Conference of the DFG Research Training Group 1608/2 "Self-formations. Practices of Subjectivation in Historical and Interdisciplinary Perspective" at the University of Oldenburg.

27-29 June 2019, BIS Hall

Since 2010, the interdisciplinary research training group "Selbst-Bildungen. Practices of Subjectivisation in Historical and Interdisciplinary Perspective" at the University of Oldenburg. Taking up the cultural and social science shifts in perspective of recent decades, it is interested in a de-centred subject that is first and foremost formed in practices instead of necessarily preceding them. The focus is therefore on the question of how the - fractured - relationship of individuals to themselves and to the world is formed in different contexts.

The Research Training Group will officially end in September 2019. Reason enough to recapitulate joint thought processes and discuss new directions for future research: What were the central itineraries, which traces are worth pursuing further? Where did creative paths open up off the beaten track, but also the limits of what can be thought, said, seen or heard?

If beginning describes a moment of moving away from the diversity of the possible, because not everything can be said if somethingis to be said in a special way (Italo Calvino), ending no longer means closing, but an opportunity to reopen the diversity of the possible. This opportunity will be seized in five panels, from which the initial question of the Kolleg "What does the subject do?" can be further developed: "Borders and transgressions", "The audible and the unheard", "Criticism, cancellation, failure, refusal", "Appearance and disappearance", "Concealment and giving to see".