Futures of the Study of Culture Concepts for the Study of Culture Edited by Doris Bachmann-Medick, Horst Carl, Wolfgang Hallet and Ansgar Nünning Editorial Board Mieke Bal, Hartmut Böhme, Sebastian Conrad, Vita Fortunati, Isabel Gil, Lawrence Grossberg, Richard Grusin, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Ursula Heise, Claus Leggewie, Helmut Lethen, Christina Lutter, Andreas Reckwitz, Frederik Tygstrup and Barbie Zelizer Volume 8 Futures of the Study of Culture Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Global Challenges Edited by Doris Bachmann-Medick, Jens Kugele, and Ansgar Nünning ISBN 978-3-11-065509-4 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-066939-8 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-066954-1 ISSN 2190-3433 DOI https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110669398 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. For details go to: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Library of Congress Control Number: 2020934399 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2020 Doris Bachmann-Medick, Jens Kugele, and Ansgar Nünning, published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston. The book is published with open access at www.degruyter.com. Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com Preface and Acknowledgements The exploration of possible futures of the study of culture is more than a prognos- tic effort, diagnosis of trends, or progressive elaboration of theories and methods. It also requires the critical consideration of possible future topics, transforma- tions, and potentials within an interdisciplinary and international research field that faces contested futures in a rapidly changing global world. This volume dis- cusses recent developments, emerging directions, and concerns for the study of culture from a wide range of national and disciplinary contexts, while addressing pressing challenges and crucial issues found in contemporary public discourse. The articles in this volume have been written and edited well before there were any signs of the current global Covid-19 pandemic that has rapidly brought death, fear, and unforeseen challenges to individual lives and cultural systems. We, of course, do not know what the future will bring or hold in store for our world, but we sincerely hope that we will find ways to cope with all the challenges resulting from this global pandemic. What the corona crisis shows us already, however, is that we depend not only on political and economic systems, but also on ideas, common values, and cultural practices to shape a common future. We need the perspectives of the humanities and social sciences to understand and to create our society, culture, and global world. We have rarely experienced this fragility of our globalized world and such uncertainty of any future outlook. In times when human lives, economies, and political systems are at stake, we grope our way forward taking very small steps at a time as the very foundations of future expectations seem radically shaken. Yet, although written well before this global crisis, the articles in this volume have approached the topic of ‘futures’ rather cautiously and with nuance. Instead of generating a global prognostic vision, this collection pursues incipient approaches that try to expand the limits of our established but often ill-suited conceptual settings and disciplinary and institutional arrangements. It aims to open up new horizons for the study of culture by bringing changed conceptual tools and research practices in sight that could perhaps make us better equipped for dealing with urgent concerns and future issues yet unknown. With the generous support of the University Library Giessen, we have made the book available through Open Access to maximize the accessibility and poten- tial of its contributions to spark debates worldwide. Our goal was to produce a collection that is not only multidisciplinary but also multi-voiced, as exemplified by our two-perspective introductions and an interview with Peter L. Galison. Most of the contributions originated at the international symposium held in 2016 to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Giessen Graduate Centre for Open Access. © 2020 Doris Bachmann-Medick et al., published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110669398-202 Humanities (GGK) and the 10th anniversary of the Excellence Initiative-funded International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC). We would like to extend special thanks to our colleague and PhD candidate, Simon Ottersbach, and to our student assistant, Franziska Eick (both at the