GSA Distinguished Lecture, "Normality as a Serious Matter and True Joy"
Dr. Margaret E. Menninger (Texas State University/GSA)
(Registration deadline July 1)
What can the nineteenth century have to say about what is normal in the twenty-first? What is normal in the first place; how will we know when we have returned there? Or, perhaps more aptly put, how does society arrive at consensus about what constitutes “normal?” Remember, normality, too, has a history. What we now perceive as normal has not always been so, as the histories of our now-familiar institutions of high culture can show. There was a time when the public museum did not exist, and it was by no means normal to visit a city and spend time in a building dedicated to art or archaeology. These institutions and their histories also remind us that we will know when normal has returned or been established because it will feel right; it will have an emotional component. Indeed, perhaps finding joy is the best first step back, and art culture is a time-tested pathway. As museums, concert houses, and other cultural nexus points reopen around the globe, we can understand how the arts establish the parameters for social normality.
Date & Location: Wednesday, July 6, 2022, 4–6 PM, FU Berlin, Ehrenbergstr. 26/28, 14195 Berlin
Language/s: The lecture will be held in English; the discussion in English and German
Registration: Please send an email to bprogram[AT]zedat.fu-berlin.de by July 1
