GRK 3113:  Aesthetics of Democracy

• Subject Area: Literary Studies
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 538820599

In public and academic discourse, democracy is usually considered a system of government: a set of institutions and procedures that allows for the formation, articulation, and representation of political interests. The proposed Research Training Group (GRK), by contrast, explores what it means to understand democracy as a comprehensive context of collective life. If democracy is a form of living together, then the question arises as to how this initially indeterminate notion of form can be made concrete. To this end, an analysis of the sensuously perceptible forms of social life is required. This is where the research program of the GRK "Aesthetics of Democracy" comes in. Starting from concepts proposed by political theory on the interlocking of the form of government and the form of living together – including "way of life," "form of life," "political form of society," and "social democracy" – it draws on methodologies from the humanities in order to examine the orders, practices, things, and experiences that give form to democratic living together. It does so in an interdisciplinary collaboration that brings together the study of literature, art, film, and media studies, history, and philosophy. Democratic life has a sensory and aesthetic dimension, which becomes palpable in orders of perception, modes of action, forms of communication, the shape of things, artistic practice as well as specific forms of experience. It is on this aesthetic dimension that the GRK focuses. Aesthetics here means three things: first, the socially specific order of the sensually (aisthetically) perceptible; second, the aesthetic forms, judgments, and experiences of specific forms of democratic coexistence; and third, the artistic reflections and articulations of communality and difference that contribute to an understanding of democratic coexistence. According to our initial hypothesis, democracy is an open, reflexive form of coexistence because it is characterized by disputes about how it should be shaped. Its form consists of the negotiation of its form. In terms of aesthetics, this means that democracy is perceived through the senses and at the same time is characterized by disputes that are not least concerned with the shaping of the sensual itself. The GRK pursues the aim of training excellent early career researchers and of thus contributing to interdisciplinary research on democracy that exploits the potentials of the humanities and that cultivates ties with institutions in civil society. The academic environment of Frankfurt and the Rhine-Main region has long-standing competencies in research on democracy and aesthetics, which are further enriched by the GRK’s 17 international partner organizations on five continents.

• DFG Programme: Research Training Groups
• Applicant Institution: Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
• Participating Institution: Technische Universität Darmstadt
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Johannes Völz
• Participating Researchers: Professor Dr. Heinz-Joachim Drügh; Professor Dr. Andreas Fahrmeir; Professorin Dr. Frederike Felcht; Professor Dr. Achim Geisenhanslüke; Professor Dr. Vinzenz Hediger; Professorin Dr. Antje Krause-Wahl; Professorin Dr. Sophie Loidolt; Professorin Dr. Laliv Melamed, Ph.D.; Professor Dr. Martin Saar; Professorin Dr. Heike Schäfer; Professorin Dr. Zhiyi Yang