FASoS Colloquium: Dispositif: Theory, Methodology & Practice
Speakers: Prof. dr. Andreas Fickers (Professor of Contemporary and Digital History, Université du Luxembourg) & Tim van der Heijden, MA (PhD Candidate, Maastricht University)
Date: Wednesday 6 May
Time and Place: 15.30-17.30, GG 80-82, Spiegelzaal
The concept of ‘dispositif’ emerged in French post-structuralism in the late 1970s, among others in the works of Michel Foucault and Jean-Louis Baudry to describe the ideological processes of subject construction throughout technological “apparatuses” in socio-spatial contexts. Over the past decades, especially within French and German academia and more recently also within Anglo-Saxon academic worlds, the concept has been developed as an increasingly important analytical and methodological tool for research in the humanities and social sciences. In this session, Andreas Fickers and Tim van der Heijden reflect on the historical development and current pragmatic implementation of the dispositif-concept as an analytical tool in media historical research.
The session is, among others, an outcome of the international dispositif-workshop held at the University of Luxembourg last year, which was organized in close relation to the NWO-funded research project “Changing Platforms of Ritualized Memory Practices. The Cultural Dynamics of Home Movies” (2012-2015). In this research project on the cultural history of the family film, the concept of dispositif has been used to study how changing technologies of memory production have shaped new practices and rituals of memory staging. Last year, the concept of dispositif was implemented in a special media archaeological experiment, held at the International Orphan Film Symposium, in which we reconstructed historical home movie screening practices. The film ‘Staging the Amateur Film Dispositif’, an audiovisual representation of this experiment, will be screened and reflected upon during the session as well.