Workshop “Popkultur und die Historizität der Gegenwart” (Berlin, 29.11.2023)

After three semesters of looking into the medial premises and sociological dynamics of audiovisual cultures, our research focus of the winter term of 2023/24 will be on their historiographical implications. With this shift we take up discussions of previous semesters on topics such as the Cinematic Image and Historical Experience, as well as Material and Method. The notion of a historical phenomenology aims at the historicity of concrete forms of appearance and perception: To what extent can we think of audiovisual images as themselves bringing forth the  spheres in which they emerge by shaping the possibilities of communal experience at a given point in time and space? Continue reading

Popular Cultures of Conservatism in Western Europe since the 1960s (new publication)

The most recent volume of the German Yearbook of Contemporary History focuses on cultures of conservatism in Western Europe, particularly the United Kingdom. It is especially interested in the transnational and transatlantic traffic in ideas, culture, and lifestyles between Europe and the United States in the final decades of the twentieth century. The first two contributions, “‘Abolish Economists!’: The Britcom Yes Minister and the Transformation of British Conservatism in the Thatcher Era” and “Thatcherism and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Musicals” by Nikolai Wehrs and Amanda Eubanks Winker explore the relationship between Thatcherism and culture. Continue reading

Research Project: Punk in the Federal Republic Germany 1976-1990s (English & German text)

SPIEGEL SPEZIAL (2/1994): Pop & Politik. Photo: Spiegel.

Campino, singer of Die Toten Hosen, interviewed the then youth minister Angela Merkel for a special issue of the German news magazine Der Spiegel with the title “Pop & Politics” in 1994. The cover featured a collage which comprised of people like Elvis Presley, the Beatles and Bill Clinton playing a saxophone. Among them, Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols glared at the possible buyers in neighbourhood kiosks. In this issue the journalist and pop theorist Diedrich Diederichsen formulated ten theses for contemporary pop culture. Tony Parsons, one of the first journalists to write about British punk from 1976 onwards in the New Musical Express, pondered about the popularity of punk and its relation to mass culture in the 1990s. Punk as a media phenomenon and a lifestyle became part of mass culture and was a topic taken seriously by cultural critics. Continue reading

Research project: Radio Luxembourg and Europe n°1 in the Long Sixties

Photo: Richard Legay (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Commercial radio stations Radio Luxembourg (French and English services) and Europe n°1 are the focal point of my PhD thesis (defended at the University of Luxembourg in November 2020.). They were popular institutions in Western Europe throughout the Long Sixties (1958-1974) working across media and broadcasting transnationally. My thesis Commercial Radio Stations and their Dispositif. Transnational and Intermedial Perspectives on Radio Luxembourg and Europe n°1 in the Long Sixties postulates the existence of an overarching dispositif of commercial radio stations that enabled them to operate on various dimensions and differentiated them from other broadcasters. Continue reading

Cfp/cfa: Music – Sound – Radio: Theorizing Music Radio (Copenhagen, Deadline: 15.9.16)

In a year, the Danish music and radio research project Ramund will close. To mark this, we will organize a seminar focusing mainly on the theoretical aspects of the many different relations between music and radio and the meetings between the two in music-radio. The aim of the seminar will be to publish an anthology of articles. Continue reading

Le Temps des médias: numéros sur l’histoire de la jeunesse et de la musique

Deux numéros intéressants de la revue Le temps des médias:

1. Oyez jeunesse !

« En interrogeant, au fil de l’Histoire, l’élaboration de médias destinés spécifiquement aux jeunes, Le Temps des médias se propose de réinterroger l’histoire des représentations de la jeunesse dans les sociétés. L’histoire des médias pour la jeunesse est indissociable de celle de l’enfant et de la place accordée à celui- ci. Dans un premier temps, ce sont bien sûr les imprimés : pour la fin du XVIIIe et le XIXe siècles, on peut se demander quelle est l’ampleur des images destinées aux enfants au sein des maisons de production de l’imagerie populaire. Au XXe siècle, les médias pour la jeunesse prennent à nouveau une part active à l’innovation dans le paysage de la presse écrite : ils permettent, dans l’entre-deux-guerres, l’acculturation de la bande dessinée. Continue reading

Lectures: Pophistory at the Institute of Historical Research (London, May & June 2016)

British pophistory is not just visible in London’s physical and cultural landscape. Upcoming events related to the history of pop culture at the Institute of Historical Research representing the long tradition of studying the everyday culture of people in Britain: Continue reading

Pop history will be debated at the German Historians’ Convention 2014

From September 23 to 26, 2014, over 3000 scholars, teachers and students will convene at the University of Göttingen for the 50th Convention of German Historians, the German Historikertag. The event is one of Europe’s largest humanities conferences. “Winners and Losers” is the motto of next year’s anniversary convention. There will be a panel about the history of popular culture. Here is the concept: Continue reading