Frankfurter Stadtgespräch IX

What's state of the art?
The Arts and the current crises

Prof. Carl Hegemann talking with Prof. Christoph Menke

Moderation: Peter Siller

8th March 2012, 8 p.m.

Frankfurter Kunstverein
Steinernes Haus am Römerberg
Markt 44

Free admission

A series of events of the Cluster of Excellence `The Formation of Normative Orders' in collaboration with the Frankfurter Kunstverein

The current crises do not leave art and culture unaffected. Not only are in many places artistic production sites directly affected by the economic and financial crisis. Also art is often the laboratory, in which social relations are disclosed and solutions are being tested. In times of insecurity and bewilderment the interest in artistic answers - their calculations, narrations and utopias - increases. Theaters more and more have the self-image of places of political discussion and participation. Exhibitions react to the current crises. But to what degree do we trust in art? What can it actually change? How can it help? To the current relation between art and politics the dramaturge Carl Hegemann, theater practitioner and Professor for Dramaturgy in Leipzig as well as philosopher Christoph Menke who has been thinking and researching about the crossing of aesthetic and practical philosophy for many years.

Carl Hegemann is author, theater practitioner and Professor for Dramaturgy at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater „Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy", Leipzig. Besides his chair he is dramaturge at the Thalis-Theater in Hamburg and was dramaturge at the Ruhrfestspiele, Recklinghausen, at the State Theater in Freiburg, at the Schauspielhaus Bochum, at the Berlin Ensemble and at the Volksbühne at the Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. Hegemann worked together with Christop Schlingensief for many years.

Christoph Menke is Professor for Practical Philosophy at the Cluster of Excellence „The Emergence of Normative Orders" at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. He is the head of the research project ‘Normativity and Freedom', in which it is analyzed, how freedom and social normativity are justified and why freedom always has to be the freedom of social participation and therefore normativity.

Peter Siller (* 1970) is Scientific Manager of the Cluster of Excellence `The Formation of Normative Orders' at the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. Formerly he was the director of the domestic divisions of the Heinrich Böll Foundation and a member of the planning staff at the German Foreign Ministry. He studied law and philosophy. In addition he is founder and managing editor of the journal `polar' which appears twice yearly in the Campus Verlag (www.polar-zeitschrift.de). He numerous publications on political philosophy and practice include `Rechtsphilosophische Kontroversen der Gegenwart' (1999), `Politik als Inszenierung' (2000), `Zukunft der Programmpartei' (2002), `Arbeit der Zukunft' (2006), `Politik der Gerechtigkeit' (2009).

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