International ERC BodyCapital Workshop
to be held at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin/Center for the History of Emotions and part of the ERC Project “The Healthy Self as Body Capital. Individuals, Market-Based Societies, and Body Politics in Visual Twentieth Century Europe”
The concept of excess is ambivalent: It can signify phenomena ranging from certain religious practices to drug abuse to aspects of consumer culture; it can be an empowering self- description or a stigmatizing judgment. This openness is also reflected in a variety of closely related terms that are sometimes shared by multiple languages, such as “ecstasy,” “exstase,” and “Ekstase” in English, French, and German, but which might also be associated with divergent concepts like “frenzy,” “ivresse,” or “Rausch.” The workshop seeks to analyze these facets of excess and asks how excess has been perceived and constructed in different media. It aims to explore how images of the body, health, morality and emotions varied over history, across cultures, and how the media themselves have contributed to the ways in which the concept of excess has been shaped and used.
