[csaa-forum] CALL FOR PAPERS: Ta(l)king Pleasure in German Culture

[Michelle Langford]

CALL FOR PAPERS

Ta(l)king Pleasure in German Culture: A Day in the Dialectical  
Playground

Saturday 20 October, 2007

School of English, Media and Performing Arts

The University of New South Wales

‘Nothing needs less justification than pleasure.’ (Bertolt Brecht, 1948)

Since the Enlightenment numerous German artists, theorists, writers,  
filmmakers and performers have evoked the figure of the child and  
concepts of playfulness and pleasure in order to contest or transform  
the cultural sphere in the face of technological, industrial and  
economic rationalisation.  Their work has engaged with ‘play’ in many  
of its senses: brisk, light, lively, irregular or capricious motion;  
action working with rapid movement or change; recreational activity  
especially as carried out by children; a mimetic representation of an  
action; a source of enjoyment.  Among such cultural thinkers we find  
Walter Benjamin, who lamented the desensitisation of the human  
sensorium in the modern world and admired the mimetic play of  
children. For him, this childlike ability to make ‘non-sensuous’ or  
unexpected connections between disparate things could serve as a way  
of re-vivifying the pleasures of our mimetic faculty.  In writings  
celebratory of ‘the scientific age’, friend and colleague Bertolt  
Brecht called for ‘new kinds of pleasure, better suited to our  
time’.  These included the joy of a naïve quizzical attitude informed  
by a dialectical belief in contradictions as the source of  
progressive change.   For Brecht the ability to revel in a ceaseless  
play of opposites, ‘the joke of contradiction’, was a crucial  
component in the art of pleasurable living.  Other artists have  
dreamed of playgrounds that resist duplication of the cultivated.   
Like German filmmakers, Alexander Kluge and Werner Schroeter, they  
have been inspired by the idea that ‘children prefer the bushes: they  
play in the sand or in scrap heaps.’ Elements of this radical  
playfulness permeate the dance theatre of choreographer Pina Bausch  
and the subversive stagings of media provocateur Christoph  
Schlingensief.

This symposium invites academics, artists, writers and other cultural  
producers to join us for a day in the playground to explore how ideas  
and practices of play and pleasure have circulated, and indeed  
continue to do so, in German culture.  While our emphasis will be on  
culture since the eighteenth century, we also welcome comparative and  
historical analyses of earlier German theory and practice which deal  
with notions such as aesthetic pleasure.   In addition we encourage  
reflection on Anglo-American, and in particular Australian reception,  
of German cultural expression with regard to these themes.

Our aim is not only to explore but also to generate spaces,   
‘playgrounds’ in which a variety of ideas and experiences can play on  
and rub against one another so as to bring about movement, change and  
transformation.  To this end we aim to open up an interdisciplinary  
dialogue between theory and creative practice by incorporating the  
presentation of short performance works and an exhibition mounted by  
contemporary Australian-based artists, including Martin del Amo, Paul  
Gazzola, Regina Heilman and Heidrun Lohr.

The organisers of this one-day symposium welcome proposals for 20  
minute papers in English on the following suggested and related themes:
Figurations of the child

Theories and practices of playfulness and pleasure

Historical conceptualisations of aesthetic pleasure

Explorations of fun and humour

Links between motion, emotion and social change


Papers addressing German culture across a broad range of fields are  
welcome, including: theatre, performance, film, media, literature,  
poetry, popular culture, music and visual art.   Postgraduate  
students are encouraged to apply.

Through this symposium we aim to foster possibilities for publication  
and future research collaboration.  We also hope to publish a  
selection of papers in either an edited book or special issue of a  
relevant journal based around the central themes of the symposium.

Abstracts of 200-300 words should be sent to m.mumford at unsw.edu.au by  
Friday 17 August 2007.

Further queries may be directed to the symposium convenors:

Dr Michelle Langford and Dr Meg Mumford
School of English, Media and Performing Arts
Webster Building
The University of New South Wales (UNSW)
Sydney NSW 2052
Tel: (02) 9385 4489

Email: m.langford at unsw.edu.au
Tel: (02) 9385 4865

Email: m.mumford at unsw.edu.au

The symposium will be held in the context of the German Cultural  
Month in Sydney 2007, GerMANY FACES Australia, and is a joint  
initiative between the School of English, Media and Performing Arts  
at UNSW, and the Goethe-Institut, together with the Consulate General  
of Germany and the German-Australian Chamber of Commerce.




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