https://arthist.net/archive/41169
Publisher: Jan von Brevern, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar / Julian Blunk, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz.
Closing Date 31.3.2024
»Genre is disappearing«, was the headline of the New Yorker in March 2021. According to American music critic Amanda Petrusich, genres are a discontinued model in pop music dominated by streaming services: restrictive, "inherently problematic" and old-fashioned. However, this diagnosis is not entirely recent. In modernist art theory, genres had a miserable reputation. In the 20th century, the only thing that seemed appropriate was to overcome them. After 1900, painting threw off the system of pictorial genres that had characterized it for centuries like a coat that had become too small. But even those who took themselves seriously in music, literature or film did not adhere to genre conventions. In the avant-garde, the rejection of genres was and still is part of good manners.
But is that still true? There are signs of a cautious renaissance of genres in some of the arts: Their poetological and epistemic potential is being rediscovered. Dietmar Dath's epic science fiction eulogy "Niegeschichte" (2019) testifies to this, as does the return of the genre film or the new interest of literary studies in genre theory (Keckeis/Michler, "Gattungstheorie", Suhrkamp 2020). In recent genre theory, genres are also discussed primarily as interfaces to the social reality of the recipients. They organize world perception and social interactions.
Under digital conditions, however, the question of the relevance, function and persistence of genres actually arises once again. Genre systems seem to be in a state of upheaval, new powerful genres have emerged in written, audio and visual culture (blog, podcast, selfie, etc.). Digital distribution channels have not only reorganized music, but also film in terms of genre. And on platforms such as Singulart, which receive little academic attention but are gaining increasing market power, image genres are once again the most important classification tool for visual art.
The themed issue "Digital Genres" of kritische berichte aims to examine the aesthetics and functions of genres in the digital present. We would like to draw particular attention to genre systems in visual culture: their transformation, their institutional conditions and their social effects. Which genre norms are currently emerging, which new fringes? And what would the consequences be if genres and genre structures were to actually disappear?
(Note: The terms 'genre' and 'genre' have been used very differently historically and in different disciplines. In German, they are usually used to describe different levels, e.g. fiction is a genre, the crime novel a genre. This means that genres, which we are particularly concerned with here, are also defined by their content).
We ask for text proposals in the form of short exposés (max. 2,000 characters in German or English) including a short biography to jan.brevern(at)uni-weimar.de by March 31, 2024. Selected contributors will be informed by April 15, 2024. The deadline for submission of the finished contributions (max. 20,000 characters) is August 31, 2024. An authors' workshop will take place in Weimar at the end of September 2024, after which there will be another brief opportunity to revise the contributions.