DFG-Researchgroup "Cultures of Critique"
Organisational unit: Projectteam
Organisation profile
The cultural sciences research training group “Cultures of Criticism” undertakes a productive revision of the preconditions, roles and validity claims of critique. On the one hand, new technologies and distribution channels have given rise to a welter of unexpected critical and quasi-critical practices. On the other hand, the very theoretical foundations of critique have come under massive pressure – and so, it seems, has the modern project of critique as a whole. What may be regarded as an act of critique and which agents, expectations and criteria take part, is currently subject to basal negotiation.
The research training group conceives critique as a praxis that is always already culturally situated, while its efficacy rides on comprehensive claims to validity and authority. The phenomena under critique are inseparably interwoven with the forms and media used to represent them. Representation thus appears as the focal point in which widely divergent forms of critique and their heterogeneous cultures lend themselves to comparative discussion. Building on studies of diverse concrete critical practices, the Research Training Group seeks to remap the interaction between critique and culture in the history of modernity up to the present and employ the tools of cultural studies to frame a well founded and timely conception of critique.
Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Beate Söntgen
Deputy spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Erich Hörl
Main research areas
Kunstkritik, Medienkritik, Sozialkritik
‚Alger la Blanche‘ becomes ‚Alger la Rouge‘ – On the heritage of the anti-colonial movements in contemporary art
Volz, J. (Project manager, academic)
01.10.22 → …
Project: Dissertation project
A Museum of Memory for Colombia: The emergence of a controversial space
Rueda, D. C. (Project manager, academic)
01.10.23 → …
Project: Dissertation project
Archivio Nicola Massimo De Feo
Nigro, R. (Coordination), Marzocca, O. (Coordination), Casale, R. (Coordination), Ciccarelli, R. (Project staff), Licinio, A. (Project staff), Marzocca, O. (Project staff), Nigro, R. (Project staff), Casale, R. (Project staff), Gadaleta, C. (Project staff), di Girolamo, C. (Project staff), Papagni, S. (Project staff) & Spagnuolo, M. (Project staff)
01.02.20 → …
Project: Research
Between Logistics and Migration: Duisburg and the New Silk Road
Bojadzijev, M. (Project manager, academic)
01.01.17 → …
Project: Research
Commodified Agency: Social Space and the Digital Value Chain
Kirchberg, V. (Project manager, academic) & Wuggenig, U. (Project manager, academic)
Ministry of Science and Culture of the State of Lower Saxony
01.04.22 → 31.12.25
Project: Research
Cultures of Critique: Forms, Media, Effects
Söntgen, B. (Project manager, academic), Hörl, E. (Project manager, academic) & Beyes, T. (Project manager, academic)
01.10.16 → 31.07.21
Project: Research
Cultures of Critique: Forms, Media, Effects
Söntgen, B. (Project manager, academic), Hörl, E. (Project manager, academic), Beyes, T. (Project manager, academic) & Nigro, R. (Project manager, academic)
01.04.21 → 30.09.25
Project: Research
Die Dialektik des Body Politic: Eine Studie zum Wandel des neuzeitlich sozialen Körpers
Esch, F. (Project manager, academic)
01.10.22 → …
Project: Dissertation project
Dourgouti Island Hotel Project
Genidogan, K. (Partner, non-academic)
01.08.15 → 31.10.16
Project: Practical Project
Encounter: An art research workshop with Bracha Ettinger
Genidogan, K. (Project manager, academic)
15.05.17 → 15.05.20
Project: Scientific event
Entsolidarisierung und Rassismus
Bojadzijev, M. (Project manager, academic)
01.05.16 → 31.12.16
Project: Research
European Haniel Program on Entrepreneurship and the Humanities
Beyes, T. (Project manager, academic), Metelmann, J. (Project manager, academic) & Johnsen, R. (Project manager, academic)
01.01.18 → 30.09.25
Project: Other
“Expanding the Margins: Migration, Mobilities, Borders”, International Summer School
Bojadzijev, M. (Project manager, academic)
21.09.14 → 26.09.14
Project: Scientific event
Facing Reality: Between Doom and Cruel Optimism
Stolz, L. (Project manager, academic)
01.10.22 → …
Project: Dissertation project
Gay Radical Theory Formation as (a Constellation of) Critique
Branding, J.-H. (Project manager, academic)
01.10.22 → …
Project: Dissertation project
Gründungsmitglied des Initiativkollegs Sinne – Technik – Inszenierung. Medien und Wahrnehmung an der Universität Wien
Pias, C. (Project manager, academic)
01.06.07 → 01.06.10
Project: Research
Gründungsmitglied des Initiativkollegs The Sciences in Historical Context an der Universität Wien
Pias, C. (Project manager, academic)
01.06.07 → 01.06.10
Project: Research
Identity as Deportability: On ‘Identitatsklärung’ as a Contested Practice of Control within the German-European Deportation Regime
Bescherer, K. (Project manager, academic)
01.10.22 → …
Project: Dissertation project
Immediations: Art, Media, Event
Brunner, C. (Project manager, academic), Massumi, B. (Project manager, academic) & Manning, E. (Project manager, academic)
01.06.13 → 31.12.19
Project: Research
International Conference: Judgement Practices in the Artistic Field.
