SFB 1015:  Muße (Leisure/Otium). Concepts, Spaces, Figures

• Subject Area: Humanities ; Agriculture, Forestry and Veterinary Medicine ; Geosciences ; Medicine ; Social and Behavioural Sciences
• Term: from 2013 to 2021
• Website: Homepage
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 197396619

The CRC 1015 Otium. Societal resource | Critical potential examines otium, meaning time of freedom and potentiality. New productivity can arise from such time due to the fact that it is not defined by a pressure of productivity. Our topic offers access to the comparative analysis of a tension that may exist in any society: the tension between individual spaces of freedom on the one hand, the demands that societal division of labor places on individuals on the other.The research of the CRC is thus directly relevant to contemporary social-political debates. What role should economically defined requirements of productivity play in the organization of social life? How should such productivity be defined, and what are its consequences for the possibility to live a life in full? Which demands are individuals willing to bear, and are such demands equitably distributed amongst different groups? These questions are central to contemporary social criticism, and every discussion of otium has them as a background. The CRC focuses on the analysis of the social role of otium and builds on two ambivalent identifica-tions of otium: its role as a societal resource and its critical potential. Because of the critical potential which comes from it, otium is an important resource for societies, yet it simultaneously evades any scheduled use. This makes otium as complex as it is socially relevant, a phenomenon which the CRC investigates in a wide, interdisciplinary network. In the third phase of funding, the research of the CRC is carried out in a broad spectrum of disciplinary subprojects. Building upon these projects, the re-search centre involves social groups in a transdisciplinary dialogue that becomes part of the research process, implements innovative forms of scientific communication and brings the results of our collaborative research across three phases of funding into a synthesis.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres

Completed projects

• A01 - Otiose Leisure as Spatial Freedom (Project Head Figal, Günter )
• A03 - The Societal and Ethical Relevance of the Concept of Muße / Leisure (Project Head Hühn, Lore )
• A05 - Self-Transcendance in Otiose Leisure: Reconstructing and Transcending Sociology through Otiose Leisure (Project Heads Boatca, Manuela ;  Schwengel, Hermann )
• B03 - Leisure Spaces in Courtly Residences: Topography and Form in Architecture and Nature (Project Head Hubert, Hans W. )
• B04 - 'Performing Idleness': British Theatre in the Eighteenth Century as a Space of Leisure, Idleness and Otium (Project Head Fludernik, Monika )
• B06 - Leisured Travel vs. Tourism: Individualism and Deceleration in British Travel Writing between 1840 and 1914 (Project Head Korte, Barbara )
• B07 - Loci of Imaginary Communication: Functions of Otiose Leisure in Bibliographical, Anthological, and Anecdotal Literature (16th through 19th century) (Project Head Häfner, Ralph )
• C02 - Suspended Time and Narrational Spaces of Seclusion. Leisure and Authorship in Autobiographically Structured Narrative (Project Heads Klinkert, Thomas ;  Martin, Dieter )
• D01 - Muße (Otiose Leisure) in the context of illness – leisure time and reorientation in times of resignation and loss (Project Heads Bengel, Jürgen ;  Lucius-Hoene, Gabriele )
• D02 - Muße: a cultural transfer between East and West. Transformations of asceticism and monasticism (Project Heads Böhm, Thomas ;  Jürgasch, Thomas )
• D04 - Immersion und Muße im Theme Park: Medienlandschaften bei Ontario Place (Toronto, 1971-2011) (Project Head Curtis, Robin )
• D05 - Religious services as sites of Muße? Everyday religiosity and the experience of worship in Namibia (Project Head Dobler, Gregor )
• D06 - Machiavellian otium: Strategies of Retreat in Niccolò Machiavelli’s Letters Between 1512 and 1527 (Project Head Frömmer, Judith )
• D08 - Theory, practice and empirical evidence of modern and contemporary architectural spaces of Muße (Project Head Hubert, Hans W. )
• D09 - ‚vita mixta’. A clerical concept transformed for lay culture (Project Heads Hasebrink, Burkhard ;  Manuwald, Henrike )
• D10 - Urban Muße (otiose leisure) in the late 18th and early 19th century. Flânerie in German literature (Project Head Riedl, Peter Philipp )
• D11 - Learning „Muße“ (otiose leisure)? Leisure, creativity and deceleration in the context of performance enhancement and self improvement (Project Head Tauschek, Markus )
• D12 - Waiting and expecting in spaces of Muße: an empirical study on the connection between expectation, the atmosphere of rooms and temporal consciousness (Project Head Thomaschke, Roland )
• G03 - Ordered work, regulated leisure – and ‚Muße’? Marxism and „dosug“ in Soviet culture (Project Head Cheauré, Elisabeth )
• G04 - Leisure in Indian contemporary novels (Project Heads Fludernik, Monika ;  Nandi, Miriam )
• INF - Information Infrastructure (Project Heads Böhm, Thomas ;  Kellersohn, Antje ;  Schneider, Gerhard )
• MGK - The Integrated Research Training Group (Project Heads Becker, Sabina ;  Cheauré, Elisabeth ;  Dobler, Gregor )
• P01 - Loci of Leisure in Greek and Roman Letters (Project Head Zimmermann, Bernhard )
• P03 - Experienced Places and Moments of Otium/Leisure in contemporary European city tourism (Project Head Freytag, Tim )
• P05 - Muße in the hospital? A mindfulness-based intervention with assistant physicians (Project Heads Bauer, Joachim ;  Göritz, Anja ;  Schmidt, Stefan )
• R01 - Muße and immersion experiences in music (Project Head Holzmüller, Anne )
• R03 - Otium in the forest: the construction of a concept in past and present (Project Heads Kleinschmit, Daniela ;  Schmidt, Uwe Eduard )
• T02 - MUßEUM – Museum of Muße and literature Baden-Baden (Project Heads Cheauré, Elisabeth ;  Hubert, Hans W. ;  Tauschek, Markus ;  Thomaschke, Roland )
• Z - Central Tasks (Project Heads Cheauré, Elisabeth ;  Dobler, Gregor ;  Hasebrink, Burkhard )

• Applicant Institution: Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
• Participating University: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
• Spokespersons: Professorin Dr. Elisabeth Cheauré, until 9/2019; Professor Dr. Gregor Dobler, since 10/2019; Professor Dr. Günter Figal, until 12/2013; Professor Dr. Burkhard Hasebrink, until 10/2013; Professor Dr. Thomas Klinkert, until 5/2015