Tobias Nanz - Böcker

The volume examines from a comparative perspective the phenomenon of aesthetic disruption within the various arts in contemporary culture. It assumes that the political potential of contemporary art is not solely derived from presenting its audiences with openly political content, but rather from creating a space of perception and interaction using formal means: a space that makes hegemonic structures of action and communication observable, thus problematizing their self-evidence. The contributions conceptualize historical and contemporary politics of form in the media, which aim to be more than mere shock strategies, which are concerned not just with the ‘narcissistic’ exhibition of art as art, but also with the creation of a new common horizon of experience. They combine the analysis of paradigmatic works, procedures and actions with reference to theoretical debates in the fields of literature, media and art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The essay-collection shows how textual, visual, auditive or performative strategies disclose their own ways of functioning, intervene in automated processes of reception and thus work on stimulating a sense of political possibilities. The editors acknowledge support from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program (FP 7/ 2007–2013), ERC grant agreement no. 312454.

The Cold War is often stereotypically depicted as a period of complete separation between Eastern and Western Europe, a time of little communication and exchange between what is often called the “Eastern bloc” and the capitalist West . European integration, it is thought, was a Western project based on exclusively Western ideas. This edited volume aims to debunk this stereotype. It provides evidence for the numerous media and individuals that contributed to the circulation and exchange of ideas across the ideological divide of the Iron Curtain. The essays in this volume discuss the official and unofficial channels of communication between the Eastern bloc and the West as well as the complex networks of transmission and reception that enabled the exchange of ideas between the two. The first part of the volume examines the communication infrastructure of the Cold War and the role of then available communication technologies. The second hones in on how different media channels, and the radio in particular, were used to form and transmit ideas between East and West, whereas the third and final part looks at how individual artists and literary authors made their voices heard across the Iron Curtain.

Der Sturm auf das Kapitol bildet den Höhepunkt einer populistischen Konfrontations- und Mobilisierungsstrategie, die darauf ausgelegt war, Zustimmung durch eine Politik der Herab- und Feindsetzung zu akkumulieren. In der aktualisierten, 2. Auflage geht es weiterhin darum, aus kultur- und medienwissenschaftlicher Perspektive das öffentliche Auftreten von Donald Trump zu untersuchen und zu zeigen, wie der 45. US-Präsident an der gesellschaftlichen Konfrontation unterschiedlicher politischer Gruppen partizipierte, diese kommunikativ weiter eskalierte und von der sich immer radikaler gestaltenden Polarisierung politisch zu profitieren hoffte. Allerdings weitet sich der Untersuchungsfokus und nimmt nunmehr auch die beiden letzten Jahre seiner Amtszeit mit in den Blick, in denen Trump durch immer schrillere Töne im Kontext von Black Live Matters und der Corona-Krise, durch die Anheizung von Verschwörungstheorien und durch radikale Diskreditierung von politischen Verfahren und Institutionen die US-amerikanische Gesellschaft bis an den Rand eines Bürgerkriegs getrieben hat. Diskutiert werden Trumps Mediengebrauch, seine mit Herabsetzungen, Beleidigungen und Unterstellungen arbeitenden Adressierungsstrategien und seine Politik der Affekte. Die Beiträge des Bandes rücken den „great disruptor“ in ein Spannungsfeld von Populärkultur, fragmentierter Öffentlichkeit und rhetorischer Feindsetzung.