Noah Grossmann

Scenes of Aesthetic Sociality in Paul Gilroy, Saidiya Hartman und Fred Moten

When Saidiya Hartmann describes slave dances, Paul Gilroy dub sessions, and Fred Moten jazz improvisations, the authors consistently emphasize that these are communal aesthetic performances. They make the fragile moments of a relative self-determination arise from an aesthetic social life of racialized individuals. This dissertation project is primarily concerned with this empathetic reference to the Black aesthetic social life (and the criticism of the optimism contained within). It asks how aesthetic sociality can be theorized in racist societies: how can the fragile, limited possibilities of sociality be foregrounded as much as the violence and the suffering? Which theory is the appropriate choice to approach this challenge?

Ever since there have been critical social theories from Black perspectives, there is a (fiercely contested) debate on the extent to which conceptual contexts of Western aesthetics and critical theories have the capacity to grasp the lives of enslaved individuals and those who migrated into the diaspora. Before this background, the project analyzes how the descriptions of Black aesthetic sociality within the more recent Black Radical Tradition relates to those Western critical theories that sought emancipatory potentials amongst the lives of (mostly white) marginalized. Walter Benjamin, Raymond Williams, Judith Butler, and others developed concepts such as Erinnerungsspur (memory trace), “structure of feeling,” or “performativity” to offer alternative forms of sociality to bourgeois modes of subjectivation. However, even though Hartman, Gilroy, and Moten do refer to these concepts at essential points of their descriptions of Black aesthetic sociality, they reinterpret them to describe the sociality of slaves, colonized individuals, and their ancestors. These Umwendungen (conversions, Sonderegger) of theory and the observable intellectual alliances are meant to reconstruct both continuities and ruptures of theoretical thought. Thus, the project asks for the specificity of the theory paradigm of aesthetic sociality in the context of reflections on race/blackness.

A Moment in Time? Arendt, Moten, and the Futures of Black Action in Little Rock. In: Martin Renz, Julius Schwarzwälder (Hrsg.): Spaces of Appearance. Aesthetics and Politics after Analogy. Frankfurt am Main, 2025. DOI:10.14361/9783839406847-008

Formen von Study — oder wie Black music interpretiert wird [Rezension zu: Dhanveer Singh Brar: Teklife, Ghettoville, Eski. The Sonic Ecologies of Black Music in the Early 21st Century. London: Goldsmiths Press, 2021], in: KULT online.

Walter Benjamin: Formen des Gelächters oder Chancen im Kino – und wie sie begründet sind. Tagung »Chancen des Gelächters. Zur Ästhetik und Politik des Humors bei Walter Benjamin«, Berlin, Walter-Benjamin-Archiv, 15.04.2023

Paul Gilroy und die ästhetische Sozialität des Dub. Tagung Intensivtreffen ‚Graduiertenkolleg Ästhetische Praxis‘, Göttingen, Waldschlösschen, 01.10.2025

Die eigene Position mitschreiben - Epistemische Kritik an Wissensproduktion nachgehen durch Schreibübungen und Relektüren. Workshopgestaltung mit Lukas Graf, Annika Haas und Juri Wasenmüller für das ‚Graduiertenkolleg Ästhetische Praxis‘, Kulturcampus Hildesheim, 12.12.2025

Ästhetische Praxis zwischen Negativtität und Widerstand. Workshopgestaltung mit Lukas Graf, Stefanie Leiding, Hannah Chodura und Julia Rüegger für das ‚Graduiertenkolleg Ästhetische Praxis‘, Kulturcampus Hildesheim, 16.01.2026

Die ästhetische Praxis von Alice Creischer und Andreas Siekmann - Fragen an die Ausstellung “Die Zirkulation von Arbeit, Kapital und Leben als Lieferkette - Das Potosi-Prinzip-Archiv erklärt einen Typus ecclesiae catholicae” im Dommuseum Hildesheim. Workshopgestaltung mit Max Negrelli, 18.02.2026

WiSe 2023/24: Kritikweisen von Kultur – zur Entstehung der Cultural Studies (Seminar), Humboldt-Universität Berlin, Institut für Kulturwissenschaft

WiSe 2021/22: Einführung in die Philosophie (Seminar), Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Institut für Philosophie