Lecture Series Critical Porn Studies (2023)

Artistic-medial Positions and New Perspectives

April 18 – July, 18, 2023

Pornography is globally in high demand, and digitalization has made it faster and easier to consume and produce than ever before. Before the pandemic, the statistics of the online platform pornhub recorded an average of 92 million visitors per day. Meanwhile, pornography consumption worldwide increased by another 10-20 % per lockdown. As an interface of discourses of body, gender, preventive health, culture, but also economies, law and education, pornography often experiences a reduction of its complexity. 

Porn Studies is a young, yet growing field within the cultural studies that deals with pornography as a socio-political, economic, media and pop-cultural phenomenon. They open critical perspectives on a socio-cultural practice that is widespread in erveryday life but so far has been explored and critically contextualized in academia only marginally. Little consideration is given to the fundamental artistic, media-aesthetic, and media-pedagogical points of connection.

The public lecture series "Critical Porn Studies - Artistic-Media Positions and New Perspectives" deals with artistic and queer-feminist strategies and processes of media production and reception of pornography. The lecture series will take place from April 18 – July, 18, 2023, on Tuesday evenings partly hybrid at the Institute for Art History - Film Studies - Art Education of the University of Bremen (FB 9) and at changing venues in Bremen. 

Along with invited experts, the lecture series seeks to work out and reflect on aesthetic-medial and image-critical questions on processes of sexuality norming, diverse life designs as well as on image-making and image-didactics. How are concepts of power, gender, nudity, consensus and body norms and self-determined and decolonized designs of sexuality being negotiated? How are views of gender and, precisely, sexual practices staged between norming and deviation? What alternatives can image-critical perspectives on pornography and an enlightened pornography offer? And how can they be prepared for a critical and de-tabooing educational work and for political education in pedagogical contexts?

The lecture series is organized in cooperation with the Mariann-Steegmann-Institut. Kunst & Gender, Schwankhalle Bremen, Kunst- und Kulturverein Spedition e.V., Kulturzentrum Kukoon and CITY 46 / Kommunalkino Bremen e.V. and is supported by the Foundation of the University of Bremen, the Bremen Senator of Culture, the Autonomous Feminist Unit of the University of Bremen and a kind sponsorship of FUN FACTORY GmbH. 

Venues:
University of Bremen, Hörsaalgebäude HS 2010, Universitäts-Boulevard 15, D-28359 Bremen
Kunst- und Kulturverein Spedition e.V., Beim Handelsmuseum 9, D-28195 Bremen
Kukoon, Buntentorsteinweg 29, D-28201 Bremen
Schwankhalle Bremen, Buntentorsteinweg 112/116, D-28201 Bremen
CITY 46 / Kommunalkino Bremen e.V., Birkenstraße 1, D-28195 Bremen

Contact:
Dr. Franziska Rauh rauh[at]uni-bremen.de
Tobias Dietrich tobias.dietrich[at]uni-bremen.de

Registration for online participation (on individual dates until the respective day before):
Tobias Dietrich tobias.dietrich[at]uni-bremen.de

Organization team:
Tobias Dietrich, Dr. Susanne Huber, Mira Anneli Naß, Amelie Ochs, Dr. Alexander Press, Dr. Franziska Rauh, Nadja Tamara Siemer, Rosanna Umbach