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Einfühlung
On the History and the Contemporary Significance
of an Aesthetic Concept
International Conference in Berlin
from December 7th to 9th, 2006
Although the notion of empathy has increasingly played a part in discussions about the nature of the viewer’s emotional involvement with images (whether those images be time-based or still) the more expansive possibilities for intersubjectivity which were suggested in the lively discussions of Empathie und Einfühlung that took place around the turn of the twentieth century in the realms of psychology, art history and aesthetics have seldom been brought to bear in contemporary scholarship. The work of the German Psychologist and aesthetician Theodor Lipps is representative: the peculiarity of Lipps’ approach to the notion of empathy (or Einfühlung as he termed it) is that he described it as an involuntary, instinctual, kinaesthetic form of mimicry, that, crucially, could also be directed towards inanimate objects, such as spaces, colours or sounds, as well as (more typically) animals or other humans. This all-encompassing relationship of extreme proximity to one's environment is a fruitful point of departure for more contemporary discussions of embodiment and aesthetic experience.
The conference “Einfühlung – On the History and the Contemporary Significance of an Aesthetic Concept” seeks both to investigate the complexity of the historical antecedents to the term „empathy“ and to return them to their context within a debate, which took place between extremely diverse scholars, from proponents of metaphysical and animistic theories to those representing experimental psychological perspectives. In this context we hope in turn to elucidate some contemporary issues important to questions of aesthetic reception, regarding, to name only a few, the nature of the viewer’s emotional involvement, the space of reception, or the concept of immersion.
Thursday, December 7, 2006 -- 9pm
Film programme
at Kino Arsenal
Potsdamer Platz, Potsdamer Straße 2
10785 Berlin
Programme at http://www.fdk-berlin.de/de/arsenal/programm.html
Friday December 8, 2006
Auditorium, Institute for Theater Studies (Theaterwissenschaft)
Freie Universität Berlin,
Grunewaldstr. 35, 12165 Berlin-Dahlem
10 am Welcome -- Gertrud Koch
10:00-10.30 am Robin Curtis (Freie Universität Berlin)
Einführung in die Einfühlung
(Introduction to Einfühlung)
10:30-11:30 am Joseph Imorde (Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rom)
Einfühlung in der Kunstgeschichte
(Einfühlung in Art History)
11:30am -12:30 pm Frederic Schwartz (University College London)
The Adequacy of Empathy:
Problems of an Art-Historical Concept
12:30-2:00 pm Lunch Break
2:00-3:00 pm Christiane Voss (Freie Universität Berlin)
Einfühlung und affektives Verstehen bei Hume und Lipps
(Einfühlung and affective understanding in Hume and Lipps)
3:00-3.30 pm Coffee Break
3:30-4:30 pm Ed S. Tan (University of Amsterdam)
Why people are very good at einfuehlen,
but do not do it all the time.
4:30-5:30 Uhr Christine Noll Brinckmann (Universität Zürich / Berlin)
Empathischer Genuss in Eric de Kuypers Casta-Diva-Sequenz
(Empathic Pleasure in Eric de Kuyper’s Casta-Diva Sequence)
Saturday December 9, 2006
Auditorium, Institute for Theater Studies (Theaterwissenschaft)
Freie Universität Berlin
Grunewaldstr. 35, 12165 Berlin-Dahlem
10:00–11:00 am Antonia Lant (New York University)
La vie en arabesque: Germaine Dulac on viewing film.
11:00 am -12:00 pm
Giuliana Bruno (Harvard University)
The Laboratory of Affects: Film, Aesthetics, Science
12:00-1:00 pm
Scott Curtis (Northwestern University)
Raumgefühl, Einfühlung, and Early German Film Theory
1:00-2:30 pm Lunch Break
2:30 – 3:30 pm Kirsten Wagner (Humboldt Universität Berlin)
Die Beseelung der Architektur. Empathie und
architektonischer Raum
(Animated Architecture: Empathy and architectural Space)
3:30-4:30 pm
Zeynep Celik (MIT / Max Planck Institut Berlin)
Obrist, Endell, and the Science of Emotive Effect
4:30 pm Closing Comments
Conceptualization and Organisation:
Dr. Robin Curtis, Prof. Dr. Gertrud Koch, Marc Glöde
Hosted by:
Project B11 "Synaesthetic Effects: Kinetics and Colour in Film"
Collaborative Research Centre 447 „Cultures of Performativity“
For more information contact:
Freie Universität Berlin
Grunewaldstr. 35, 12165 Berlin
Tel. +49 (0)30 838 503 39
Email: rcurtis@zedat.fu-berlin.de
Programme:
http://www.sfb-performativ.de/
Conference Venue
Auditorium at the Institute Theater Studies (Theaterwissenschaft)
At the Freie Universität Berlin
Grunewaldstr. 35, 12165 Berlin-Dahlem
U-Bahn Rathaus Steglitz; S-Bahn Steglitz.
Funded with the kind support of the Collaborative Research Centre 447 “Cultures of Performativity” and the German Research Foundation
Dr. Robin Curtis
Freie Universität Berlin
"Synästhesie Effekte: kinetische und farbliche Dimensionen des Films"
Sonderforschungsbereich 447 - Kulturen des Performativen
Grunewaldstr. 35, 12165 Berlin, Germany
+4930 838 50339
rcurtis@zedat.fu-berlin.de
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