Researcher Theory / CLiC
01.01.08 – 31.08.10
The aim of my research project is to analyse how the death drive in psychoanalytic Freudian and Lacanian theory relates to the principle and phenomena of repetition and seriality in popular culture. Starting from Freud’s theory of the death drive in Beyond the pleasure principle (1920), the project will reconstruct the reinterpretation of Freud’s thoughts in Lacan’s concept of the death drive.
Freud’s assumptions on the death drive implied different aspects: the aim to lower tension and to gain or return to an (inorganic) state of entropy; a destructive force toward others and the self and the automatism of repetition. Lacan emphasised that every drive is virtually a death drive, in the sense that every drive pursues its own extinction, every drive involves the subject in repetition and is an attempt to go beyond the pleasure principle, to the realm of excess jouissance. It is no accident that Lacan has considered the death drive in the registers of the imaginary, the symbolic and the real, since what is at stake for him in Freud’s theory of the death drive, is the topography of the ego, id and super-ego. Slavoj Zizek divided these two sides of repetition into an aesthetical, ethical and religious stage.
This research project is mostly interested in the aesthetical aspect of the relation between the subject and culture. It plans to transfer the mentioned tensions within the phenomena of repetition and seriality in culture, especially film and television. Psychoanalytically inspired film theory has associated the automatism of repetition to the conservative pleasure of the feeling of consistency, for instance, while watching television. Television answers or produces these needs for imaginary illusion through eternal repetitions of the same, endless serials.
In film theory the compulsion to repeat has been related to mastery and the fulfilment of wishes. Joan Copjec has questioned this view on the compulsion to repeat as a return to the previous state of satisfaction. For her, it is rather a return to a trauma or wound. Film displaces the trauma from the immediacy of the present, turns it into an event that never took place. The pleasure in repetition is, according to her (and Derrida), marked by absence and the relationship of the body to the otherness of the sign.
As Slavoj Zizek has observed, repetition involves a reflection into itself: “insofar as repetition is not possible, it is possible to repeat this very experience of impossibility”. The repeated failure to experience an imaginary wholeness in popular culture produces repetitions. My research project intends to analyse cultural phenomena of repetition and seriality beside the valuation of conservatism or subversion, but would attempt to figure out the relation of the subject to culture in terms of ideology critique. I will also discuss the contribution psychoanalytic theory can make in this context.
Halle, DE
PhD. Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, DE.
PhD candidate. Department of Cultural Studies, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, DE.
MA and State exams. Department of Philosophy, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, DE.
Visiting lecturer. Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, DE.
Visiting professor. Karl-Franzens Universität Graz, Graz, AT.
Visiting lecturer. Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum, DE.
Visiting lecturer. Akademie der bildende Künste Wien, Vienna, AT.
Visiting lecturer. University of California, Riverside, US.
Lecturer. Department of Gender Studies and Cultural Studies, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, DE.
Visiting scholar. Center for Feminist Research, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, US.
Editor and publisher. b_books, Berlin, DE.
Visiting researcher. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, US.
Co-coordinator of the European research project on the Construction of blackness and whiteness in the context of (post-)colonialism, racism, migration and diaspora.
Organisation of Montagspraxis. Film screenings, lectures and discussions with artists, filmmakers and scientists. b_books, Berlin, DE.
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) dissertation fellowship.
Heinrich Böll Foundation fellowship.
Hard cases, bad dreams, all happy families. Seriality in tv and film. In: Forum expanded Berlinale ’09. With Constanze Ruhm. Discussion with D. Diedrichsen and C. Dreher.
Technologies of agreement. Media and politics. (25 – 26 April). With H. Blumentrath, K. Rothe, S. Werkmeister & B. Wurm. Berlin, DE: Volksbühne.
Drei Geschäfte. Mode, Bücher, Musik. b_books. (9 June – 3 September). Exhibition and discussions. Organised by b_books. Hamburg, DE: Kunstverein Hamburg.
Borderline. In: Ladyfest. (3 – 13 August). With Eva Kietzmann. Feminist and queer films on music and pop culture. Berlin, DE: Cinema Arsenal.
H. Blumentrath, K. Rothe, S. Werkmeister, Michaela Wünsch & B. Wurm (Eds). Technologies of agreement. The mediality of politics. Berlin, DE: Kadmos Verlag.
Anjela Schischmanjan & Michaela Wünsch (Eds). Female Hiphop. Realness, Roots und Rap Models. Mainz, DE: Ventil Verlag.
Matthias Haase, Marc Siegel & Michaela Wünsch (Eds). Outside. Die Politik queerer Räume [Outside. The politics of queer space]. Berlin, DE: b_books.
Auf der Spur... Materialien zum Detektivischen als Praxis visueller Lektüren in Manhunter und Red dragon. With Michaela Wünsch. In: Hanne Loreck & Katrin Mayer (Eds). Visuelle Lektüren. Lektüren des Visuellen, pp. 249-264. Hamburg, DE: Materialverlag Hochschule für Bildende Künste; Hamburg, DE: Textem.
Horror und Herrschaft. Regierungstechnologien im Zombiefilm [Horror and power. Techniques of governmentality in zombie movies]. With Linda Hentschel. In: Bilderpolitik in Zeiten von Krieg und Terror. Medien, Macht und Geschlechterverhältnisse. Berlin, DE.
Media and ghosts in Asian cinema. In: Katrin Pesch (Ed.). New ghost entertainment-entitled, pp. 60-63. Berlin, DE: Verbrecher Verlag.
