170603 SE MA 1.1. "Forms of Staging and Aesthetic Perception" (2025S)

This course is designed as a Theater Studies course, but it also deals with questions of affect production and affect reception in the wider context of Cultural Studies. Focal point, however, are phenomena of performance that consider a historically broad perspective (content note: there will be more Dante than Netflix).

Starting point here are narratives and dynamics of, on the one hand, theatre and performance settings and, interrelated and on the other hand, of fandom cultures (e.g. addressing experience of space and time, as well as constructions of subjectivity and authenticity).

How are conventions of perception produced and perpetuated, how can they be changed and experienced as changeable in different historical and social constellations, how do they relate to classifications of individuality and collectivity, but also of facticity and subjectivity?

In more concrete terms:
What happens when I go to a performance or come out of a performance as a “fan”, and how can we describe this? What preconditions and consequences do these descriptions have, what contexts do they produce and depend on?
What conventions and settings create belonging in performance/fandom contexts, but also exclusion?
On which anthropological preconditions does contemporary fandom build, and is there such a thing as historical fandoms? Consequently, can the dynamics of fandom be used as a research tool into cultural history, and how might that work?

The seminar draws on Performance Historiography and Analysis, Affect Studies and Fandom Studies. Students may to introduce their own research designs within the subject area of the course. They are invited to reflect on their methodological skills and develop them further towards their own MA thesis.

The assessment and didactic formats of this course are subject to possible change until the end of the registration phase, depending on the number of participants.