Cross-over Projects

 

The pleasure of law. Emotion, law and literature 1900 ‒ 1935. An interdisciplinary approach

Susanne Knaller

This project addresses the theoretically and methodologically productive question of the relationship between emotional models, legal theories and poetological approaches. The most productive recourse to legal paradigms related to law is developed using exemplary German and French texts. The process by which legal theories also examine the provisions of poetological emotion is also systematically examined on a formal and conceptual level. The resulting area of ​​tension between interdisciplinary encounters is a further focus area.

  • Susanne Knaller: “Die emotionalen Gründe des Rechts in der Literatur ‒ und umgekehrt. Vorschläge für einen interdisziplinären Austausch von Rechts- und Literaturwissenschaft (The emotional reasons of law in literature ‒ and vice versa. Proposals for an interdisciplinary exchange of law and literature)”. In: Christian Hiebaum/Susanne Knaller/Doris Pichler (eds.), Recht und Literatur im Zwischenraum. Aktuelle inter- und transdisziplinäre Zugänge. Bielefeld, transcript. 2015, p. 119-132. 
  • Susanne Knaller: “Die Lust am Recht. Literatur, Recht und Emotion um 1900 (The pleasure of law. Literature, law and emotion around 1900)”. In: Susanne Knaller/Rita Rieger (eds.), Ästhetische Emotion. Formen und Figurationen zur Zeit des Umbruchs der Medien und Gattungen (1880-1939). Heidelberg, winter 2016, p. 179-200.

 

The reality of art

Susanne Knaller

Reality concepts are constitutive for the modern episteme. Ever since its inception in the second half of the 18th century, the discussion has been multifaceted ‒ within the individual paradigms of science, philosophy, art and literature as well as between the scientific and aesthetic fields: Reality is understood as matter independent of consciousness, as a construct of mental, material or physical processes, as a result of linguistic structures, cultural codes or media forms of perception. Reality is thought to be generated by neural processes, the result of human action and production. Reality models always contain concepts of knowledge, cognition and representation and, at the same time, deal with questions of perception, subjectivity and formation. These are issues that are also of interest to the modern art system, which is beginning as a special system of perception and representation, knowledge and insight, reflected in aesthetics. The arts are determined by strong reciprocal relationships to philosophical, scientific and common sense concepts of reality. This monograph examines these constellations using important key terms and categories: mimesis, realism, perspective, materiality, documentation, landscape, illusion, etc.

  • Susanne Knaller (ed.): Realitätskonstruktionen in der zeitgenössischen Kultur. Beiträge zu Literatur, Kunst, Fotografie, Film und zum Alltagsleben. Wien, Böhlau 2008. 
  • Internationale Conference (with Harro Müller/Columbia University New York): Realitätskonzepte in der Kunst der Moderne, Graz 11.-12.06.2010. 
  • Susanne Knaller/Harro Müller (eds.): Realitätskonzepte in der Moderne. Beiträge zu Literatur, Kunst, Philosophie und Wissenschaft. München, Fink 2011. 
  • Susanne Knaller: Die Realität der Kunst. Programme und Theorien zu Literatur, Kunst und Fotografie seit 1700. München, Fink 2015. 
  • Susanne Knaller: "Realität und Wirklichkeit in der Moderne. Eine Projektbeschreibung". In: Romanische Studien 4 (2016), 365-380. 
  • Susanne Knaller: "Always Dealing with Reality but never too close to it. Original and Copy in Modern Aesthetics", in: Corinna Forberg/Philipp Stockhammer (eds.): The Transformative Power of the Copy: A Transcultural and Interdisciplinary Approach. Cluster of Excellence. Asia and Europe in a Global Context. Heidelberg 2017, 68-83. 
  • Susanne Knaller: "Realismus und neue Realismen. Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der gegenwärtigen französischen Diskussion", in: Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift 67/2018, 323-337.

 

Texts with no Words. Communication of Speechlessness

Susanne Knaller, Doris Pichler, Rita Rieger

The aim of this project is to discuss and focus on an unavoidable and at the same time poetically most productive phenomenon in the context of language: that of speechlessness in the broadest sense. Speechlessness has to be considered as a paradigmatic topic of modern literature which serves to discuss radical changes in media, society, and art. Rhetoricians and authors explicitly rely on a lack of words as a medium of expression for aesthetic ideas (linguistic innovation, intermedial relations of literature with music, painting, film, dance, etc.), for certain social conditions (economic marginalization, deprivation of legal, human or individual rights, loss of individual or cultural identity) and for psychological and physical reasons, etc. The project aims to consider the intertwining of speechlessness as a phenomenon of texts and its meaning in the creative and/or reading process.

