Cultural Im/materialities: Contagion, Affective Rhythms and Mobilizations

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label Diverse autorenew 2025-09-29, 17:01 history_edu Maria Dumitru
The summer school wants to explore the role of affect, suggestive rhythms and contagion for the somatic mobilization of agents across a range of socio-cultural situations (e.g. protest events, dance halls, online forums, catastrophes), practises and processes (e.g. political mobilization and engagement, school bullying, youth loneliness, xenophobic/ nationalist panics).

In recent years and increasing interest in materiality, space, technology and embodiment has developed in the humanities and social sciences combined with an affective turn; (Clough, Massumi, Thrift, Seigworth and Gregg, Ahmed) to immaterial dimensions of these phenomena.rnrnThis has re-actualised early sociological theories about affective suggestion, contagion and imitation (e.g. Gustave Le Bon and Gabriel Tarde), which offer valuable insights to the analysis of a contemporary cultural landscape characterised by for instance viral/ memetic phenomena, mediated/ networked/ rhythmically coordinated crowds, affective online communication and political modulation of citizen affects (Blackman, Borch, Gibbs, Sampson, Butler).

During the summer school we wish to collectively explore the immaterial dimensions of the material social world and vice versa, discuss the potentialities, implications and risks of such analysis in an open interdisciplinary environment.

Period
23-06-2014 - 27-06-2014 (1 weeks)

Target group
PhD students holding a background within Media, Communication and Information

Course aim
The event will attract PhD students from a range of academic fields (anthropology, geography, media, cultural studies, aesthetics, sociology, political science, etc.) interested in, and doing research on, the affective turn, processes of imitation/suggestion/contagion, the rhythmically attuning mobilisation of bodies, and the im/material dimensions of culture and the social world.

Credits
0.0 ECTS credits

Course fee
EUR 0: Students on a bilateral exchange programme do not have to pay. Freemovers are obliged to pay participation fees while tuition fees only apply to freemovers from countries outside the EU/ EEA/ Switzerland.

Course leader
Britta Timm Knudsen



Jenny Sundn

Nathaniel Tkacz

Christian Borch

Anne Marit Waade

Carsten Stage

Mads Krogh

Christoffer Klvraa

Louise Fabian

Camilla Mhring Reestorff

Aarhus University International Centre
Address: Hoeg Guldbergs Gade 4, building 1650 Aarhus C
Postal code: 8000
City: Aarhus
Country: Denmark
Website: http://www.au.dk/summeruniversity
E-mail: SummerUniversity@adm.au.dk
Phone: +45 8942 2320