Keynote Lectures (public)

Ulrich Bröckling (Freiburg):
We always have to do what we want. Paradoxes of an education for freedom
(14.09.2016, 18:00, BIS-Saal)

Participation in the dual meaning of enabling participation and encouraging participation is not least an educational project of learning by doing: the ability to participate can only be acquired by participating. At the same time, the participation imperative is based on a paradoxical compulsion to freedom. Those who are allowed to participate must also participate.

The lecture explores this paradox by contrasting two historically widely divergent pedagogical models that answer Kant's question "How do I cultivate freedom in the constraint?" differently: on the one hand, John Locke's Some Thoughts Concerning Education, a key text of the early Enlightenment; on the other, Thomas Gordon's Family Conference, a pedagogical bestseller of the 1970s, in which the progressive-liberal common sense of Western societies after '68 is condensed in an exemplary way.

Sebastian Haunss (Bremen):
The (ever) new media and the promise of participation
(16/09/2016, 09:00, Senatssitzungssaal)

It is evident that the internet has enabled new forms of collaboration. Its network infrastructure enables asynchronous collaboration between people from all over the world without central coordination. Due to this structural feature, it is also often claimed that the Internet and in particular the (new) social media would also lead to an expansion and possibly even democratic deepening of the possibilities for political participation or even trigger a fourth wave of democratisation. Cyber-pessimists counter these assumptions of the cyber-optimists by arguing that online participation is little more than window-dressing and, in the worst case, would even discourage more relevant forms of political participation.
In my lecture, I will discuss the various hopes and fears about the influence of the Internet on political participation and protest and what knowledge exists so far about the actual use of new online media by social movements or in the context of protests and what can be learnt from this about the possibilities and limits of political participation opened up by the Internet.

Wilfried Nippel (Berlin):
Relief from participation: Representation instead of assembly democracy
(17 September 2016, 09:00, Senate meeting room)

The parliamentary democracy of modern times has its roots in the representative bodies of the estates, communes and churches, but has no institutional or ideological continuity with the kind of assembly democracy that was developed in Athens in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. The Athenian model has been repeatedly referred to in a debate on the possibility or desirability of popular rule that has spanned the ages. Up to the threshold of modernity, however, it was almost universally rejected, firstly because political equality was seen as incompatible with the natural inequality of people, and secondly because classical sources such as Thucydides, Xenophon, Plato and Aristotle had painted a critical picture.

When the self-government of citizens became an issue again in the course of the 18th century, Scottish, French and American theorists explained why the Athenian model could not be repeated. An assembly government was at best possible under small-scale conditions (such as in the Swiss cantons); in large territorial states, the will of the people could only be realised through representative assemblies. However, representation is not only seen as a technical means in view of the numerical and size ratios in modern states; it was not understood as a "sorry substitute for the real thing". Rather, it corresponded to the needs of a society based on the division of labour, in which citizens had to pursue a wide range of economic activities. Permanent utilisation of political functions was only suitable for ancient societies, which sought to secure their prosperity through warlike expansion, but for this very reason were unable to develop the dynamism that is characteristic of a society based on peaceful means of earning a living.

Representation also means a procedure for filtering the will of the people. The election was intended to guarantee that only citizens suitable for such a task would be sent and that their exemption from direct instructions from the electorate would ensure that decisions serving the common good would be made.

Based on the theories of the 18th century and the debates in the American and French revolutions, the further development of this opposition between ancient and modern democracy will also be discussed using the example of authors such as Benjamin Constant, Jacob Burckhardt and Max Weber.

Research theatre, performative studies, panel discussion

Performative Studies 1

(14.09.2016,16:00, BIS-Saal)

Jörg Holkenbrink (Bremen)

Strangeness and participation

Academics are looking for theoretical connectivity, artists like to tell anecdotes when they want to document their work. Jörg Holkenbrink, director and head of the Centre for Performance Studies at the University of Bremen, is a border crosser between the two worlds. In a short introductory lecture, he will first report on artistic orientations in scientific work contexts and experiences with participation opportunities in the project TSCHECHOW - Eine Landpartie*. The participants will then be able to question him about his insights and interventions in an unusual way. The forms of communication that characterise this setting (playing with spatial and temporal structures, presentation and questioning techniques, directing attention, etc.) will themselves become the subject and their effects will be examined.