GCSC). Their support in formatting the manuscript has been invaluable. Anne Wheeler, Marie Schlingmann, and Elizabeth Kovach were of tremendous help as English language proofreaders of the manuscript. Finally, our thanks go to De Gruyter, in particular Manuela Gerlof, Stella Diedrich, Lydia White, Myrto Aspioti, and Dipti Dange for seeing the project swiftly through the publication process; to the series editors for their support; and last but not least to the GCSC, not only for generously supporting the Open Access publication of this volume but also for providing an intellectually stimulating environment that has been most fruitful for this endeavor. Giessen, April 2020 Doris Bachmann-Medick, Jens Kugele, Ansgar Nünning Contents Preface and Acknowledgements V Introductions: Futures of the Study of Culture Doris Bachmann-Medick Futures of the Study of Culture: Some Opening Remarks 3 Jens Kugele Collaborative Research in the Study of Culture 17 I Horizons for Future Reflections Ansgar Nünning Taking Responsibility for the Future: Ten Proposals for Shaping the Future of the Study of Culture into a Problem-Solving Paradigm 29 Andreas Langenohl The “Future Sense” and the Future of the Study of Culture 66 II No Future? Politics and Concerns Nicole Anderson Pre-Post-Apocalyptic Culture: The Future(s) of the Humanities 83 Isabel Capeloa Gil The Global Eye or Foucault Rewired: Security, Control, and Scholarship in the Twenty-first Century 94 Richard Grusin No Future: The Study of Culture in the Twenty-first Century 110 Hubertus Büschel Beyond the Colonial Shadow? Delinking, Border Thinking, and Theoretical Futures of Cultural History 123 VIII Contents III Theorizing Pasts, Presents, Futures Andreas Reckwitz The Society of Singularities 141 Frederik Tygstrup After Literature: The Geographies, Technologies, and Epistemologies of Reading and Writing in the Early Twenty-first Century 155 Andressa Schröder The Integrative Potentials of Arts-based Research for the Study of Culture: A Reflection on The Lagoon Cycle by Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison 169 Uwe Wirth After Hybridity: Grafting as a Model of Cultural Translation 182 Dirk van Laak Liquid Spaces in Modern Historiography 203 IV Future Connectivities: Economy, Natural Sciences, Ecology Tom Clucas Culture in the Marketplace 223 Laura Meneghello Cultural History, Science Studies, and Global Economy: New and Future Approaches 236 Silke Schicktanz Normativity and Culture in the Context of Modern Medicine: A Prospective Vision of an Elective Affinity 250 Ursula K. Heise Multispecies Futures and the Study of Culture 274 Contents IX Peter L. Galison and Jens Kugele Future Trading Zones for the Study of Culture: An Interview with Peter L. Galison 288 Notes on Contributors 299 Index 305 Introductions: Futures of the Study of Culture Have we now reached a plateau in which the future is likely to be one of consolidation, refinement, and continuity? Or are we at the threshold of new developments, whether reac- tive rollbacks to earlier paradigms or dimly foreseen revolutions and emergent innovations? (Mitchell 2004, 330) For us, the future no longer presents itself as an open horizon of possibilities; instead, it is a dimension increasingly closed to all prognoses – and which, at the same time, seems to draw near as a menace. (Gumbrecht 2014, xiii) Doris Bachmann-Medick Futures of the Study of Culture: Some Opening Remarks In his book The Future as Cultural Fact the anthropologist Arjun Appadurai claims that the “orientation to the future” should be revalued as a main dimen- sion of culture – though a dimension “that is almost never explicitly discussed” (Appadurai 2013, 179). In cultural anthropology, he observes, the future has so far been repressed in favor of tradition, heritage, and other past-oriented concepts. Cultural anthropology thus sharply contrasts with economics, a science explicitly of the future, of forecasting, prognoses, and expectations.1 Appadurai calls on cultural anthropology to redefine culture as the “capacity to aspire” (195), i.e., to view culture as that which strengthens impoverished or marginalized groups and social classes and allows them to develop. In Appadurai’s view, this would also strengthen cultural anthropology as a discipline, and allow it to unfold in the future. But what about the interdisciplinary study of culture? Has it perhaps been more open to “futurity as a cultural capacity” (180) that is based on anticipa- tions, aspirations, and imaginations (286) from the beginning?2 Is it more future- oriented than the discipline of cultural anthropology? Before answering this question, we must differentiate between