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. FranziskaRauhrauh[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. FranziskaRauh, Nadja Tamara Siemer, Rosanna Umbach
Program
Admission to the talks free. Presentations may include explicit visuals.
April 18, 2023, 6:30 pm
Schaulust, Pornografie, Kunst (talk in German)
[Scopophilia, Pornography, Art]
Friederike Nastold (Oldenburg)
Venue: University of Bremen, HS 2010
* hybrid with options to online participation
April 25, 2023, 6:30 pm
Artist Talk with Guilherme Maggessi and Rafał Morusiewicz
as part of the „there’s room to sprawl, time freezes in a sense“
curators: Francisco Valença Vaz and Thomas Böker (Bremen/Vienna)
Venue: Kunst- und Kulturverein Spedition e.V., Beim Handelsmuseum 9, D-28195 Bremen
* limited number of seats, binding reservation via IKFK recommended
* please bring warm clothes
May 2, 2023, 6:30 pm
Men of Turkey: The Fetishization of Ethnicity in Gay Pornography between Germany and Turkey
Emre Busse (Berlin)
Venue: Kunst- und Kulturverein Spedition e.V., Beim Handelsmuseum 9, D-28195 Bremen
* limited number of seats, binding reservation via IKFK recommended
* please bring warm clothes
May 16, 2023, 6:30 pm
Pornos als abwesend-anwesende Bilder. Pädagogische Perspektiven und didaktische Impulse zur Auseinandersetzung mit Pornografie (talk in German)
[Porn as Absent-present Images: Pedagogical Perspectives and Didactive Impulses for Dealing with Pornography]
Marion Thuswald (Vienna)
Venue: University of Bremen, HS 2010
* hybrid with options fo online participation
May 30, 2023, 6:30 pm
Pornografie zwischen Authentizitätseffekten und dokumentarischen Zuschreibungen (talk in German)
[Pornography between Authenticity Effect and Documentary Attributions]
Leonie Zilch (Mainz)
Venue: Kukoon, Buntentorsteinweg 29, D-28201 Bremen
* hybrid with options fo online participation
* limited number of seats, binding reservation via IKFK recommended
June 6, 2023, 6:30 pm
Performing Porn? Sexuelle Skripte und die Performances des Sex (talk in German)
[Performing Porn? Sexual Scripts and the Performances of Sex]
Lea-Sophie Schiel (Berlin)
Venue: Schwankhalle Bremen, Buntentorsteinweg 112/116, D-28201 Bremen
* hybrid with options fo online participation
* limited number of seats, binding reservation via Schwankhalle recommended
June 20, 2023, 6:30 pm
Flaunting, Flourishing, and Fucking: The Pleasure and Politics of Queercrip Porn
Loree Erickson (Toronto)
* only online via Zoom
June 27, 2023, 6:30 pm
On Relations of Class, Race and Labor in Pornography and Sex Work in the U.S.
Mireille Miller-Young (Santa Barbara)
Venue: University of Bremen, HS 2010
* hybrid with options fo online participation
July 11, 2023, 6:30 pm
Sexualisierte Nazis. Pornografisierung und Subjektivierung gestern und heute (talk in German)
[Sexualized Nazis: Pornographication and Subjectivation Yesterday and Today]
Julia Noah Munier (Stuttgart)
Venue: Universität Bremen, HS 2010
July 18, 2023, 6:30 pm
film:art 97: Porn Classics
Short film program curated by Christine Rüffert (Bremen)
Venue: CITY 46 / Kommunalkino Bremen e.V., Birkenstraße 1, D-28195 Bremen
* limited number of seats, reservation via the cinema recommended (as of July 1)
* no free entry, tickets according to regular cinema prices