of difference beyond classification: ambiguity, multiplicity, singularity, alterity. As an ethical or political principle, queerversity engages trans*versal justice in order to find nonviolent and respectful ways of dealing difference. Yet, what does it mean to propose queerversity also as an aesthetic principle? In this talk I will sketch queerversity as an aesthetic principle which can be detected in and fosters cultural or artistic practices that overcome addictions to binary oppositions and classificatory thinking. It aims at finding pleasure in complexity, confusion, and conflict in order to overcome the violence of normalcy.
Antke A. Engel (Dr. phil.) is a philosopher working in the fields of queer theory, poststructuralist philosophy, and visual cultural studies. In 2006 Engel has founded the Institute for Queer Theory (iQt) in Berlin (http://www.queer-institut.de) and since then functions as its director. They were Asa Briggs fellow at the University of Sussex and visiting fellow at the Gender Institute of the London School of Economics as well as the Institute of Cultural Inquiry Berlin, and since 2003 regularly holds guest professorships in Gender and Queer Studies. On a guest professorship at FernUni Hagen they released in 2021 open access introductory videos to queer theory (https://e.feu.de/queer-theory-videos). Engel co-edited Hegemony and Heteronormativity (2011) and Global Justice and Desire: Queering Economy (2015), and published numerous essays and the monographs Wider die Eindeutigkeit (2002), Bilder von Sexualität und Ökonomie (2009) and Queer Theorie – Queer_Pädagogik (2024).
January 21st 2025, 10am - 4pm - Workshop "Writing Queerly / Queer Schreiben"
International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture,
Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen
Otto-Behaghel-Str. 12
SR 308
Queering is a process that fosters a desire for complexity and confusion. What potential does writing hold to slow down and shift thinking rooted in oppositions, rigid constructions of belonging, attributions, exclusions, hierarchies, and oversimplified notions of antagonism? This writing workshop offers an introduction to the constitutive ideas of queer theory by engaging with topics or questions posed by participants, subjecting them to a queering process through writing.
The participants' topics/questions do not need to relate to queerness, gender, or sexual politics in the first place. Rather, the goal of this workshop is to explore and/or playfully experiment with your ideas and our material through the lens of queering.
In the workshop, we will approach queering by collectively discussing contemporary artistic works selected specifically for this masterclass. We will focus in particular on processes of transing regimes of normality, culminating in a spiral-like tension between queerness and queering. State and process interpenetrate one another. While queering introduces movement into one-dimensional desire or heteronormative pairings, transing traverses dualisms to subvert their hierarchical organization.
The workshop will be conducted in a mix of German and English, with participants free to write in whichever language they are comfortable. We aim to create a multilingual context spontaneously as needed. Your active participation will enrich the depth and queerversity of the discussions, fostering a supportive environment for emerging scholars to explore these critical questions.
+++
Queering ist ein Prozess, der Lust an Komplexität und Konfusion fördert. Welche Potenziale wohnen dem Schreiben inne, um ein Denken in Oppositionen, engen Zugehörigkeitskonstrukten, Zuschreibungen, Ausschlüssen, Hierarchien und simplifizierten Gegner*innenschaften auszubremsen und zu verschieben?
Diese Schreibwerkstatt bietet eine Einführung in Grundgedanken der Queer Theorie, indem Themen oder Fragestellungen der Teilnehmenden aufgegriffen und schreibend einem Queering unterzogen werden. Die Themen/Fragen der Teilnehmenden müssen nichts mit Queerness oder Geschlechter- bzw. Sexualpolitiken zu tun haben. Vielmehr ist es Anliegen dieses Workshops, die Diskussion unseres Materials anhand des Queerings forschend und/oder spielerisch zu erproben.
Im Workshop behandeln wir Queering durch die gemeinsame Diskussion zeitgenössischer künstlerischer Arbeiten, die wir für die Masterclass ausgewählt haben.
Genauer eingehen werden wir auf Prozesse des Durchquerens von Normalitätsregimen, die in einer spiralförmigen Spannung von Queerness_Queering münden. Zustand und Prozess durchdringen sich. Während Queering Bewegung in ein-dimensionales Begehren oder heteronormative Paarkonstellationen bringt, durchquert Transing Dualismen, um deren hierarchische Anordnung zu unterwandern.
Der Workshop wird in einer Mischung aus Deutsch und Englisch angeboten; die Teilnehmenden können in jeder Sprache schreiben, die ihnen vertraut ist. Wir werden versuchen, gemeinsam einen multilingualen Kontext für queerverse Diskussionen zu schaffen.
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“.