Christiane Voss
Gastlichkeit als Szene der Affektpolitik. Eine medienphilosophische Perspektive
[Hospitality and the politics of affect. A media-philosophical perspective]
In times such as ours when conflicts and polarizing moods determine the affective climate of the public, it is philosophically interesting to consider positive models of integration and affective differentiation. Such models can be found in the practice of hospitality. Taking strangers into one’s household or territory (oikos) and offering protection and a space of enjoyment and informal exchange are the hallmarks of culture and cultivation. While the philosophy of hospitality generally focuses on the complex political and moral implications of the relationship between guest and host (Kant, Bahr, Derrida, Liebsch, etc.), questions about the media relationships, dramaturgy, and underlying foundation of hospitality remain underdeveloped areas of inquiry. The talk presents Franziska Reichenbecher’s media philosophy of hospitality, which focuses on the precariousness of hospitality and the agency of things and practices. I then provide my own thoughts on the neglected dramaturgical foundation of hospitality and the role of tact. Here, as elsewhere, the interconnected logics of affect require the abandonment of dichotomous ways of thinking. My main argument is that the logics of affect generally favor the consideration of third persons.
Christiane Voss is Professor for Philosophy and Aesthetics at the Faculty of Media Studies at the Bauhaus University Weimar. After earning her Ph.D. in philosophy in 2003 she taught philosophy at the Freie Universität Berlin and University of Potsdam and worked as a research assistant at the SFB 626 “Aesthetic experience in the age of extended art” at the Freie Universität Berlin (2003–2010). In 2010 she finished her habilitation in philosophy at the Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main. In 2024 she will be a guest-professor at Johns Hopkins University. She also works as a film maker and is the co-director of ICH DICH AUCH (2004) and ENDLICH (FINALLY, 2010). Selected publications: Der Leihkörper: Epistemologie und Ästhetik der Illusion (2013); Narrative Emotionen: Eine Untersuchung über Möglichkeiten und Grenzen philosophischer Emotionstheorien (2004); Die Relevanz der Irrelevanz: Aufsätze zur Medienphilosophie 2010–2021 (co-author, 2021); Anthropologies of Entanglements: Media and Modes of Existence (co-editor, 2023); Medienanthropologische Szenen: Die conditio humana im Zeitalter der Medien (co-editor, 2019); Mediale Anthropologie (co-editor, 2015); Essays zur Filmphilosophie (co-editor, 2015); Die Mimesis und ihre Künste (co-editor, 2010); “Es ist, als ob”: Fiktionalität in Philosophie, Film- und Medienwissenschaft (co-editor, 2009).