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Research Priority 2: Aesthetic Practice

Primary contact

Prof. Dr. Stefan Krankenhagen

Brief description

The Research Priority “Aesthetic Practice” addresses the arts, yet also goes far beyond them. The theory–practice model at the University of Hildesheim is one-of-a-kind in Germany, distinguished from both university-based research in the humanities and cultural studies as well as from artistic research conducted at art schools. All cultural and humanities disciplines at the University of Hildesheim are linked to this model through their respective disciplinary research foci, thereby making a central contribution to investigating the complexity and heterogeneity of aesthetic practice and praxeological research. The topics and perspectives of this Research Priority, along with its various cross-faculty connections, are brought together by the Herder-Kolleg Center for Transdisciplinary Cultural Research, housed within Faculty 2.

Through continuous interdisciplinary collaboration across the focal areas of fine arts, literature, film and moving image, music, popular culture and theatre—and through the incorporation of the Institute of Philosophy and the Institute for Cultural Policy—the Research Priority “Aesthetic Practice” has developed into a robust and cohesive cluster. The strength of the University of Hildesheim's research profile in cultural studies and the arts has been further reinforced by the successful acquisition of the DFG Research Training Group of the same name (2019–2028). The Aesthetic Practice RTG is furthermore connected to the research group Transformation of Knowledge Orders, which has coalesced around the DFG Koselleck project “Histories of Philosophy in a Global Perspective”. Through the lens of this intersectional topic, we examine changing knowledge dispositifs shaped by decolonial and global perspectives on the humanities and cultural studies. In addition to a cooperation with the Center for World Music and its collections, and the Graduate School “Performing Sustainability” (conducted jointly with the UNESCO Chair in Cultural Policy in cooperation with universities in Ghana and Nigeria), there are also connections to the overarching Research Priority Education and Participation in Society—building on existing research collaborations, for example with the Institute of Educational Sciences, the Institute for Social Sciences or the Center for Diversity, Democracy and Inclusion in Education (ZBI).

The centrality of cultural mediation to cultural studies research at Hildesheim, also means that perspectives from cultural-policy, cultural-education and cultural-management are combined with methods and theories from the social and educational sciences to engage in currently relevant research topics and Third Mission projects. These projects—as in the DFG subproject “Chancengerechte Teilhabe an öffentlich geförderten Theatern (Cultural Democratisation in Publicly Funded Theatres)”—address diversity, equitable participation, and decolonial mediation and educational practice, as well as conduct research on the aesthetic practices of children and young people in artistic and performative settings, e.g. writing or drawing practices.

Because current transformations in knowledge production continue to be driven by both older and newer processes of digitalisation, the Research Priority Aesthetic Practice also overlaps with the overarching Research Priority AI Everywhere and its various institutes and research units. In this context, the perspective on digitality goes beyond purely application-oriented concerns by asking which aesthetic practices of digitality can be described and analysed: What questions does artificial intelligence pose to the knowledge dispositifs of creativity and to established social figures such as the artist, the author, or the director? Cross-faculty research projects such as “Rez@kultur: Digitalisierung kultureller Rezensionsprozesse” (Digitalising cultural review processes), located at the interface of quantitative and qualitative research, have produced important initial results in these areas. This work is being continued through both theory-oriented and praxeologically guided approaches that, first, engage in critical reflection on digital cultures and, second, apply that reflection by experimenting with innovative digitally shaped production formats in theatre, music and visual media—in short: in aesthetic practice.
 

Participating institutes

  • Institute for Fine Arts and Art Studies
  • Institute for Cultural Policy
  • Institute for Creative Writing and Literary Studies
  • Institute for Media, Theater, and Popular Culture
  • Institute for Music and Musicology
  • Institute for Philosophy
  • Institute for Social Sciences

Interdisciplinary units

  • Center for World Music
  • Bilddidaktisches Forschungsstudio (Visual Didactics Research Studio)
  • Forschungsstelle Konsumkultur (Research Unit for Consumer Culture)
  • Herder-Kolleg. Center for Transdisciplinary Cultural Research
  • Center for Diversity, Democracy and Inclusion in Education (ZBI)
  • Center for Digital Change

Selected external partners

  • House of World Cultures (Berlin)
  • Dommuseum Hildesheim (Hildesheim Cathedral Museum)
  • Staatstheater Hannover (Hannover State Theater)
  • Sprengel Museum Hannover
  • Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven (Netherlands)
  • Humboldt Forum Berlin
  • Hildesheimer Kunstverein (Hildesheim Art Association)
  • Wenhua University (Chinese Culture University) (Taipei/Taiwan)
  • Braunschweig University of Art
  • Aix-Marseille University
  • FUNDUS THEATER/Theatre of Research Hamburg
  • Bundesakademie für kulturelle Bildung (Federal Academy for Cultural Education)
  • UNESCO Chair, University of Belgrade (Serbia)
  • Roemer und Pelizaeus Museum Hildesheim
  • Netzwerk Forschung Kulturelle Bildung (Network for Research in Cultural Education)
  • Cape Coast University (Ghana)
  • University of Maiduguri (Nigeria)

