Figurations of Difference in Moving Images.

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Sabine Nessel
• Subject Area: Theatre and Media Studies
• Term: from 2019 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 424440769

This film studies research project investigates figurations of difference. It starts from concepts that have been primarily thought of as isolated phenomena, such as gender difference, ethnic difference and anthropological difference. The project comprises three partial projects, each connected to one another by an overarching theoretical principle of relationality. The aim is to trace and theoretically evaluate dimensions of difference, by proceeding upon the assumption that these dimensions are interconnected, and by means of dynamic combination of discourse analysis and object analysis. The first partial project, The Multiplication of Difference in Classical Women’s Film, reappraises the discourse on Hollywood film of the 1930s and 1940s in light of its stagings of difference. Instead of continuing to focus on single differences (such as gender), the analysis assumes the productivity of difference in its multiplicity. The second partial project, The Interlinking of Difference in Sports Film analyses the film stage of the body, coded as athletic against the foil of media-cultural human differentiation of ethnicity, age, or physical (in)capacity. Under the title of Anthropological Difference in Animal Documentary, the third partial project examines more recent productions from the realm of animal documentaries that aesthetically reflect on the superimposition of other differences onto human-animal difference. In focusing on complex figurations of difference, the overall project as a whole aims to contribute to the discussion on the genealogy of difference and, moreover, to illustrate the extent to which three heterogeneous bodies of material (e.g., from the genre perspective) display surprising parallels and can be interconnected with regard to their specific stages of difference. In the double gesture of figurations of difference – as the central theoretical question posed by this project and, likewise, the methodological link between the partial projects – the overarching goal of the research project is the critique of the idea of singular difference.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants