Physical Dramaturgy: Ein (neuer) Trend?

Dramaturgie im zeitgenössischen Tanz ist ? positiv gemeint ? ein heißes Eisen. Idealerweise sind Dramaturginnen und Dramaturgen während der Erarbeitung eines Stücks die besten Freunde der Choreografen. more more

GoetheInstitute

From pasta to pyrotechnics

Monday 25 July, 2011

We should be playing more and working less, according to philosopher and author Byung-Chul Han. He argues from the standpoint of Asian thinking yet is firmly rooted in the Western tradition. Ronald Düker visits Byung-Chul Han at the University of Arts and Design in Karlsruhe to find out how to make our minds more supple.
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The Freudian romance

Thursday 9 June 2011

TeaserPicSelf-analysis and great romantic literature: Sigmund Freud was separated from his bride Martha Bernays for four years. Almost entirely kept under lock and key until the early 2000s, the first volume of their correspondence, the approximately 1,500 letters of the so-called "bridal letters" has now just been published for the first time. The first of five planned volumes is discussed by Jean Bollack.
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The barb of variety

Tuesday 25 May, 2011

Josef H. Reichholf's large-scale study on the origin of beauty that has just been published in German describes evolution as a kaleidoscope of possibilities and productive wastefulness that relativises all mechanics of necessity. The more complex organisms become, the more they liberate themselves from external living conditions and allow the attraction of beauty to play out its anarchic game. By Horst Bredekamp. Image courtesy Jörg Hempel.
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Save Benjamin from his fans!

Monday 11 October, 2010

TeaserPicWalter Benjamin took his life seventy years ago. Today the cult of Benjamin has turned him into kitsch and his almost entirely false theories into intellectual blancmange. Author Stephan Wackwitz picks apart the legend of a saint whose work should be read as Romantic literature.

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Chalk and the abyss

Wednesday May 19, 2010

As rector of the Albert Ludwig University in the winter of 1933/34, Martin Heidegger gave a seminar which was said to contain decisive evidence of the total identification of his teachings with the principles of Hitlerism. Now, thanks to his son Hermann Heidegger, the secret transcripts of this seminar "On the Essence and Concepts of Nature, History and the State" have been published for the first time. By Alexander Kissler
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The attack of the 13th fairy

Wednesday 9 February, 2010

Filmmaker and writer Alexander Kluge is no optimist, but he knows ways out of the present. Freitag magazine engages him in a conversation about the World Wide Web, dragonflies, the belief in better human beings and why he likes "gardener" as a job description.
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The origin of the world

Thursday 18 June, 2009

TeaserPicMithu M. Sanyal, a self-proclaimed "provocative feminist", has written a cultural history of the vulva. Richly illustrated and packed with knowledgeable synopses, it has directed the media spotlight into a symbolic and semantic void. By Ulrike Baureithel
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Good readers are cannibals

Monday 15 December, 2008

TeaserPicKurt Flasch's book "Kampfplätze der Philosophie" strides across the battlefields of philosophy from Augustine to Voltaire. After a weekend spent scribbling furiously in its margins, Arno Widmann was enlightened, exhilarated and hungry for more.
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Mohammed on the "straight path"

Tuesday 8 April, 2008

Did the Prophet Mohammed only become a power-conscious religious politician in Medina, where he emigrated from Mecca in 622? Author of a new Mohammed biography, Tilman Nagel has found much to indicate the absence of any genuine break in the evolution of this religious founder.


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A new cosmopolitanism is in the air

Wednesday 21 November, 2007

The global power of capital has no need for military force. And it is nigh on boundless. Sociologist Ulrich Beck presents seven theses for a better world.
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Banished to the banlieues

Wednesday 14 November, 2007

The Parisian social sciences institutes are being turfed out of their ancestral homes in the city's most desirable arrondissements and relocated to Aubervilliers. A bitter pill, but also a chance to turn theory into practice. By Wolf Lepenies
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Children of the sun

Wednesday 12 September, 2007

All light-generating substances, as well as the oxygen they consume, stem ultimately from trapped solar energy. The pulsing points of light in the depths of our oceans are distant offspring of the sunlight. Biochemist Gottfried Schatz follows light across time and space, from the Big Bang to the ocean floor.

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"The time for philosophising is over"

Monday 20 August, 2007

Ernst Tugendhat, philosopher and critic of German pseudo-profundity, talks to Ulrike Herrmann about the fear of death, Heidegger, anti-Semitism and unfounded speculations in brain research.

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Dumber in English

Thursday July 12, 2007

Is German academic language dying in the face of the dominant Anglo-Saxon? Well, revive it! Biophysicist and author Stefan Klein doesn't think German scholars should try to impress the world with mediocre English. He makes a case for the mother tongue, proposing incentives such as prizes for the best scientific texts. After all, everyone craves rewards.

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Philosopher, poet and friend

Tuesday 12 June, 2007

The American thinker Richard Rorty passed away on Friday at his home in California. German philosopher Jürgen Habermas tells what makes Rorty unique among intellectuals, and what binds Rorty, orchids, and justice on earth.

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