Public conference as part of the programme of events of the DFG Research Training Group 1608/2 "Selbst-Bildungen. Practices of Subjectivation" at the University of Oldenburg.

09.05-11.05.2019, A14 1-111 (Senate meeting room)
To the conference report on H/SOZ/KULT

Possession, trance, ecstasy, schizophrenia - experiences in which the ego experiences itself as radically delimited. The underside of modern subjectivity can be studied in ritual, psychological and social settings that strip a consciousness of its self. On this side, passivity dominates over activity, heteronomy over self-determination. How do moments of powerlessness and self-dissolution relate to the formation of the self in the course of life? Does the loss of self go hand in hand with a loss of the worldor can the world only be experienced in a different, possibly enhanced way 'without' self? What scientific approaches allow research into passivity and loss of self? And what significance do passivity and loss of self have in an epoch that, despite increasing doubts about its constitution, primarily focusses on subjectivity from an active-productive perspective? The loss of self, this becomes clear, points to a neuralgic point of modernity.

The conference will address these questions and discuss them with representatives from the fields of literature, ethnology, sociology, philosophy, media studies and religious studies.