GRK Das Dokumentarische. Exzess und Entzug

Fynn-Adrian Richter, M.A.

Universitätsstr. 105
44789 Bochum
Room: UNI 105, 3/28

Phone: +49 (0) 234/32-27098
E-Mail: fynn-adrian.richter@ruhr-uni-bochum.de

 

Title of the Dissertation

Documenting Human’s End(ing) oder: ‚Liminales Dokumentieren‘. Aufzeichnungsszenen in ‚Letzte-Mensch‘-Erzählungen und Denkfiguren des Dokumentarischen in benachbarten anthropologischen und ökologischen Krisendiskursen. (working title)

Project Description 

This doctoral thesis in the field of cultural studies and literary criticism focuses on a heterogeneous problem and area of observation: the (imagined) end of humanity. In order to fruitfully exploit this field, on the one hand I analyse a specific form of media reflexivity in literary ‘last human’ narratives (scenes of recording) which nevertheless, as one theory has it, display fundamental assumptions of the documentary in a special way: the last humans, as narrating and recording authorities, are chroniclers and documenters of the fall. On the other hand, the project examines recent crisis discourses (the Anthropocene, post-humanity), including those beyond the realm of fictional literature. The main focus of the project is the question as to whether these at times catastrophic fictions/visions of the future operate with the central figures of thought, rhetoric and assumptions of the documentary (legacy, memory, the archive, traces, fossils etc.). The findings will be further compared recursively with the discourses of the documentary in order to show that documentary practices, techniques and institutions that seek to protect their self-understanding (e.g. the UNESCO ‘Memory of the World’ document register) are characterised by luminal concepts of time and must grapple with the (media-)philological problems and challenges of their ‘communication with the future’. The project thus examines the various future scenarios not only in terms of their (quasi-)documentary strategies, procedures and rhetoric, examining how they are negotiated, but also attributes to these negotiations an added value rooted in epistemology and the poetology of knowledge with great potential for how we think about and describe the documentary.

Scholarly Career

  • Since October 2019: Researcher and doctoral candidate in the DFG post-graduate programme “The Documentary. Excess and Withdrawal”, Ruhr University Bochum
  • 09/2017 to 10/2019: Research assistant for Modern German Literature and Media Aesthetics (under Prof. Dr. Michael Niehaus), University of Hagen
  • 04/2015 to 11/2017: Master’s degree in Comparative Literature and Media Studies, Ruhr University Bochum
  • 09/2009 to 09/2014: Bachelor’s degree in Comparative Literature and German Studies, Ruhr University Bochum

Publications

  • “Bild-Werden. Zur Ästhetik der ‚posthumanen Situation‘ in Michel Gondry’s ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (2004)“. In: Irina Gradinari/Michael Niehaus (eds.): Filmisches Erinnern. Zur Ästhetik und Funktion der Rückblende. Dortmund: readbox unipress 2020, S. 149-179 (full text: https://ub-deposit.fernuni-hagen.de/receive/mir_mods_00001603).
  • “Von Baumstämmen und Steinen. Zur Poiesis von Alfred Döblins Berge Meere und Giganten ausgehend von einer Natur-Epiphanie“. Article in the anthology of the project group ‘Der verdichtete Raum. Zukunftsromane 1920-1940’. (forthcoming)

Talks

  • “Das Ende?! Posthumane Phantasien bei Margaret Atwood“, talk presented as part of the student lecture series “Hermaion“ at Ruhr University Bochum (11.07.2018)
  • “Posthumane Phantasien. Medienästhetische und -komparatistische Überlegungen zum Ende des Menschen“, talk presented as part of the doctoral colloquium of Comparative Literature at Ruhr University Bochum (26.01.19)
  • “Com-Post-Human. Haraways Tentakel und Daths Schleimpilze”, Keynote presented as part of the student conference “Mögliche/Zukünftige Welten in der phantastischen Litertur“ at the Rottstr 5 Theatre in cooperation with Ruhr University Bochum (07.05.2019)
  • “Mit der Zukunft kommunizieren. Medienphilologische Herausforderungen dokumentarischer Praktiken“, Talk presented as part of the international Summer Academy “Media Philology“, Rutgers University New Brunswick/NJ (28.08.19)

University Courses

  • Winter Term 2017/18: Online webinar via Adobe Connect “Literatur und Medien II“, in collaboration with Dr. Nils Jablonski and Jessica Güsken, Neuere deutsche Literaturwissenschaft und Medienästhetik, FernUniversität Hagen
  • Summer Term 2018: Seminar “Posthumane Phantasien im Film“, in collaboration with Jessica Güsken, Study Week 2018, FernUniversität Hagen
  • Summer Term 2018: Seminar “Posthumanismus“, in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Thomas Bedorf and JProf. Dr. Irina Gradinari, FernUniversität Hagen
  • Summer Term 2019: Online webinar via Adobe Connect “Literatur und Medien III“, in collaboration with Dr. Nils Jablonski and Jessica Güsken, Neuere deutsche Literaturwissenschaft und Medienästhetik, FernUniversität Hagen
  • Winter Term 2019/20: Seminar “Das Anthropozän. Zum Konzept, den Narrativen und der Literatur der Menschenzeit“, Department of Comparative Literature, Ruhr University Bochum

Organisation of Events

  • Collaboration and panel chair at the conference “Genre and Race. Media Interpendencies of Aesthetics and Politics”, organised by Junior Professor Irina Gradinari and Prof. Dr. Ivo Ritzer, 22.–24.11.2018, University of Hagen
  • Panel chair at the conference “digital_culture. World Relations in Transition”, organised by Prof. Dr. Thomas Bedorf, 18.–19.02.2019, University of Hagen

Miscellaneous

  • Member of the Society for Media Studies (GfM)
  • Member of the Society for General and Comparative Literature (DGAVL)
  • Member of the working group “The Condensed Space. Zukunftsromane 1920–1940”, a research project of the Institute for Diaspora and Gender Studies in cooperation with the Department of Comparative Literature, led by Dr. habil. Kristin Platt and Prof. Dr. Monika Schmitz-Emans, Ruhr University Bochum