Around disasters and incidents that disrupt and interrupt daily life – terrorist attacks, killing sprees, accidents or new disease patterns – narratives tend to form. These not only unsettle society, but conversely, can also stabilise it. Such “principle of disruption“ are the focus of an international conference organised by the TUD media scientist Prof. Lars Koch, together with Prof. Elisabeth Bronfen from Zurich. The conference will take place from 18 to 20 June 2015 in the “Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden” (SLUB – Saxon State and University Library).

Lars Koch is head of the research project “The Principle of Disruption”, which is funded by the European Research Council (ERC). He is also one of the nine Open Topic Tenure Track Professors appointed for unconventional research approaches as part of the Excellence Initiative at TU Dresden.

The Dresden Conference “Imaginationen der Störung” (Principle of disruption) addresses the question of the extent to which disruptions help us to better understand past events or to prepare for those in the future.  
The interdisciplinary orientation – spanning Literary and Media Studies, History of Ideas and (Cultural) Sociology – allows the exploration of the potential of literature and music, film and TV series and theoretical figures from the history of science for the perception, processing and anticipation of disruption: both imaginary as well as real disasters can create political and socio-cultural coherence by being accepted and re-integrated into the narratives of society. In this way, the current quality TV series, Homeland, not only reflects the War on Terror, but at the same time fundamentally shapes the way we picture terrorist threats and how to repel them (e.g. by means of new technologies in surveillance and warfare).
A highlight of the event will be the evening lecture given by the British author, Tom McCarthy on 19 June at 6 p.m., on how literature from Stéphane Mallarmé to Thomas Pynchon has dealt with “disasters”.

Further information at:
https://tu-dresden.de/die_tu_dresden/fakultaeten/fakultaet_sprach_literatur_und_kulturwissenschaften/germanistik/mwndl/termine/imaginationen_stoerung

Information for journalists:
Professor für Medienwissenschaft und Neuere deutsche Literatur (Professor of Media Studies and Modern German Literature)
Prof. Dr. Lars Koch
Phone 0351 463-43236