FOR 390:  The Staging of Cultural "Otherness" in the 19th Century

• Subject Area: Humanities
• Term: from 2000 to 2007
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5466969

The aim of the interdisciplinary research project, which brings together experts in the fields of history, theater, art history, literature and ethnic studies, is to analyze the varying forms of the staging of cultural "otherness" during the "long" 19th century. The project focuses on the various modes of perception, presentation which manifest themselves in the staging of the "other" in such different fields as museums, world fairs, theater, dance, and arts.Otherness is conceptualised in three distinct ways: As the exotic non-European "other", which contemporaries looked at, analyzed and classified at its place of origin; as the foreign "other" within each country which is either presented as an exotic curiosity imported from abroad, or identified with groups of the population that are regarded as foreign (antisemitism being one of the most highly charged forms of reaction in this respect); lastly, the "other" is understood as operating within the context of the coexistence of European countries, that is the relationship and interdependence between cultural and economic centers and peripheries. One of the central premises of the project is the assumption that at the end of the 18th century there occurred a fundamental anthropological reconceptionalization of the cultural other and that this shift took root various fields of knowledge and social practices.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• International Connection: Austria

Projects

• Das Pariser Musée Grévin: Medienrevolution, Geschichtsvermittlung und Fremdheitswahrnehmung im Wachsfigurenkabinett (Applicant Gersmann, Gudrun )
• Der Jude als Fremder. Komponisten jüdischer Herkunft im Musikleben des 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderts - Jüdische Opernfiguren auf der Bühne des 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderts (Applicant Fischer, Jens Malte )
• Ethnographical exhibitions in Germany (Applicant Zedelmaier, Helmut )
• `Imagining Europe`: Europa-Vorstellungen und ihre Inszenierung in Theater und städtischer Popularkultur an der südosteuropäischen Peripherie Europas (im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert, am Beispiel Bulgariens) (Applicant Roth, Klaus )
• "Jews, Turks, Gentiles" - strangeness on the German stage and in the German drama of the 19th century (Applicant Bayerdörfer, Hans-Peter )
• Objektbiografie und Medialität: Ethnografie und Transformation südamerikanischer Artefakte im späten 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert (Applicant Heidemann, Frank M. )
• Paris as "global village": France and the exotic - "The Expositions Universelle" 1867,1878, and 1889 (Applicant Geyer, Martin H. )
• Representations of the other in 19th-century english popular theatre (Applicant Höfele, Andreas )
• Salome und Kaffeeboy - Exotismus der Bilder und Szenarien in den Fin de siècle-Metropolen München, Berlin und Wien (Applicant Rebel, Ernst )
• Scientific concepts of the exotic and their translation into museum displays, 1700-1900 (Applicant Hellmuth, Eckhart )
• Zentralprojekt (Applicant Bayerdörfer, Hans-Peter )
• Zur Modellierung von Fremdheit im Tanztheater des 19. Jahrhunderts: Bereiche der Subjektivität (Applicant Jeschke, Claudia )

• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Hans-Peter Bayerdörfer
• Deputy: Professor Dr. Jens Malte Fischer