Department of Philosophy, Darmstadt University of Technology, Landwehrstraße 54, Darmstadt, Germany, phone: +49 (0)6151 16-57444, E-mail: reinhard@gugw.tu-darmstadt.de
Jacques Derrida's project: aporetology (working title).
Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Christoph Hubig, Darmstadt, Germany; Prof. Dr. Petra Gehring, Darmstadt, Germany; Prof. Dr. Dirk Rustemeyer, Trier, Germany
Initially, I have not had the will (or even aspiration) to stick to this plan but my scientific projects – until now – are attracted by an interest in philosophical/ scientific/ artistic failure. Nevertheless, to work on these projects has been enjoyable because I could witness a broad spectrum of stupendously imaginative ways of getting oneself out of the mess. First of all, I have been looking especially on contemporary continental philosophy and its tragicomical disorientation in reference to its goals and methods (Master thesis). I am also interested in the history of scientific suffering, the hard-luck stories of the fine arts and the tales of woe the humanities know to tell.
Inspired by the semiotics of Roland Barthes, Paul De Man and Dirk Rustemeyer, the sociology of Bruno Latour and the mediology of Régis Debray my attempt to compare seemingly incomparable cultural phenomenons is finally geared to a "semiotics of culture". It is a methodological approach towards the reconstruction of the recursivity between patterns of knowledge/ values and individual/ social practices. As a semiotician of culture I try to scrutinize models of ourselves, of what we strive for and of the world we are living in. I do not see these models as umbrella terms to toss around superficially, but as loaded models wrought by nunanced histories and incorporated in bodies and institutions, requiring a scrupulous lens. Consequently, semiotics of culture is an analysis of how these models determine the possibilities and limits of thought and practice; of how these models are implemented in individual habits and social regimes; of how this implementation in our daily lives and our reflections on it shape our assumptions about possibilities/impossibilities, necessities/freedoms, and thereby reinforce or change the models themselves.
Research Training Group
"Topology of Technology"
Technische Universität Darmstadt
Postal Address
Dolivostr. 15
64289 Darmstadt
Germany
Speaker
Prof. Dr. Petra Gehring
Department of Philosophy
gehring(at)phil.tu-darmstadt.de
Phone: +49 (0)6151 16-57333
Speaker
Prof. Dr. Mikael HÃ¥rd
Department of History
hard(at)ifs.tu-darmstadt.de
Phone: +49 (0)6151 16-57316
Visitors Address Coordination
Landwehrstr. 54
S4|24 117
topologie(at)ifs.tu-darmstadt.de
Phone: +49 (0)6151 16-57365
Anne Batsche
Tue–Fri 10.00–15.00
topologie(at)ifs.tu-darmstadt.de
Marcel Endres
Mon–Wed 8.30–15.30
endres(at)gugw.tu-darmstadt.de
Visitors Address Fellows
Landwehrstr. 54
S4|24 106–112
Phone: +49 (0)6151 16-57444