In addition to portraits and biographies, there are numerous other figurations of the particular that are meant to depict an individual human being. They can be reduced to a certain social or historical position – for example as lists of names – or even anonymized – for example in bureaucratic numbering systems – to such an extent that biographical peculiarities can only be read in encrypted form. While many prominent people are considered worthy of biographies and portraits, other biographies are often more tangible in contrast and compositional figures to artistic portraits and literary biographies, e.g. in diaries, letters, CVs, photo albums, Facebook or Instagram. The same seems to apply to historical societies in which the turning away from the self is more dominant than the turning away, in which the life story in contemporary history, the self-image merges with the image of time, as it was described, for example, for Chinese society up to the beginning of the 20th century. The annual conference will explore contrast and complementary figures in portraiture and biography in order to sharpen the understanding of figurations of the particular.

We look forward to welcoming all of you there!

For abstracts of the lectures (German/English) please change language to "DE" (German)!

Montay, July 1

ABENDVORTRAG
Hartmut Böhme

Tuesday, July 2

SHARP CONTRAST? REFLECTIONS ON CONTRAST AND COMPLEMENTARY FIGURES
Alexei Ditter, Adrian Robanus, Martin Roussel, Karena Weduwen

EMBODIED LIFE WRITING I
Ralf von den Hoff, Robert Folger

(AUTO-)BIOGRAPHICAL FIGURATIONS OF THE PARTICULAR I
Günter Blamberger

EMBODIED LIFE WRITING II
Sinah Kloß, Nadine Boljkovac, Antonia Villinger, Royce Mahawatte

ENCOUNTER: Stolpern und Erinnern
Birte Klarzyk, Habbo Knoch

Wednesday, July 3

(AUTO-)BIOGRAPHICAL FIGURATIONS OF THE PARTICULAR II
Jessey Choo, Jochen Hellbeck, Jin Yang, Martin Huber, Wolfram Nitsch