Researchers within the TRA 4 – Individuals, Institutions and Societies investigate how institutions
mediate complex relationships between individuals and society and from there develop a new view of
micro-phenomena (development of personality, agency, individualization) as well as macro-phenomena
(world society, globalization). Sharing this research objective, the Institute for Philosophy and the
New Humanities is founded on the premise that genuine knowledge acquisition, truth and objectivity
are not the exclusive preserve of any single discipline or method. The concepts we deploy to understand
and evaluate human cultural and scientific achievements also have to be placed within their broader
social, political and intellectual context and therefore have to be approached from a truly
interdisciplinary perspective. The Institute thus aims to bring together researchers from a variety of
disciplines and draw on the resources of the social sciences, philosophy, and the humanities more
generally, in order to pursue a collaborative understanding of the nature and goals of the humanistic
and social scientific disciplines and to grapple with the challenges they face in light of the increasing
prevalence of intellectual models imported from other disciplines.
This year’s event will take place on September 26-30, 2022 and will consist in a week-long series of
seminars, guest lectures and workshops on the topic of “A.I. – The Art of Interpretation”. Practices of
interpretation are central to both the humanities and social sciences, whose typical objects of interpretive
activity range from artworks, texts and musical scores to rituals, economic behaviour and all manner of
“data”. Yet the phenomenon of interpretation is no less puzzling than it is familiar and raises a host of
fundamental questions: Can there be a science as well as an art of interpretation? Is interpretation an
essentially human activity? Is there a difference between interpretive activity and programmable forms
of data processing? Is interpretation by its nature a creative enterprise? Is it possible to develop
something like an algorithm for interpretation? Do practices of interpretation as practiced by different
disciplines share an essential common core? These and a host of related questions will occupy us at this
year’s event. The seminars will be led by Prof. Dr. Markus Gabriel (Bonn), Prof. Dr. Zed Adams
(New School) and Prof. Dr. Paul Kottmann (New School), and will be supplemented by various
keynotes by leading external speakers from philosophy, computer science, art history, and literary
studies. Invited speakers include:
James Elkins (Art Institute of Chicago)
Elisabeth Camp (Rutgers)
Yasmin Green (Jigsaw)
Jeffrey Sorensen (Jigsaw)
Homi Bhabha (Harvard University)
Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, (Stanford University)
Noel Carroll (CUNY)
Stephen Neale (CUNY)
Agnel Callard (University of Chicago)
The Forum Humanum scholarship will cover travel and accommodation costs, as well as provide a
small stipend for daily expenses. Applicants must therefore confirm that they are committed both to
traveling to New York in September and to being fully vaccinated before then. Access to the New
School campus without full vaccination is not permitted.
To submit an application, please send a) an up-to-date CV and b) a brief statement outlining your
interest in the event in light of your current research projects (max. 1 page), combined into a single
document, by 15.06.2022 to Dr. Alex Englander (E-Mail: alexeng@uni-bonn.de)