We are therefore interested in the question of how speechlessness appears and is used in both literary genres (fiction/prose, poetry, drama) and theoretical texts from 1900 to the present. This period is particularly interesting for a number of reasons: Firstly, the turn of the century brings with it a number of technical and scientific inventions. Secondly, social, media, and aesthetic innovation change the literary system and perception of art. Thirdly, the 20th century is historically marked by its many wars and genocides (WW 1+2, the Holocaust, the Spanish Civil War, Balkan Wars, etc.). All these occurrences have a deep impact on artistic creation and are reflected still today.

  • ICLA World Congress 2016 Vienna. Panel: "Texts with No Words: Communication of Speechlessness". 25. - 26.7.2016, Wien. 
  • Eva Gillhuber/Rita Rieger (Hrsg.): Texts with no Words: The Communication of Speechlessness. PhiN-Beiheift 15/2018 (open access)

 

Writing Emotions. Literature as Practice

Susanne Knaller, together with doctoral students of the Doctoral Programme Culture – Text – Action

After a long phase of neglect, the topic of emotions in literary and cultural studies has become of central concern once again in recent years. Within the humanities, valuable contributions to emotion research have been made in disciplines such as literary and cultural studies, film studies, history, ethnology and philosophy, as well as in the natural sciences ‒ e.g. in cognitive science and neuroscience ‒ and in social sciences such as sociology and psychology. Central questions of the current scientific discussion in the cultural and literary studies are introduced to be debated within the framework of this project. Discussed are the interdisciplinary challenges as well as the complex combination of aesthetic and non-aesthetic conditions of emotion, with a focus on the process and practice of writing as a connecting theme.

  • Susanne Knaller, with doctorands of the Doctoral Programme Kultur - Text - Handlung: "Writing Emotions. Literature as Practice (19th to 21st Century)", International Conference, Graz, 18.-20.05.2016.
  • Susanne Knaller (gem. mit Ingeborg Jandl, Sabine Schönfellner und Gudrun Tockner) (eds.), Writing Emotions. Literature as Practice. Bielefeld, Transcript 2017.

 

Poetics of movement. Dance texts 1800, 1900, 2000

Habilitation project, Elise Richter Project (Project website)

Rita Rieger

Dance texts document and develop movement concepts as used in the representation of modern understandings of reality, subject and art. In these texts, 'movement' encompasses the physical movements of dancing, of writing, but also of psychological and emotional movements. Nevertheless, this constellation of movement, emotion and writing knowledge as well as the aesthetic potential of dance texts has hardly been researched in literary studies. The aim of this project is to show the relevance of movement for modern art and literature. For this purpose, mainly French-language texts by choreographers and writers who deal with the writing of dance and the relationship between dance and emotion are analysed. The corpus contains texts of historically distinctive turning points, since far-reaching shifts in the relationship between dance aesthetics, emotion theory and writing practices can be observed for the periods around 1800, 1900 and 2000. At the heart of the project is the hypothesis that this area of ​​tension results in specific text formats which are characterised as 'poetics of movement'.

 

Freedom of Movement: Dance as Cultural Manifestation (1900-1950)

Rita Rieger

Moving between art, entertainment and sports, the multiple forms of dance that emerge in the first half of the 20th century address a range of cultural, social, aesthetic as well as political concerns and transformations. Following the motto ‘freedom of movement’, dance symbolizes not only the crossing of borders between the arts, media and sciences, but functions as a cipher for social and cultural as well as aesthetic developments. In such a way dance emerges as a manifestation of cultural knowledge and creative practice.

 

 

Writing in the National Socialist Labour Service. Ego-documents under the strain of Education and Self-Determination. (working title).

Doctoral project

Gero von Roedern, M.A.

While the state of research regarding the Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD) since the 1990s has continuously improved, the supplementation of an exciting micro-historical perspective “from below” has been a slow and ongoing process.

The research project therefore means to partake in remedying the current state by exploring multiple letter-series, originating from the context of the RAD. To pursue a comprehensive approach, the investigation interdisciplinarily draws on research from Literary Studies, Communication Studies as well as Linguistics. Additionally, in one instance, the results are complemented by the analysis of a diary, stemming from the same author. On the one hand the current state of RAD-research can serve to provide context for the surveys of letter-communication. On the other hand, by utilizing the results of the case studies, it can itself be put in a new light and expanded. The project thus aspires, to complement the state of research on epistolography with a study on letters from RAD camps. Furthermore, since the boundaries of camp education existed not only between the poles of work and education, discipline and indoctrination, it seems very necessary to use letters to emphasize the impressions of the camp members. In doing so it may become palpable that it’s effects meandered between nudging and adapting, absorbing and reinterpreting.

 

Contact

Centre for Cultural Studies

Univ.-Prof. Dr.

Christine Schwanecke

Phone:+43 316 380 - 8182