Feldmeier, Marc
Congratulations on passing the viva voce examination
on 29 June 2017.
Dissertation topic:
"Archives of childhood. Pedagogy and literature from Sulzer to Tieck."
Scholarship according to the Bayerisches Eliteförderungsgesetz (since 1 October 2009).
Contact address at the University:
Chair of Modern German Literature and History of Ideas
Institute of German Philology / Modern Department
Am Hubland
D-97074 Würzburg
First supervisor: Prof. Dr Roland Borgards (Univ. Frankfurt)
Second supervisors:
Prof. Dr Harald Neumeyer (Univ. Erlangen-Nuremberg)
Class in the Graduate School: "Philosophy, Languages, Arts"
Doctorate in the Graduate School since WS 2008/2009.
Abstract
In the second half of the 18th century, under the influence of biopolitical conditions, pedagogy became an authority that elevated the child to an object of human capitalist value creation through specific strategies of discipline and cultivation - a maxim that is ultimately still valid in the 21st century. Pupils are thus at the centre of an inscription system that strives for comprehensive educational access against the backdrop of the biopolitical leitmotif of "making life" (Michel Foucault).
In this context, the child's unconscious represents a paradoxical phenomenon: On the one hand, pedagogical inscription contributes to its shaping, but at the same time the unconscious turns out to be an incalculable factor, because the active forces of "dark ideas" (Johann Georg Sulzer) not only put the success of the inscription system to the test, they also call into question the efficiency of the childhood inscription system, which aims to standardise and normalise.
The dissertation project, which focuses on cultural studies, aims to trace this development of specific paradigms of perception of childhood in pedagogy and literature between 1750 and 1800. The subject of the study is not only fictional texts, but also treatises from the field of enlightened pedagogy and related sciences (including psychology, medicine, theology and philosophy), in which the image of the child outlined at the beginning is designed, discussed and enforced. Methodologically, the work is orientated towards Michel Foucault's discourse analysis and New Historicism.
