| The AMC programme studies how developments in the arts and in the media relate to socio-cultural and political changes. We are particularly interested in the ways in which cultural artefacts and practices operate as socially and politically shaping forces. We study the whole spectrum of high-brow, middle-brow and low-brow culture, ranging from poems and installation artworks to political essays, monuments and digital games. What unites these inquiries is our interest in the practices in which they are produced, distributed and received. We do not only analyse, for instance, how the contents of popular baroque theatre plays reflects the political concerns in their day, but also how their performance impacted on audiences and formed their attitudes. The researchers of this programme are united by a firm basis in the hermeneutic tradition, yet enrich it with methods and concepts from reception studies, post-phenomenology, on- and offline ethnography and anthropological field work in order to come to terms with readership, spectatorship, and the rise of new types of audiences. The programme is interdisciplinary not only in the sense that we represent and combine various disciplines from within the field of the humanities, but also because we explore possible crossovers with the social sciences. |