Marchal, S. (Project staff) & Söntgen, B. (Project manager, academic)
29.11.17 → 01.12.17
Project: Scientific event
Internationales Symposium "Narrating Culture(s) in Museums and Exhibitions"
Söntgen, B. (Project manager, academic) & Leeb, S. (Project manager, academic)
18.01.18 → 19.01.18
Project: Scientific event
Investigating Logistics: Lifestyles, Migration and the Common(s)
Bojadzijev, M. (Project manager, academic)
01.09.15 → 31.12.16
Project: Scientific event
KOSMOS Workshop "Cataloging Logistics 1: Migration, Humanitarism, Borders"
Bojadzijev, M. (Project manager, academic)
25.05.16 → 27.05.16
Project: Scientific event
KOSMOS Workshop "Cataloging Logistics 2: Migration, Digitalisation, Forms of Life"
Bojadzijev, M. (Project manager, academic)
16.06.16 → 17.06.16
Project: Scientific event
Kunst in neuen Kontexten: Die Artist Placement Group als Case Study
Jordan, U. (Project manager, academic) & Waligorski, A. (Project manager, academic)
25.10.13 → 26.01.14
Project: Teaching
Kunstkritik und Krisenrhetorik - Modellfall Kunstschriftstellerei
Söntgen, B. (Project manager, academic) & Marchal, S. (Project manager, academic)
24.05.16 → 07.10.20
Project: Research
Lifting the Sky: Practices to Sustain Worlds Otherwise
Daibert , R. (Project manager, academic)
01.10.22 → …
Project: Dissertation project
Media and Participation. Between demand and entitlement, TP 5: Participatory Critique as Transforming and Transversal "With"
Bippus, E. (Partner), Brunner, C. (Project manager, academic), Nigro, R. (Partner), Ochsner, B. (Project manager, academic) & Hörl, E. (Partner)
01.10.15 → 31.07.22
Project: Research
Methoden der Kunstgeschichte und Visual Studies
Sieber, J. (Project manager, academic)
13.12.18 → 11.01.19
Project: Teaching
Methodenkritik und feministische Institutionskritik. Kritik, Interventionen und neue Formen des Sprechens
Sieber, J. (Project manager, academic) & Wulff, N. (Project manager, academic)
06.04.20 → 10.07.20
Project: Teaching
Migration in die DDR, Archiv und Online Bibliographie
Bojadzijev, M. (Project manager, academic)
01.06.11 → …
Project: Teaching
Partial Versions Collective
Genidogan, K. (Project manager, academic), Jones, A. (Project manager, academic), Mason, L. (Project manager, academic) & Osman, H. (Project manager, academic)
09.05.18 → …
Project: Research
Poetic and Photographic Practices in the Kiongozi German East African Colonial Newspaper 1885 to 1918
Kindata, D. (Project manager, academic)
01.10.22 → …
Project: Dissertation project
Politiken und Infrastrukturen der Vermittlung mobiler Arbeit
Bojadzijev, M. (Project manager, academic)
01.05.16 → 31.12.16
Project: Research
"Politische Kunst" - von der Avantgarde bis heute
Jordan, U. (Project manager, academic) & Szántó, I. (Project manager, academic)
01.10.13 → 31.03.14
Project: Teaching
Pratiques de pouvoir et formes de représentation
Nigro, R. (Project manager, academic)
01.01.10 → 31.12.16
Project: Research
Praxes of the Transitory: Restitution, Museum Practice, and the (Im)material Cultural Heritage of the Tairona’s Descendants in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia
Felicitas Sabel, L. (Project manager, academic)
01.10.22 → …
Project: Dissertation project
‚Primitive Communism‘ as a narrative concept between 1848 and 1940
Hügel, J. (Project manager, academic)
01.10.22 → …
Project: Dissertation project
Re-thinking Solidarity and Care Infrastructures in Belarusian Protest Art 2020–2021
Davydzik, V. (Project manager, academic)
01.10.22 → …
Project: Dissertation project
Rück(ver)bindung mit dem (im)materiellen Kulturgut aus der Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta
Felicitas Sabel, L. (Project manager, academic)
15.01.25 → 15.02.25
Project: Practical Project
Schlüsselbegriffe der Kunstgeschichte und visuellen Kultur
Sieber, J. (Project manager, academic)
05.04.18 → 06.07.18
Project: Teaching
Stanford-Leuphana Summer Academy
Beyes, T. (Project manager, academic) & Pias, C. (Project manager, academic)
24.06.19 → …
Project: Research
“Teaching the Crisis. Geographies, Methodologies, Perspectives”, International Summer School
Bojadzijev, M. (Project manager, academic)
01.09.13 → 15.09.13
Project: Scientific event
The Ecotechnical Community: Hospitality and the Organisation of Locality
Stewart, D. (Project manager, academic)
01.10.22 → …
Project: Dissertation project
The Logistical Museum – Circulation and Connectivity in Contemporary Museum Practice
Ruhkopf, M. (Project manager, academic)
01.10.22 → …
Project: Dissertation project