Journal
Dome of the Reichstag Building by Norman Foster, Berlin (Detail)
© Deutscher Bundestag / Arndt Oehmichen
Political Emotions
Focus topic lecture series and events in the second half of the year 2018
The discussion of fear, sorrow, outrage or contempt, but as well of faith, hope, compassion, empathy or sympathy, as political forces is presently increased. A consensus seems to exist on the central role of emotions in political processes: They are presumed to be a driving force both of protest movements as well as in democratic processes of opinion-forming, they seem to guarantee for the cohesion of political entities, they are accountable for psychological group phenomena such as subversion and revolution or for a turning of such movements into terror and fright. Yet, assessments of this phenomenon differ greatly. Whereas some deplore a lack of ›political passion‹, others warn of hysteria, of ›angry citizens‹ and of politics driven by emotions. Are ›politics of sentiments‹ legitimate, then, or is there instead a call for general skepticism towards strategies of emotional overwhelming? Should political decisions be taken rationally and is that possible, at all, or are politics simply unthinkable without emotions?
The Focus Topic »Political Emotions« aims to provide a space for the discussion of these questions at the Warburg-Haus. The lecture series in the first half of 2018 focused on political cultures of emotions in democracy, on compassion, as well as on its darker sides, and on social states of affects in war. The Warburg International Seminar in October 2018 is dedicated to ›Political Emotions in the Arts‹. The lecture series in the second half of 2018 is devoted to representations of political affects in media and digital culture: Genre film as a space of experience of community spirit (Hermann Kappelhoff), processes of emotionalization in journalism (Irene Neverla) and politico-iconological strategies in the era of internet memes (Andrea Pinotti).
In October, Israeli artist Hila Laviv will develop a performance and exhibition in the oval reading room of the Warburg-Haus inspired by Anna Warburg’s memory album of the Kösterberg, the Warburg family residence in Blankenese, Hamburg. This album is kept by her grandmother Charlotte Esther (Noni) Warburg, Aby Warburg’s niece in Israel, the daugther of Anna and Fritz, Aby’s brother.
In October, too, Christoph Martin Vogtherr, director of the Hamburger Kunsthalle, will hold the lecture on the occasion of the 89th anniversary of Aby Warburg’s death: Zufall als künstlerische Methode. Watteau, Caylus und die Pariser Akademie (Chance as artistic method. Watteau, Caylus and the Paris Academy).
In November a special theme afternoon in cooperation with the Kunstverein in Hamburg will take place in the context of the exhibition »Class Relations – Phantoms of Perception«. A curator’s guided tour in the exhibition will start at 5 pm, followed by a panel discussion at the Warburg-Haus at 7pm, »Gespenster in Europa. Alternativen für ein anderes Zusammenleben« (Phantoms in Europe. Alternatives for a different cohabitation) with Frank Adloff (Universität Hamburg), Ted Fendt (film director and critic, New York), Doreen Mende (HEAD Geneva/ Harun Farocki Institute, Berlin) and Bettina Steinbrügge (Kunstverein in Hamburg).
Politische Emotionen