Arbeitskreis Cultural Studies: (Im)Material Cultures

Date: 13.06.2026

Campus Neues Palais, Building 8, Foyer (beneath the Audimax)

(Im)Material Cultures

This year’s workshop will explore intersections of materiality and immateriality in the context of Cultural Studies. Given the continuing critical interest in matter in the wake of the ‘material turn’, and the fact that Cultural Studies has always foregrounded material and medial constellations beyond the text, we seek to address the interstice between the intangible (sound, emotion, memory, tradition, …) and material (objects, materials, textures, technology, assemblages, archives, …) dimensions of culture. How do material artefacts reflect and shape non-material phenomena, and vice versa? What is the relationship between medium and materiality and how can it be approached in case studies? How do material objects convey, enable, or undermine power structures and practices of marginalisation, discrimination, and oppression? As Cultural Studies practitioners, which (new) productive dialogues with material culture studies, new materialisms, intermediality or performance studies inform our research and teaching?

Preliminary Programme

11:30-12:00: Welcome and Introduction

12:00-13:00: Prof. Dr. Matthias Rebstock (Uni Hildesheim, Szenische Musik): Sonic Materialism

13:00-13:45: Lunch

13:45-14:45: Dr. des. Priyam Goswami Choudhury (Uni Potsdam): Inventing the (Tea) Frontier

14:45-15:15: Tea (and Coffee) Break

15:15-16:00: Prof. Dr. Kylie Crane (Uni Rostock): t.b.a.

16:00-16:15: Coffee Break

16:15-17:00: Roundtable Discussion: Mitbestimmung im Mittelbau: Lehrdeputate und Mitgliederinitiativen; Input:  Dr. Claudia Rödel (Uni Potsdam) + t.b.a.

17:00-17:30: Workshop Closing: mailing list, next AK

From 17:30: Get-together at Augustiner im Bürgerbahnhof

Please note that this will be a bilingual event (English/German).

Organisers: Dr. Anke Bartels, Dr. Aileen Behrendt, Dr. Stefanie John

Please contact aileen.behrendt@uni-potsdam.de to register for this event.

Funded by BritCult - German Association for the Study of British Cultures