Selected externally funded projects

  • DFG Advanced Studies Centre in SSH 62: "Philosophizing in a Globalized World - Historical and Systematic Perspectives" (since 2024)
  • DFG Research Training Group 2477: "Aesthetic Practice“ (2019–2028)
  • „Kulturelle Selbstversorgung. Das Recht junger Menschen auf kulturelle (Selbst)bildung“. Prof. Julius Heinicke, Prof. Wolfgang Schröer (funded by the BMBF – Federal Ministry of Education and Research; project duration 01/2024–12/2026)
  • "dialoguing@rts – Advancing Cultural Literacy for Social Inclusion through Dialogical Arts Education”. Prof. Julius Heinicke (Konsortialpartner) (EU Horizon Europe; project duration 01/2024–05/2027)
  • „IN SITU: Place-based innovation of cultural and creative industries in non-urban areas” Teilprojektleitung Prof. Julius Heinicke (EU Horizon Europe; project duration 2022–2026)
  • DFG Koselleck Project „Histories of Philosophy in a Global Perspective", led by Prof. Rolf Elberfeld (project duration 2018–2023)
  • DFG Research Unit „Constellations of Crisis: Transformational Dynamics in Performing Arts Institutions“, sub-projects led by Prof. Birgit Mandel and Prof. Jens Roselt; collaborative project with LMU Munich, Leibniz University Hannover, the University of Münster, Justus Liebig University Giessen, and the University of Bayreuth (project duration 2018–2021)
  • DFG-Netzwerk “Das Wissen der digitalen Literatur” mit u.a. Dr. Jenifer Becker und Dr. Guido Graf (2024–2027)
  • „Cultural Democratisation in Publicly Funded Theaters - Theater Governance and Audience Development Strategies in Germany, France and England“; sub-project led by Prof. Dr. Birgit Mandel of a DFG funded Research unit coordinated by LMU Munich (project duration 2021–2024)
  • “AI-Writing-Lab”, Project Lead: Dr. Jenifer Becker, “Freiraum” / Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschulllehre (Foundation for Innovation in Higher Education Teaching; project duration 2023–2024)

Selected publications

  • Cohn, Dominika (2024): „Choreografien des Taktilen: Berührung als partizipative ästhetische Praxis im zeitgenössischen Tanz“, Bielefeld: transcript Verlag. Available online at: Choreografien des Taktilen - transcript Verlag
  • Corsten, Michael (2021) (ed.): Praxis. Ausüben. Begreifen. Weilerswist, Velbrück.
  • Diekmann, Stefanie (2021) (ed., with Esther Ruelfs): Artist Meets Archive: künstlerische Interventionen im fotografischen Archiv. Marburg: Jonas Verlag.
  • Elberfeld, Rolf/Krankenhagen, Stefan (2017) (eds.): Ästhetische Praxis als Gegenstand und Methode kulturwissenschaftlicher Forschung, Paderborn: Fink.
  • Elberfeld, Rolf (2021): Dekoloniales Philosophieren. Versuch über philosophische Verantwortung und Kritik im Horizont der europäischen Expansion, Hildesheim: Olms.
  • Fehrenbacher, Jens (2025): Situationen ästhetischer Aushandlung. Zur ökologischen Perspektive auf Kunst-Rezeption. Paderborn: Brill | Fink (Reihe Ästhetische Praxis, Vol. 11)
  • Graf, Guido/Knackstedt, Ralf/Petzold, Kristina (eds.) (2021): Rezensiv – Online-Rezensionen und Kulturelle Bildung. Bielefeld: transcript.
  • Groß, Martina/McGovern, Fiona (eds.) (2026): Kritische Ästhetische Praxis. Fink/Brill: Paderborn.
  • Hetzel, Andreas/Guidi, Lucia/McGovern, Fiona/Lange, Thomas (2021ff.) (series eds.): Ästhetische Praxis. Transdisziplinäre Perspektiven. Fink/Brill: Paderborn.
  • Ismaiel-Wendt, Johannes (2022) (ed., with Andi Schoon): Postcolonial Repercussions. On Sound Ontologies and Decolonised Listening. Bielefeld: transcript.
  • Krankenhagen, Stefan/Roselt, Jens (2018) (eds.): De-/Professionalisierung in den Künsten und Medien. Formen, Figuren und Verfahren einer Kultur des Selbermachens, Berlin: Kadmos.
  • Mandel, Birgit (ed.) (2022): Künstlerische Interventionen in der Kulturellen Bildung - Inhalte, Methoden und Reflexionen eines Curriculums für Künstler:innen. Universität Hildesheim doi.org/10.18442/218.
  • Pfizenmaier, Ruben (2025): Übungsformationen. Das Üben der antiken Rhetorik als Praxis der Subjektivierung, Paderborn: Brill | Fink (Reihe Ästhetische Praxis, Vol. 7)
  • Reinwand-Weiß, Vanessa (2018) (ed. et al.): Handbuch Kulturelle Bildung. München; seit 2018 übergeführt in digitales Format: kubi-online.de.
  • Roselt, Jens/Trachsel, Ekatarina (2024) (eds.): Üben üben. Praktiken und Verfahren des Übens in den Künsten, Paderborn: Brill | Fink (Reihe Ästhetische Praxis, Vol. 5)
  • Schwenk, Isabel/Solbrig, Steven (2024): „Aesthetics of Access – Barrierefreiheit und Entscheidungsteilhabe als Ästhetik“, in: Fachzeitschrift Schultheater Nr. 57 / 2024, Friedrich-Verlag, Thema: theater*divers
  • Uhlig, Bettina/Metzger, Roland Karl (eds.) (2021): Vermittlung historischer Kunst und Kultur im Elementarbereich. Grundlagen, Dimensionen, Praxis. München: kopaed.