The Fear of Flight

What a pleasure it is to flee into the silly, the artless, the crude! So what are we afraid of? Why do we grasp for self-justifying declarations – “that’s so bad that it’s good” – to gain ironical, objective or dialectical distance?

What’s wrong with our guilty pleasures? Do they threaten our self-image as self-empowered, comprehensively reflective and knowledgeable subjects? This symposium seeks to sound out our fear of the stupid.

With Markus Bongartz (composer, Berlin), Andreas Dorschel (music historian, Graz), Reinhold Friedl (musician, Berlin), Simon Grab (musician, Zurich), moderated by: Holger Schulze (Leuphana, Lüneburg)