Debut for Cultural Studies Network: “Cultures of Passion – Passion in Cultures”
22. November 2007
“Where there is the most feeling, there is the greatest martyrdom.” Leonardo da Vinci’s words aptly describe the focus of the conference “Cultures of Passion – Passion in Cultures”: feelings such as love, fear, desire and control, empathy and hate. How do we grasp, study, employ and appraise emotions? And what role does cultural context play in this inquiry?
Experts from across Germany will explore human emotions from a variety of perspectives: neurobiological studies of emotions will feature alongside explorations of human emotions in literary works. The conference will provide a forum for discussion between historians, philosophers, ethnologists and other scholars.
The conference will open in the Hölderlinturm at 7:30 pm on 6 December with a lecture by William Reddy from Duke University (North Carolina) titled “Emotion, Cognition, and Emotional Practices: Implications for History”. The lecture will explore the complex interplay of emotions and cognitive abilities. Reddy made a name for himself in the field of emotions research with his 2001 publication “The Navigation of Feeling”, which has now become a classic in the field. The lecture will be followed by an official reception.
About the Cultural Studies Network
The old image of academics as introverted bookworms who never saw the light of day is now a thing of the past – even in the Humanities! One shining example of this change is the increasing role played by interdisciplinary research partnerships such as the Center of Excellence “Cultural Foundations of Integration“ at the University of Konstanz, which brings together historians, sociologists, literary scholars, philosophers, political scientists and legal scholars.
The newly created Cultural Studies Network is a cooperative endeavor of the Konstanz-based Center of Excellence and the Forum for Cultural Theory, an interdisciplinary research group at the University of Tübingen. The creation of the Network is a prime example of the potential for combining resources across departments and universities.
About the Conference
The conference lectures, which will be followed by discussions in German and English, will begin on Thursday, December 6, at 2:00 pm and conclude on Saturday, December 8, at 1:00 pm. The conference will be held in Tübingen at the Neuphilologische Fakultät (Faculty of Contemporary Philology), Wilhelmstr. 50. The network warmly invites all those interested in this subject to attend.
A detailed program can be found on the Cultural Studies Network homepage (Download, PDF).
For further information please contact Katharina List katharina.list[at]uni-tuebingen.de.