Theory and Aesthetics of Elusive Knowledge in the Early Modern Period: Transfer and Institutionalisation (B05)

• Subject Area: European and American Literary and Cultural Studies
• Term: from 2012 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 191249397

It is before the backdrop of a general early modern tendency towards aesthetic normativity that this project aims at analysing the concept of elusive knowledge. We argue that this concept's claim to authority as well as its importance as an argument in aesthetic debate constitute a site which enables the system of early modern aesthetic rules to negotiate its own limitations. The project focuses on aesthetic categories as well as on the diverse discursive strategies of grasping notions of 'beauty' in poetry, poetological treatises, and works on art theory from the 16th and 17th centuries in the Romance cultures.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 980: Episteme in Motion - Transfer of Knowledge from the Ancient World to the Early Modern Period
• Applicant Institution: Freie Universität Berlin
• Project Head: Professorin Dr. Ulrike Schneider