Weimar, June 10 – 17, 2017
Deadline: Jan 1, 2017
Challenges of Media Anthropology
Princeton-Weimar Summer School for Media Studies
Internationales Kolleg für Kulturtechnikforschung und Medienphilosophie
(Bauhaus-Universität Weimar)
German Department (Princeton University)
The Princeton-Weimar Summer School for Media Studies – a
collaboration between Bauhaus-Universität Weimar (Internationales
Kolleg für Kulturtechnikforschung und Medienphilosophie, IKKM) and
Princeton University (German Department) – returns to Weimar in 2017
for its seventh installment. The Summer 2017 session will be concerned
with the dynamics at work between the forms and practices of human
existence on the one hand, and media operations and orderings on the
other. Going far beyond the mere study of media appropriation in
different cultures, or of media as a research tool in ethnography, the
summer school will focus on the issues raised by the basic co-agency
and co-reflexivity of media and human existence, which precedes any
possible understanding of human beings and media as separate entities.
The summer school will be directed by Lorenz Engell (Weimar) and Thomas
Y. Levin (Princeton).
The faculty will include Jane Bennett (New York), Elisabeth Bronfen
(Zürich – to be confirmed), Erin Manning (Montréal), Brian Massumi
(Montréal), Avital Ronell (New York). Janet Vertesi (Princeton – to be
confirmed), and Christiane Voß (Weimar).
The Princeton-Weimar Summer School for Media Studies invites
applications from outstanding doctoral candidates throughout the world
in media studies and related fields, such as film studies, literary
studies, philosophy, art history, architecture, sociology, politics,
the history of science and visual culture.
For the most up-to-date information on the program and faculty of the
Princeton-Weimar Summer School for Media Studies please visit
http://german.princeton.edu/ssms and http://www.ikkm-weimar.de/.
All application materials should be sent via email to :
ikkm-conference@uni-weimar.de
and must be received no later than January 1st, 2017.
Coordinators:
Katharina Rein (Weimar), William Stewart (Princeton)
Please submit all inquiries to: ikkm-conference@uni-weimar.de
Annual Topic: Challenges of Media Anthropology
Media anthropology is generally understood, especially in the
Anglo-American realm, as the investigation of different forms of media
appropriation and media useage in different cultures, sub-cultures, or
societies, including, of course the medial practices of anthropological
research itself. However, as important as such questions are, they
raise a host of bigger and more complex issues that urgently demand
careful theoretical investigation.
Within the realm of mediasStudies, the position of what was once called
“the human” is both delicate and highly disputed. On the one hand, some
theorists challenge the validity of the very category of “the human”,
and thereby also the conceptual and empirical foundations of the
above-mentioned approaches. According to the basic concepts of radical
materialist media theory and media archeology – perhaps most
paradigmatically in the work of Friedrich Kittler – the “so-called
human” is manifest, if at all, only as an epiphenomenal effect. Time
will ultimately expose the fundamental contingency of the construction
of “the human”, as Foucault insisted with his famous image of the
footprint on the beach that is washed away by the next wave. For this
sort of media theory, there is no such thing as human exceptionality –
no “soul”, no “spirit”, no “ingenuity”, no “inventiveness”, no
“intelligence” that could not be described as the product of discursive
epistemic and laboratory practices or as technically reproducible by
means of implemented mathematics. Nevertheless, there are elements of
media theory and philosophy, even in some of its most advanced forms,
which remain haunted by the shadow of the – now forbidden–
anthropological question. Indeed, somewhat surprisingly, this
anti-anthropological move was preceded and paralleled by the rejection
of explicitly anthropological positions in works of post-Nietzschean
modern philosophy by authors as diverse as Theodor W. Adorno and Martin
Heidegger.
On the other hand, certain key positions of early media theory, as
exemplified in the work of Marshall McLuhan, are thoroughly
anthropological in character, from the primordial mutual involution of
the human and the technological, through McLuhan’s conception of media
as extended perception, and, from a more global perspective, his
gestures towards the different functions of technical media in
different cultures and traditions including Asia and Africa.