*At the end of project CHEKHOV - A Country Tour

Chekhov died in 1904 and his characters are considered immortal. But where do they live then?

Shortly before the Russian Revolution, the so-called "Chekhov people" emigrated to Germany. Unnoticed by the world public, they settled in the rural north. However, as in the author's time, the characters are repeatedly driven out of their country homes.

For several years now, the Theatre of Assembly has been offering research trips to the precarious abodes of the Chekhov people.

Chekhov's major theme is time. As a researcher, you meet characters who, above all, live slowly. The characters maintain a space for memory that has an infectious effect. They follow the fragments of their (life) pieces, which sometimes lead to unexpected encounters, sometimes to a descent into inner worlds. The researchers observe and interact with the Chekhov people, moving attentively through the rooms and the garden of the rural domicile. Closeness and distance between the two groups are constantly renegotiated. On the return journey, the researchers share the experiences and results of their exploration with each other.

Performative studies 2

(15.09.2016, 17:00, A14 1-112)

THEATRE OF CONVERSATION between education, science and art

(Bremen)

"Everyone has influence, no one controls the whole"

C COPY A, VERSCHLÜSSELT - A game with speed

Actions: Carolin Bebek, Simon Makhali, Manfred Palm, Clara Schließler,Tom Schröpfer

Dramaturgy: Anna Seitz

Direction: Jörg Holkenbrink

How are perception, thinking, personal encounters and conversations changing in our increasingly fast-paced world? How can we respond meaningfully to the increasing number of interrupted beginnings in our everyday lives? How can we try out productive aspects of strangeness and confusion in dealing with objects and situations with others and with ourselves?

In the click performance of the Theatre of Assembly, you will have the opportunity to set the ensemble in motion live with the help of computer commands such as "copy", "cut" or "encrypt". In doing so, the performers draw on movement sequences and text modules from roles that they otherwise embody in different plays. In several rounds, new patterns of relationship and meaning are to be composed from these fragments together and at high speed. The aim is to repeatedly extract small islands of meaning from the resulting chaos. The composing audience learns to deal with the commands and mirrors itself through its instructions, for example by creating confusion through constant intervention or by allowing the roles to unfold. The click performance acts as an "organic user interface" that makes it possible to experience whether and how we remain capable of acting in complex systems.

Duration: approx. 90 min, followed by a panel discussion

Panel discussion with:

Thomas Alkemeyer (sports sociologist, speaker of the research training group "Selbst-Bildungen", University of Oldenburg)

Gesine Geppert (Head of Division 7 at the Oldenburg State Theatre)

Jörg Holkenbrink (Artistic Director of the Centre for Performance Studies at the University of Bremen)

Marc-Oliver Krampe (Head Dramaturg for Drama at the Oldenburg State Theatre)

Eckart Voigts (English Studies, University of Braunschweig)

Moderation: Martin Butler (Americanist, speaker of the doctoral programme "Cultures of Participation", University of Oldenburg)

Theatre of the Assembly

The Theatre of Assembly between Education, Science and Art (TdV) is considered one of the first research theatres in Germany. It was invented in 1992 under the direction of Jörg Holkenbrink as part of a model experiment of the same name by the Federal-Länder Commission for Educational Issues, received the Berninghausen Prize for excellent teaching and its innovation in higher education in 1993 and has been at the heart of the Centre for Performance Studies at the University of Bremen since 2004.

At the centre of the TdV's activities is the collaboration between students and lecturers from various disciplines and professional performance artists from different fields. The ensemble wanders through the various departments, from Production Technology and Computing Science to Cultural, Social and Educational Sciences. There, it examines topics and issues that are dealt with theoretically in the seminars using the means of performance. The resulting productions are performed and discussed regionally, nationally and internationally, including in the areas of academic appointments and business, schools and universities, health and culture. Bremen Performance Studies trains students for this investigative and intervening form of theatre work.