28854
Hauptseminar
WiSe 13/14: Literarization of all the Conditions of Life. Avantgarde, Politics and Media in Weimar-Germany
Sami Khatib
Kommentar
The seminar examines the rise of mass media with regard to its cultural, artistic, and political impact in Weimar Germany. Reflecting on Marxist avant-garde, Walter Benjamin (1931/34) coined the formula of a "literarization of all the conditions of life". Literarization refers to the media transformation of the modern life-world. It is not only the electrified city surface of the roaring twenties that "literally" becomes scripture (as in billboards) but also the mass media framed perception of human artifacts and nature that, according to Benjamin, gives rise to a literarization. Modern life is technologically mediated - and these modes of mediation, its media, do not only affect its recipients but also the mediated itself and turn it into litterae, visual scripture, ciphers.
The seminar explores four case studies of literarization and their media-aesthetic, social and political modes of production: (1) Radio, (2) Architecture, (3) Photography, (4) Film. As a theoretical framework, we will rely on theories of avant-garde (P. Bürger, D. Durst) and media-aesthetic reflections by Walter Benjamin, Bertolt Brecht, Siegfried Kracauer, Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Roland Barthes, László Moholy-Nagy, Sergei Eisenstein, and others. We will particularly focus on Benjamin’s media-aesthetic writings of the 1930s, which can be regarded as an early theorization of the term "political media" laying bare its dialectic in terms of the politics of media (‘politicization’) and the media of politics (‘aesthetization’).
Students will be expected to be acquainted with different forms of media and presentation modes and to be able to read complex theoretical texts.
Language requirements:
English (essential)
German (desirable, at least basic reading skills)
Reading list (selection):
Max Horkheimer; Theodor W. Adorno: Dialectic of Enlightenment, transl. by Edmund Jephcott, Stanford Univ. Press, Stanford, 2002.
Roland Barthes: Camera lucida. Reflections on photography, transl. by Richard Howard, Hill and Wang, New York, 1981.
Walter Benjamin: The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media, ed. by Michael W. Jennings; Brigid Doherty; Thomas Y. Levin, transl. by Howard Eiland Edmund Jephcott; Rodney Livingstone, et al., Cambridge, Mass., 2008.
-- : Little History of Photography, in ibid.
-- : The Author as Producer, in ibid.
-- : The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility (Second Version), in ibid.
Bertolt Brecht: Brecht on Film and Radio, ed. and transl. by Marc Silberman, London, 2001.
-- : Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, ed. and transl. by John Willett, London, 1964.
Peter Bürger: Theory of the Avant-Garde, transl. by Michael Shaw, Univ. of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1984.
David C Durst: Weimar modernism. Philosophy, Politics, and Culture in Germany, 1918 – 1933, Lanham, 2004.
Sergei Eisenstein: Towards a Theory of Montage, ed. and transl. by Michael Glenny, London, 2010.
David Evans; Sylvia Grohl: Photomontage: A Political Weapon, London, 1986.
Walter Gropius: "Bauhaus Dessau", in Hans Wingler: Bauhaus: Weimar, Dessau, Berlin, Chicago, Cambridge, 1978.
John Heartfield: Krieg im Frieden. Fotomontagen zur Zeit 1930-1938, München, 1972.
Siegfried Kracauer: The Mass Ornament. Weimar Essays, ed. and transl. by Thomas Y. Levin, Harvard 1995.
László Moholy-Nagy: Painting, Photography, Film, Cambridge, Mass., 1969.
John Roberts: The Art of Interruption: Realism, Photography and the Everyday, Manchester, 1998.
Frederic J. Schwartz: Blind spots. Critical theory and the history of art in twentieth-century Germany, Yale Univ. Press, New Haven; London, 2005.
Janet Ward: Weimar Surfaces : Urban Visual Culture in 1920s Germany, Berkeley, 2001.
Hans Wingler: Bauhaus: Weimar, Dessau, Berlin, Chicago, Cambridge, 1978.