Anthropological questions also remain in evidence as a less explicit
but underlying concern of 20th century philosophy as evidenced in the
writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein and the media philosopher Günter
Anders. In philosophical terms, it has even been argued that
non-anthropocentric thinking is simply not possible.
Simultaneously, however, recent developments such as global migration
and ecological catastrophe demand that one rethink human existence as
regards its forms, terms, operations, as well as its conditions and
situatedness. This, in turn makes a reconsideration of the relation
between the human and media imperative. Nowhere more so than in the
important contemporary discussion of “the Anthropocene” which has
heretofore largely ignored the function of media and technologies in
general as co-agents in their own right. The renewed debates on the
relevance and reason of human and animal rights in the wake of recent
politico-economic developents also raise important media
anthropological questions, as does the recurring concern within popular
culture with regards to the human in relation to machines, programs,
robot technologies and other humanoid artifacts. In these contexts,
theoretical models of “symmetrical” (Latour) or “non-anthropic”
anthropology (Welsch) seem deeply appropriate, yet nevertheless fail to
take into consideration the mediatic grounds on which any relational
anthropology would have to take place.
Based on the premise that there is no human without media, the 7th
Princeton-Weimar Summer School for Media Studies will focus on the
diverse forms and operations of coupling, of co-agency and co-evolution
of humans and media instead of their traditional distinction and
separation. The conceptual challenges posed by the questions of
human-media-relatedness will be examined along four loosely defined
sets of concerns:
1. Concepts and theories: How does the philosophical tradition conceive
of the non-/human and how is it conceptualized in media theory and
related fields? Are there theoretical models that might contribute to
an understanding of the reciprocally co-constitutive character of human
existence and mediatic operations and orderings?
2. Knowledge production: How did and how does the shaping of the
non-/human in experimental physiology, in recent neurology, in
paleoanthropology, and in other sciences work? How are specific
technologies of observation and inscription involved in the production
of what then is called “the human”?
3. Practice: In light of questions posed by “visual/sensory
anthropology”, how are we to conceive of media in ethnography as well
as the ethnography of media? How do human-media interrelations generate
sensorial activity and vice versa?
4. Aesthetics: How do media cooperate in the perception,
representation, reproduction and experience of the non-/human, and with
what effect? How is the realm of aesthetics and aesthetic experience
linked to the intertwined and mutually generating categories of the
human and the media?
About the Summer School
The Princeton-Weimar Summer School for Media Studies provides advanced
training in the study of media and cultural techniques. Focusing on one
special topic annually, it affords a select group of fourteen graduate
students the opportunity to work with distinguished international
scholars from all fields of media studies in an intimate and highly
focused context and provides a platform for participants to engage in
dialogue with other doctoral students from around the world working in
similar or related fields. The directors of the summer school lead five
morning seminars. Afternoon sessions taught by the summer school
faculty provide further opportunities for interaction and
participation. A series of evening events, such as lectures and film
screenings explore other facets of the annual summer school topic.
Participants will receive a reader with texts and material for the
seminars. The working language of the summer school is English.
How to Apply
All applications should be submitted electronically in PDF format and
should include the following:
1. Letter of Intent indicating academic experience and interest in the
summer school’s annual topic (max. 300 words);
2. Curriculum Vitae (max. 2 pages);
3. Abstract of a possible presentation at the Princeton-Weimar Summer
School for Media Studies (no more than 450 words);
4. Contact information of two potential references (name, institutional
address, email).
Please use the following naming convention for your application files:
Lastname_Letter_of_Intent.pdf
Lastname_Curriculum_Vitae.pdf
Lastname_Abstract.pdf
Lastname_Contact_Info.pdf
All application materials should be sent via email to:
ikkm-conference@uni-weimar.de
and must be received by January 1st, 2017.
Applicants who have been admitted will be notified in February 2017.
Once admitted, applicants are required to transfer the participation
fee, which covers tuition, room and board, as well as all study
materials during the entire week of the summer school. The payment of
600€ should be received by March 28, 2017 to guarantee a spot in the
program. A limited amount of travel funding will be available upon
application.