Organs and Media. Configurations of the Social in Posthumanism

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Henning Schmidgen
• Subject Area: Theatre and Media Studies
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 441423719

This project aims at developing a historically informed and critically engaged theory of media and/as organs. The purpose of this theory is to better understand the configurations of society in posthumanism. Important keywords in this context are “media technological a priori,” “actor-network,” “productive body” and “machinic assemblage.” Drawing on innovative approaches in media studies and the history of science, the relation between organs and media is reconstructed on the one hand with a view to the neoliberal epistemologies, which were developed in the 1930s and 1940s especially by Friedrich A. von Hayek (1899-1992) and Michael Polanyi (1891-1976). On the other hand, the project investigates the media and medical practices which led to the development of notions of “machinic normativity,” in particular in Georges Canguilhem (1904-1995) and Félix Guattari (1930-1962) who highlighted the creative use of technology as a crucial social criterion. Combining conceptual and material aspects as well as theoretical and historical methods, the project paves the way for new insights into the configurations of society in posthumanism.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants