Pop Aesthetics (A02)

• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature)
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 438577023

The project examines the reintroduction of the ‘high’/‘low’ distinction into the pop field in the period from the 1950s to the present. The orientation towards second-order popularization – e.g. hit parades, high click rates – serves in this case to denounce their frontrunners and in-stead to artistically ennoble the ‘uncommercial’ and ‘countercultural’. The aesthetic concepts and valuation practices associated with them will be reconstructed and analyzed in detail.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 1472: Transformations of the Popular
• Applicant Institution: Universität Siegen
• Project Heads: Professor Dr. Thomas Hecken, until 3/2025; Professor Dr. Niels Werber, since 4/2025