25.04.2018, 4-6pm, A08 0-001
Dr Silke Förschler (Kassel)
Parcellated and aestheticised: On the traces of animal materials in the early modern period

Representations of exotic animals in the early modern period oscillate between the generation of natural history knowledge and aestheticisation. Based on this observation, the lecture aims to explain the role played by animal materials that presuppose the dead and/or parcelled animal. Particular attention will be paid to the intertwining of aesthetics and science, or of image and natural-historical knowledge. From the perspective of human-animal studies, the focus is on a further relationship, namely how the dead and/or parcelled animal is used to depict liveliness.


08.05.2018 (TUESDAY!), 6-8 pm, A08 1-110
Anna-Theresa Kölczer, M.A. (Kassel)
Wie (uns) Einhorn und Eichhorn in die Falle gehen. The animal illustrations in Konrad von Megenberg's "Book of Nature" between the practice of faith and life in the late Middle Ages

The "Book of Nature" (1349/1350) by the Regensburg canon Konrad von Megenberg (1309-1374) is generally regarded as the first nature compilation of the Middle Ages, which transmits classical-antique knowledge of nature in the German language and, in addition to extensive allegorical/moral didactic interpretations in the animal and plant chapters, also contains 'autobiographical anecdotes' such as 'own observations'. The lecture is dedicated to the heterogeneous animal-human relations of the "Book of Nature" illustrations in order to illustrate how late medieval natural history is transformed from a companion book for biblical exegesis on the pictorial level into a universal (natural) reference work that no longer perceives animals exclusively in their symbolic meaning for Christian faith practice, but as active subjects of a human life practice that creates meaning.


23.05.2018, 16-18 h, A08 0-001
Dr. des. Isabelle Schürch (Konstanz)
Of stags, horses and centaurs. An equine history of impressions of the 'New World' (15th - 17th century)

In 1493, horses set their hooves on the newly discovered world of the Caribbean for the first time from a European perspective. This experience not only had consequences for the indigenous population, but also for the Spanish conquistadors, the Mesoamerican ecosystems and the horses themselves. The Spaniards' experience of facing communities that did not know horses or similar quadrupeds of this size led to intense myth-making about their own cultural practice of riding. From the point of view of the indigenous commentators, they were forced to adapt as quickly as possible to a living creature that threatened their own hierarchical structures as a fighting unit and privileged mount. The lecture uses the concept of "impression" to approach this complex human-animal relationship in the context of the early conquista and outlines how different European, Caribbean and Mesoamerican narrative and visual traditions each processed the experience of conquest in their own way and blended into hybrid cultures of the visual over the course of the 16th century.


06.06.2018, 4-6 p.m., A08 0-001
Prof. Dr Sabine Nessel (Berlin)
How do we look at animals? Media animals in film and in the display arrangements of the zoo

John Berger's essay "Why do we look at animals?" (1980) recognises a cultural-historical change in the everyday relationship between humans and animals and is now considered one of the canonical texts of cultural animal studies. Based on Berger, the lecture is instead dedicated to the question of the conditions under which we look at animals. Under what media and dispositive conditions do our changes of perspective with animals take place?


20 June 2018, 4-6 p.m., A08 0-001
Prof. Dr Petra Lange-Berndt (Hamburg)
Animal Art: Posthumanist perspectives on taxidermy

Today, posed animals are an integral part of contemporary art. Since 2000, parallel to the rise of social media and the new handmade movement, a new generation of artists has shown an increased interest in biological body design. This lecture will explore the artistic treatment of dead animals and post-humanist perspectives on nature, rethinking traditional conceptions of what it means to be human. Using exemplary practices - for example by Mark Dion or Tessa Farmer - as well as the crisis topos of the insect, I would like to discuss how contemporary artists deal with the broad field of the relationship between humans and animals. How is nature defined, what kind of institutional critique can be observed? Against the backdrop of questions about the function of complex ecosystems and the abandonment of an anthropocentric perspective, such as that raised by the last documenta: What relevance does the art of taxidermy have for the discussion of concepts of nature in the 21st century?


03.07.2018 (TUESDAY!), 6-8 pm, A08 1-110
Prof. Dr Jessica Ullrich (Münster)
Interspecies Art. Animals as co-authors of artworks

The lecture will focus on the use of living animals in art since the 1970s from a new perspective informed by the interdisciplinary science of Human-Animal Studies. In most art historical treatises, "the animal" is reduced to its function as symbol, metaphor or vehicle for meaning and thus remains mere representation. Even when living animals find their way into art, their function is usually limited to their pictorial nature. Animals as active co-creators of art have so far received little attention in art history. The lecture will therefore primarily present artistic works that have been created in direct dialogue with animals and that make animals co-authors of artworks, so to speak. The aim is to reflect on the work-constituting role of the animal individual involved in the interaction with the artist individual initiating the work and to examine the changing social attitude towards non-human animals.