AROUND 1973: Historicism, Self-Cause, Popular Culture

Symposium in the context of the art, science & business program of Akademie Schloss Solitude

Thursday, June 16th, 2011, 8 pm
Friday, June 17th, 2011, 9.30 am to 6 pm

To focus the attention of historical research on a single year allows multiple approaches towards a specific time in history and, in a second step, encourages discussions on impacts and changes across disciplines and time. In the open field of historical events, as well as in artistic and intellectual practice, the year 1973 witnessed a big atmospheric change:

The shift towards the popular: The early 1970s saw a profound requalification of popular culture: the arts began to be acknowledged as practices developed within specific contexts, spreading throughout society and extending the social presence of art in ways hitherto unforeseen by art theory.

The breakdown of historicism: A new historical sensibility arose: whereas the modern conception of history had been oriented by the political concept of “revolution,” it was suddenly replaced by an awareness of the present as wider than the thin layer separating a past and a future.

Concepts of self-cause: There arose an understanding of newness and change as emerging processes, not as the result of external action, but as an outcome of the self-production of the system in its interaction with the environment.

The perception of a watershed moment: Within this overreaching epistemic change, 1973 stands out as the year when the post-war boom came to a standstill, the American control of international exchange came to a halt, and the Yom Kippur War consolidated the Middle East quagmire that lasts to this day.

INITIATED BY
Pedro Dolabela Chagas

WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY
Christina Brandt
Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht
Stephan A. Jansen
Olof Olsson
Saskia Richter
Philip Ursprung
Joseph Vogl

REGISTRATION
The conference fee, catering included, is 25 Euro/15 Euro (students). The number of participants is limited to 50 persons.

Please register by June 7, 2011 with Karoline Weber
Email: kw@akademie-solitude.de
Phone: +49 (0)711-99619 134