Einfuehlung

On the History and the Contemporary Significance of an Aesthetic Concept
International Conference in Berlin
from December 7th to 9th, 2006

Although the notion of empathy has increasingly played a part in discussions
about the nature of the viewer's emotional involvement with images (whether
those images be time-based or still) the more expansive possibilities for
intersubjectivity which were suggested in the lively discussions of Empathie
und Einfuehlung that took place around the turn of the twentieth century in
the realms of psychology, art history and aesthetics have seldom been
brought to bear in contemporary scholarship. The work of the German
Psychologist and aesthetician Theodor Lipps is representative: the
peculiarity of Lipps' approach to the notion of empathy (or Einfuehlung as
he termed it) is that he described it as an involuntary, instinctual,
kinaesthetic form of mimicry, that, crucially, could also be directed
towards inanimate objects, such as spaces, colours or sounds, as well as
(more typically) animals or other humans. This all-encompassing
relationship of extreme proximity to one's environment is a fruitful point
of departure for more contemporary discussions of embodiment and aesthetic
experience.

The conference "Einfuehlung - On the History and the Contemporary
Significance of an Aesthetic Concept" seeks both to investigate the
complexity of the historical antecedents to the term "empathy" and to return
them to their context within a debate, which took place between extremely
diverse scholars, from proponents of metaphysical and animistic theories to
those representing experimental psychological perspectives. In this context
we hope in turn to elucidate some contemporary issues important to questions
of aesthetic reception, regarding, to name only a few, the nature of the
viewer's emotional involvement, the space of reception, or the concept of
immersion.

PROGRAMME

Thursday, December 7, 2006 -- 9pm
Film programme
at Kino Arsenal
Potsdamer Platz, Potsdamer Straße 2
10785 Berlin
Programme at http://www.fdk-berlin.de/de/arsenal/programm.html

Friday December 8, 2006
Auditorium, Institute for Theater Studies (Theaterwissenschaft)
Freie Universitaet Berlin,
Grunewaldstr. 35, 12165 Berlin-Dahlem

10 am Welcome -- Gertrud Koch

10:00-10.30 am Robin Curtis (Freie Universitaet Berlin)
Einfuehrung in die Einfuehlung
(Introduction to Einfuehlung)

10:30-11:30 am Joseph Imorde (Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rom)
Einfuehlung in der Kunstgeschichte
(Einfuehlung in Art History)

11:30am -12:30 pm Frederic Schwartz (University College London)
The Adequacy of Empathy:
Problems of an Art-Historical Concept

12:30-2:00 pm Lunch Break

2:00-3:00 pm Christiane Voss (Freie Universitaet Berlin)
Einfühlung und affektives Verstehen bei Hume und Lipps
(Einfühlung and affective understanding in Hume and Lipps)

3:00-3.30 pm Coffee Break

3:30-4:30 pm Ed S. Tan (University of Amsterdam)
Why people are very good at einfuehlen,
but do not do it all the time.

4:30-5:30 Uhr Christine Noll Brinckmann (Universitaet Zurich / Berlin)
Empathischer Genuss in Eric de Kuypers Casta-Diva-Sequenz
(Empathic Pleasure in Eric de Kuyper's Casta-Diva Sequence)

Saturday December 9, 2006
Auditorium, Institute for Theater Studies (Theaterwissenschaft)
Freie Universitaet Berlin
Grunewaldstr. 35, 12165 Berlin-Dahlem

10:00-11:00 am Antonia Lant (New York University)
La vie en arabesque: Germaine Dulac on viewing film.

11:00 am -12:00 pm
Giuliana Bruno (Harvard University)
The Laboratory of Affects: Film, Aesthetics, Science

12:00-1:00 pm
Scott Curtis (Northwestern University)
Raumgefuehl, Einfuehlung, and Early German Film Theory

1:00-2:30 pm Lunch Break

2:30 - 3:30 pm Kirsten Wagner (Humboldt Universitaet Berlin)
Die Beseelung der Architektur. Empathie und
architektonischer Raum
(Animated Architecture: Empathy and architectural Space)

3:30-4:30 pm Zeynep Celik (MIT / Max Planck Institut Berlin)
Obrist, Endell, and the Science of Emotive Effect

4:30 pm Closing Comments

Conceptualization and Organisation:
Dr. Robin Curtis, Prof. Dr. Gertrud Koch, Marc Gloede

Hosted by:
Project B11 "Synaesthetic Effects: Kinetics and Colour in Film"
Collaborative Research Centre 447 "Cultures of Performativity"

For more information contact:
Freie Universitaet Berlin
Grunewaldstr. 35, 12165 Berlin
Tel. +49 (0)30 838 503 39
Email: rcurtiszedat.fu-berlin.de

Programme:
http://www.sfb-performativ.de/

Conference Venue
Auditorium at the Institute Theater Studies (Theaterwissenschaft)
At the Freie Universitaet Berlin
Grunewaldstr. 35, 12165 Berlin-Dahlem
U-Bahn Rathaus Steglitz; S-Bahn Steglitz.

Funded with the kind support of the Collaborative Research Centre 447
"Cultures of Performativity" and the German Research Foundation