Kathrin Yacavone: Benjamin, Barthes and the singularity of photography, London; New York: Continuum, 2012. Schließen
The seminar explores four case studies of literarization and their media-aesthetic, social and political modes of production: (1) Radio, (2) Architecture, (3) Photography, (4) Film. As a theoretical framework, we will rely on theories of avant-garde (P. Bürger, D. Durst) and media-aesthetic reflections by Walter Benjamin, Bertolt Brecht, Siegfried Kracauer, Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Roland Barthes, László Moholy-Nagy, Sergei Eisenstein, and others. We will particularly focus on Benjamin’s media-aesthetic writings of the 1930s, which can be regarded as an early theorization of the term "political media" laying bare its dialectic in terms of the politics of media (‘politicization’) and the media of politics (‘aesthetization’).
Students will be expected to be acquainted with different forms of media and presentation modes and to be able to read complex theoretical texts.
Language requirements:
English (essential)
German (desirable, at least basic reading skills)
Reading list (selection):
Max Horkheimer; Theodor W. Adorno: Dialectic of Enlightenment, transl. by Edmund Jephcott, Stanford Univ. Press, Stanford, 2002.
Roland Barthes: Camera lucida. Reflections on photography, transl. by Richard Howard, Hill and Wang, New York, 1981.
Walter Benjamin: The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media, ed. by Michael W. Jennings; Brigid Doherty; Thomas Y. Levin, transl. by Howard Eiland Edmund Jephcott; Rodney Livingstone, et al., Cambridge, Mass., 2008.
-- : Little History of Photography, in ibid.
-- : The Author as Producer, in ibid.
-- : The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility (Second Version), in ibid.
Bertolt Brecht: Brecht on Film and Radio, ed. and transl. by Marc Silberman, London, 2001.
-- : Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, ed. and transl. by John Willett, London, 1964.
Peter Bürger: Theory of the Avant-Garde, transl. by Michael Shaw, Univ. of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1984.
David C Durst: Weimar modernism. Philosophy, Politics, and Culture in Germany, 1918 – 1933, Lanham, 2004.
Sergei Eisenstein: Towards a Theory of Montage, ed. and transl. by Michael Glenny, London, 2010.
David Evans; Sylvia Grohl: Photomontage: A Political Weapon, London, 1986.
Walter Gropius: "Bauhaus Dessau", in Hans Wingler: Bauhaus: Weimar, Dessau, Berlin, Chicago, Cambridge, 1978.
John Heartfield: Krieg im Frieden. Fotomontagen zur Zeit 1930-1938, München, 1972.
Siegfried Kracauer: The Mass Ornament. Weimar Essays, ed. and transl. by Thomas Y. Levin, Harvard 1995.
László Moholy-Nagy: Painting, Photography, Film, Cambridge, Mass., 1969.
John Roberts: The Art of Interruption: Realism, Photography and the Everyday, Manchester, 1998.
Frederic J. Schwartz: Blind spots. Critical theory and the history of art in twentieth-century Germany, Yale Univ. Press, New Haven; London, 2005.
Janet Ward: Weimar Surfaces : Urban Visual Culture in 1920s Germany, Berkeley, 2001.
Hans Wingler: Bauhaus: Weimar, Dessau, Berlin, Chicago, Cambridge, 1978.
Kathrin Yacavone: Benjamin, Barthes and the singularity of photography, London; New York: Continuum, 2012. Schließen
12 Termine
Regelmäßige Termine der Lehrveranstaltung
Mi, 16.10.2013 16:00 - 20:00
Mi, 30.10.2013 16:00 - 20:00
Mi, 13.11.2013 16:00 - 20:00
Mi, 27.11.2013 16:00 - 20:00
Mi, 11.12.2013 14:00 - 16:00
Mi, 11.12.2013 16:00 - 18:00
Mi, 08.01.2014 14:00 - 16:00
Mi, 08.01.2014 16:00 - 18:00
Mi, 22.01.2014 14:00 - 16:00
Mi, 22.01.2014 16:00 - 18:00
Mi, 05.02.2014 14:00 - 16:00
Mi, 05.02.2014 16:00 - 18:00