Henry Arnhold Dresden Summer School 2017

Materiality

New Perspectives on Culture and Technology

 

Dresden, 18–29 September 2017

Materiality is a subject area that stages intriguing encounters between the sciences and humanities. Note, for example, how the material sciences and nanosciences are researching and developing increasingly small and versatile materials. Research in microelectronics is working with materials at the very limits of their physical tangibility, thereby creating the basis for virtual worlds. In this digital realm, it seems as though materiality is vanishing into the ether. By contrast, there is an increased focus in the humanities on questions relating to the physical and material quality of things, as is evident for example in researchers’ investigations into the extent to which physical entities are effective at establishing new conceptions of human identity and creating culture. Scientific research, technological development, and discussions pursued in the humanities, have formed a tightly knit interrelationship in contemporary discourse(s), which is characterized both by tensions and synergies.

The aim of the Henry Arnhold Dresden Summer School 2017 is to create space for the various perspectives on the theme of materiality that have emerged from culture, the natural world, and technology, while fostering an extensive exchange of ideas between them. Thus, the Summer School will investigate those areas that exemplify the perspectives developed over the course of research undertaken by the various participating institutions.

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