Thursday, 11 Feb 2021, 19.00
Susanna Paasonen: Infrastructures of Intimacy and the Deplatforming of Sex
Wednesday, 24 Mar 2021, 19.00
Jean-Luc Nancy: Touche-touche
Monday, 26 Apr 2021, 19.00
Tim Dean: How to Have Sex in a Pandemic
Lecture
24 Mar 2021 · 7.00 pm
Jean-Luc Nancy: Touche-touche
Venue: ICI Berlin, Christinenstr. 18–19, Haus 8, 10119 Berlin
Organized by Hanna Hamel (ZfL), Apostolos Lampropoulos (Université Bordeaux Montaigne), Peter Rehberg (Schwules Museum)
Contact: Hanna Hamel
Research project(s): Neighborhood in Contemporary Berlin Literature
Lecture by Jean-Luc Nancy (European Graduate School) as part of the online lecture series Intimacy, with Eva Geulen and Apostolos Lampropoulos
Jean-Luc Nancy has long considered touch to be central for an understanding of the relation between the self and the world, a crucial question of his philosophy he will also explore in his talk entitled “Touche–touche.” His rethinking of community and the political from phenomenological and deconstructive perspectives directs our attention to the body and its ‘naked existence’ beyond metaphysics. The impact of this philosophical project on contemporary modes of being together is also demonstrated in his most recent publication on the Corona crisis, Un trop humain virus (2020).
This lecture series takes queer theory’s conversation about intimacy as a starting point to discuss some of its cultural possibilities, mediated forms, and philosophical trajectories in the context of Corona. It is part of the public program of the exhibition Intimacy: New Queer Art from Berlin and Beyond at Schwules Museum.
In cooperation of the ICI Berlin, the ZfL research project Neighborhood in Contemporary Berlin Literature and the Schwules Museum. Supported with funds form the Capital Cultural Fund (HKF).
Fig. above: © Spyros Rennt: Hanging out at Ludos, 2020 (detail), part of the exhibition “Intimacy: New Queer Art from Berlin and Beyond” at Schwules Museum
Program
Online lecture series Intimacy
In the time of Corona, intimacy is precarious: as an experience we are in danger of losing, but also one we are nostalgically mourning or re-imagining for a future to come. What does a pandemic and its cultural, social, and technological consequences, such as the protection from others and the disappearance of social encounters and bodily contact, teach us about intimacy? How does Covid-19 change our understanding of intimate moments?
In the context of queer culture and theory, intimacy has had a peculiar position for quite some time. For intimacy is not necessarily the scene in which identities are formed or affirmed. Queer theory has emphasized intimacy as a site where identity is left behind and new forms of the self can emerge, for example in forms of public sex, or what Leo Bersani calls ‘impersonal intimacy.’ One might say that intimacy itself is a queer phenomenon.
