EXC 2060 A3-7 - Figures of Hate. Prolegomena to a Literary and Cultural History

Keywords
Religion; Politics; Figures; Hate; Literary History; Cultural History
Period
Status
Finished
Funding Source
DFG - Cluster of Excellence
Project Number
EXC 2060/1
Type of Funding
Unknwon Project Type
Description
In today’s public debates and against the backdrop of far-reaching geopolitical changes and fundamental social and religious tensions, the word ‘hate' has gained a significant presence and new topicality. Public talk is of ‘hatemongers,’ ‘hateful comments,’ ‘hate mail,’ etc.; there is even discussion about the normalization of hate. This project investigates the discursive functions of hate from a historical as well as from a theoretical perspective not so much by asking what hate ‘is,’ but by focusing on the role of attributions of hate in specific historical and cultural contexts. In doing so it also considers approaches of psychological and affect theory. The project considers hate as a complex social relation: Attributors of hate are themselves part of a social hate relation. The relationship of hate with comparable affects such as rage and wrath will be discussed as well. Significantly, the attribution of hate very often refers to love either as an opposite emotion or as an emotion closely connected to hate (‘love-hate’). The preferred medium to reflect the cultural, social and religious functions of hate is literature. The theatrical stage especially offers itself to effective hate performances. This leads to the question of how the ethics of artistic stagings of hate are related to the hate discourses that refer to ‘reality.’ The project’s goal is to compose a literary and cultural history of hate that sets off with the literature of antiquity and the Bible, proceeds via early modern time, the wars of liberation at the beginning of the 19th century, modernity and postmodernity, up to the conflicts of our time.
Persons
Articles