The proposed project investigates the use and meaning of the idea and concept of (aesthetic) experience in contemporary forms of popular culture. It departs from the observation that aesthetic experience is at the center of a variety of contemporary theoretical debates. In the Anglophone context, these include especially postcritique in literary studies, discussion of the concept of art in fully commodified contemporary culture, and the question of the reach of the idea of form. The project aims to take a sideways step: it pulls in extraliterary forms to identify and analyze the gaps in the use and conception of the term aesthetic experience. It recurs especially to the form of the role-playing game, in both its analog and digital forms, to work out the basis for a wider and more dynamic perspective on the contemporary concept of experience. It suggests that this will retain power for literary studies given the dense interconnections between contemporary medial forms. Finally, it aims to critically investigate the concept of aesthetic experience and its boundaries beyond positivistic definitions in a network of commodity production, medial (art) forms and problems of reception to make it available to a broad range of research projects.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
