The Aesthetics of Democratic Life-Forms
International Graduate Conference
Goethe-University Frankfurt
September 21–23, 2023
Organized by Claudia Young-joo Park, Dominik Herold, Martin Renz and Julius Schwarzwälder
Since its birth at the end of the 18th century, modern democracy has proved to be more than a system of government: forms of governance and ways of living dovetail as to formulate its structural complexity. Already in classical antiquity, politicians and thinkers observed the profound influence of the self-governing collective in shaping individual sensibilities; the modern democratic mechanism of representation increases and foregrounds such structural complexity, seeing the self-actualization of the demos and selection of political representatives via aesthetic media and strategies. Indeed, the aesthetic dimensions reveal modern democracies to be life-forms. That is, democracies reach deep into the fabric of life, cultivating certain modes of conduct, forms of communication, artistic practices, individual as well as collective forms of experience – all of which intertwine and shape the lives of those involved.
The international graduate conference The Aesthetics of Democratic Life-Forms thus seeks to understand aesthetics not as a disparate, hostile sphere in relation to democracy – an assumption which posits the aestheticization of politics to be inherently anti-democratic –, nor as a structurally analogous foil for democratic politics. Rather, this conference hopes to shed light on how aesthetic practices and phenomena provide insight into democratic life-forms, as well as how political practices and discussions implicate modes of conduct whose aesthetic dimensions lend themselves to productive analysis.
The conference will take place from September 21–23, 2023 in person at Goethe-University Frankfurt. This event was organized by the university initiative "Ästhetik demokratischer Lebensformen" in collaboration with the Institute for Social Research, the Cluster Initiative ConTrust at the Research Institute Normative Orders, and Netzwerk Paulskirche, as well as the planned Graduiertenkolleg "Ästhetik der Demokratie" and the project "Democratic Vistas: Reflections on the Atlantic World" at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften.
The conference will take place at Goethe-University Frankfurt
Normative Orders Building EG 01/02.
Max-Horkheimer-Str. 2, 60323 Frankfurt.
Everyone is welcome, registration encouraged at advance at aedl.grade@gmail.com.
The most up-to-date version of the program can be found below. For an (earlier) PDF-version see here.
Thursday, 21.09.2023
14:00–14:10 Welcome by organizers: Dominik Herold (Goethe-University Frankfurt)
14:10–14:20 Opening Remarks: Rainer Forst (Goethe-University Frankfurt)
14:20–14:35 Theme Introduction: Johannes Völz (Goethe-University Frankfurt)
14:35–15:30 Keynote: Martin Jay (UC Berkeley) »Leib, Körper and the Body Politic«
15:30–16:00 Coffee Break
16:00–17:45 Panel Discussion with Martin Jay (UC Berkeley), Susan Buck-Morss (CUNY), Katrin Trüstedt (ZfL Berlin), and Martin Saar (Goethe-University Frankfurt).
17:45–18:00 Coffee Break
18:00–18:50 Forum 1: Rob Horning (Independent Critic) »Lifeless Life-Forms: Generative AI as Predictive Solipsism« [via Zoom]
Chair: Jonathan Schöniger (University of Art and Design Offenbach am Main)
Friday, 22.09.2023
09:00–12:15 Panel 1
Chair: Andrea C. Blättler (Goethe-University Frankfurt)
Sandra Laugier (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) [cancelled]
New Guest: Andrew Norris (UC Santa Barbara)
»Finitude and Perfection«
Sören Fiedler (TU Darmstadt)
»’I’m speaking for us.’ Exemplarity of and in Democracy«
Julius Schwarzwälder (Goethe-University Frankfurt, TU Darmstadt)
»The Pluralization of ’Life-Form’«
10:30–10:45 Coffee Break
Jochen Schuff (FU Berlin)
»The Senses of Democracy«
Leonhard Riep (Goethe-University Frankfurt)
»Between Exclusion and Transgression: The Politics of Limit-Experience After Foucault«
Leonie Licht (University of Applied Arts Vienna)
»’A horizon, then, is an empty locus…’. On a Heavenly Metaphor as an Aesthetic Dimension in the Work of E. Laclau and Ch. Mouffe«
12:15–13:30 Lunch Break
13:30–16:45 Panel 2
Chair: Lisa Pfeifer (Institut für Sozialforschung)
Susan Buck-Morss (CUNY)
»Aesthesis as Democratic Knowledge«
Samu/elle Striewski (FU Berlin)
»Drag as Political Form of Life. From Tucking and Binding to Lip-Syncing Democracy«
Eva-Maria Ciesla (FU Berlin)
»Architectural Processes of Designing and Intervening – Improvisation as an Aesthetic Practice of Democratic Life-Forms«
15:00–15:15 Coffee Break
Francesca Raimondi (FU Berlin) [cancelled]
New Guest: Ivo Eichhorn (Goethe-University Frankfurt)
»Fanon, The Veil, Insurgent Democracy: Some Aisthetic Considerations«
Samuel Rosenblum (Cornell University)
»’Faking It’ at the Highlander Folk Center and SNCC: On Improvisational Practices of Organizing«
Martin Renz (Goethe-University Frankfurt)
»Once You See It, You Cannot Unsee It. The Aesthetic Effectivity of Arendtian Power«
16:45–17:15 Coffee Break
17:15–18:45 Forum 2
Jason Frank (Cornell University)
»An Aesthetics of Democracy«
Patchen Markell (Cornell University)
»Hannah Arendt and the Outdoor Condition«
Discussant: Nathan Taylor (Goethe-University Frankfurt)
Saturday, 23.09.2023
09:00–12:15 Panel 3
Chair: Lorena Nauschnegg (Goethe-University Frankfurt)
Katrin Trüstedt (ZfL Berlin)
»Representing Gaia? Towards a Politics of Appearing«
Sabine Müller (University of Vienna)
»Political and Aesthetic Representation: A Problem Solved, Or Still a Challenge?«
Daniel Hartley (Durham University)
»The Politics of Style«
10:30–10:45 Coffee Break
Franziska Wildt (Goethe-University Frankfurt, Institut für Sozialforschung)
»Politics of Prose. The Language of Resistance and the Resistance of Language«
Claudia Young-joo Park (Goethe-University Frankfurt)
»Literary Form as Life-Form: Reflections on the Realism and Politics of Literature«
Steffen Andrae (University of Erfurt) [cancelled]
New Guest: TBA
12:15–13:30 Lunch Break
13:30–16:45 Panel 4
Chair: Amadeus Ulrich
(Goethe-University Frankfurt)
Antje Krause-Wahl (Goethe-University Frankfurt)
»The Aesthetics of Touch. Art and Being Together in Time of Crisis«
Johanna Wurz (University of Kassel)
»Exhibition Design as a Performative Medium of Democracy? The Aesthetic-Political Double Life of Permanent Art Exhibitions in the 1970s«
Dorothea Douglas (HU Berlin)
»The Projected Body of the Legal Subject. Institutional Embodiment in the Stairwell of the Amtsgericht Mitte in Berlin«
15:00–15:15 Coffee Break
Jaka Lombar (Trinity College Dublin)
»The Return of Mimesis and Mirroring in New Media«
William Ross (Goethe-University Frankfurt):
»Spivak and Adorno on the Transformation of Darstellung«
Bianca Laliberté (Université du Québec à Montréal)
»The ‘Useful Arts’ Apparatus. The American Revolution’s Visual Production«
16:45–17:15 Coffee Break
17:15–18:15 Forum 3
Chair: Daniel Fejzo (Goethe-University Frankfurt)
Anne Eusterschulte (FU Berlin) & Sophie Loidolt (TU Darmstadt)
»Is Arendt’s political aesthetics a democratic practice?«
