Past events

RAI Research Seminar: Andreas Ackermann
Wednesday 27 September 2017, 05:30pm - 07:30pm
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RAI RESEARCH SEMINAR

SEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE

Atmospheres, Ecstasis, Thick Participation: Towards an Aesthetic Anthropology

Prof Andreas Ackermann, University Koblenz-Landau

Wednesday 27 September at 5.30 pm

Going back to the phenomenology of perception by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, my paper introduces approaches towards an aesthetic anthropology that tries to link David MacDougall’s concept of social aesthetics with Gernot Böhme’s idea of “atmosphere”. Both the anthropologist and the philosopher understand aesthetics not with regards to judgements about beauty, but as sensuous experience (aisthesis). Focussing on the body (in the phenomenological meaning of “Leib”) refers to the unique method of anthropology, participant observation. Participant observation is about “The Taste of Ethnographic Things” (Paul Stoller), which cannot be found via distanced observation, but only through “thick participation” (Gerd Spittler) and the use of “ecstasis” (Johannes Fabian) as epistemological concept.

Andreas Ackermann is Professor of Studies in Culture with emphasis on Anthropology at University Koblenz-Landau. His research focuses on Aesthetic Anthropology, Visual Anthropology and Multiculturalism. His main regions of research are Germany, the Kurdish areas of the Middle East and Singapore.

This event is free, but tickets must be booked. To book tickets please go to https://andreasackermann.eventbrite.co.uk

Location : Royal Anthropological Institute
50 Fitzroy Street
London
W1T 5BT
United Kingdom
http://www.therai.org.uk