Who’s afraid of the white man’s mask? The horror of invisibility in the stalker film. In: Gabriele Dietze, Daniela Hrzan, Jana Husmann-Kastein & Martina Tißberger (Eds). Weiß/White, pp. 165-181. Frankfurt am Main, DE: Peter Lang.
From slave labor to unemployment: Power, force and sovereignty in zombie movies. With bankleer. In: Reale Reste, pp. 4-11. Berlin, DE: Goldrausch 2005.
Die Politik Queerer Räume [The politics of queer space]. In: Elahe Haschemi Yekani & Beatrice Michaelis (Eds.). Queering the humanities, pp. 31-40. Berlin, DE: Querverlag.
Von Vampiren und anderen Degenerierten. Dracula im Kontext moderner Entartungsdiskurse [Of vampires and other degenerates: Dracula in the context of modern discourses of degeneration]. In: Julia Bertschick (Ed.). Poetische Wiedergänger. Deutschsprachige Vampirismus-Diskurse vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart, pp. 217-233. Tübingen, DE: Francke Verlag.
Differenzen testen [Testing differences]. In: Jour Fixe Initiative (Ed.). Wie wird man fremd?, pp. 207-229. Münster, DE: Unrast Verlag.
Monster. Zu Körperlichkeit und Medialität im modernen Horrorfilm [Body and media in modern horror films]. In: HSoZuKult. Humanities. Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte, 04/2007.
Normal love. In: Texte zur Kunst, 65, pp. 186-187.
Sex hat keine Zukunft. Ein Interview mit Lee Edelman [Sex has no future. An interview with Lee Edelman]. In: Spex, 12, pp. 50-51.
White people are never white enough, honey. Ein interview mit Vaginal Davis. With Aljoscha Weskott. In: Spex, 12, pp. 48-52.
Queer fashion? Die lesbische Erscheinung in der Modewelt [Queer fashion? The lesbian appearance in the fashion world]. In: Bulletin des Zentrums für Interdisziplinäre Frauenforschung, 21, pp. 36-49.
Allegorien des Heiligen in den Schriften Jean Genets [Allegories of the sacred in Jean Genet’s writing]. In: Kunsttexte. Fachzeitschrift für Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte im Netz, 04/2002. Published on: http://www.kunsttexte.de/download/gender/wuensch.pdf.
Laurence A. Rickels: Ulrike Ottinger. An autobiography of art cinema. Berlin, DE: b_books.
Television and cybernetics. (2 July). In: Ends of television. Amsterdam, NL: Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis; Amsterdam, NL: Universiteit van Amsterdam.
Uncanny thinking. In: Phantasmata. Techniques of the uncanny. (6 April). Berlin, DE: ICI Kulturlabor.
Always the same but different. In: Opening week 2009. (12 – 16 January). Maastricht, NL: Jan van Eyck Academie.
Female hiphop. (6 December). Hamburg, DE: Women’s Music Centre.
Positions of feminist film critic. (9 August). In: Femmes ‘R’ Us. Feminist festival on pop, music and art today. Berlin, DE: Radialsystem.
Horror and mastery in zombie movies. Reale Rest. (27 May). Innsbruck, AT: Kunstpavillion.
Female hiphop. (11 April). Stuttgart, DE: Oberwelt Stuttgart.
Bilderpolitik in Zeiten von Krieg und Terror: Medien, Macht und Geschlechterverhältnisse. (7 April). Book launch. Berlin, DE: b_books.
Female hiphop. (14 February). Potsdam, DE: Spartacus.
Death drive, repetition and seriality. In: Opening week 2008. (7 – 11 January). Maastricht, NL: Jan van Eyck Academie.
Modelle der Zukunft in der Psychoanalyse. (3 September). In: Eikones Summer School 2007. Basel, CH.
The serial killer. In: Figures of violence.(28 April). Berlin, DE: Volksbühne.
Suspense and danger. The scriptwriting of the profiler. (12 February). Berlin, DE: Humboldt Universität zu Berlin.
Medial revenants, media and ghosts in the new Japanese cinema. (7 January). Dresden, DE: Kunsthaus.
Of vampires and other degenerates. Dracula and modern scientist discourses at the fin de siècle. In: Production and crisis of masculinity in modernity. (10 December). Berlin, DE: Humboldt Universität zu Berlin.
Criminalistic knowledge in horror films. (17 November). In: Popculture. Romainmotier, CH: Migros.
Jean Genet’s anal cryptaesthetics. In: Post / Porn / Politics. (14 – 15 October). Organised by Jan van Eyck Academie. Berlin, DE: Volksbühne.
Queer/Prekär. (July). Hamburg, DE: Kunstverein Hamburg.
The politics of queer space. (July). Berlin, DE: Galerie Nord - Kunstverein Tiergarten.
White masculinity in the stalker film. In: Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association national conference. (March). San Diego, US.
More than meets the eye. Queer specters in horror cinema. (June). Stuttgart, DE: Merz Akademie.
Hiphop queens. (August). With Frauke Gust. Berlin, DE: Clipclub.
Queer fashion. (November). In: 5th Symposium for Lesbian Studies. Bielefeld, DE.
From techno-orientalism to the realm of the senses. Sex and violence in Japanese horror cinema. In: Japanese Film Festival. (11 – 17 January). Berlin, DE: Cinema Central.
New ghost entertainment - entitled. (9 December 2006 – 18 February 2007). Dresden, DE: Kunsthaus.
New ghost entertainment - entitled. (13 October – 11 November). Vancouver, CA: Or Gallery.
Interview with a scream queen. Audio-play.