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The mimetic forms of Un/masking

The sixth con­fer­ence of the Inter­na­tional Doc­torate Pro­gram MI­ME­SIS con­cen­trated on the topic of Un/masking. On a Mi­metic Form and took place in Mu­nich from July 4 to July 6 2019. Inter­na­tional schol­ars from the hu­mani­ties and social sci­ences came to­gether at LMU Mu­nich and the Zen­tra­linsti­tut für Kun­stges­chich­te to dis­cuss the mean­ing and im­portance of masks in po­litical, social, liter­ary and artistic con­texts from antiq­uity to our pre­sent days.

Common ground in diversity: themes and methods

Masks are an inte­gral part of human cul­ture. They have been a vital ele­ment of theat­rical prac­tices since antiq­uity and have always played a cru­cial role in rituals as well as artistic and liter­ary activi­ties through-out the world.

In recent years, vari­ous artists, per­for­mers and politi­cal activ­ists have updat­ed the pow­erful act of un/masking for our times. There­fore, it was no won­der that the topic at­tract­ed the inter­est of the stu­dents of the Inter­na­tional Do­cotrate Pro­gram "MIMESIS" . The result was the con­fer­ence Un/masking. On a Mi­metic Form, which in­cluded 13 papers all focus­ing on very differ­ent as­pects of masks.

Ex­amples of mask usage in po­litical pro­tests and de­bates about the impli­cati­ons of the latest facial recog­nition soft­ware stood next to in-depth stud­ies of classic dra­matic texts. The lively dis­cussion with the audi­ence proved to be a highly con­struc­tive dia­logue de­spite of the heter­oge­neous topics and meth­odo­logical ap­proaches.

As the core of the schedule, the three key­note lec­tures united sub­jects such as trans­forma­tive masks of the First Na­tions of the North Amer­ican Pacific coast, theo­ries of style in Sur­real­ism and masked voices in pop music. Throughout the con­fer­ence, the talks and dis­cussions re­volved not only around the object of the mask, but also around the more ab­stract pro­cesses of mask­ing and un­mask­ing, as well as the meta­phori­cal usages of the terms. Ex­amples of such “invis­ible” meta­phori­cal masks are social roles as well as liter­ary pseu­do­nyms. The pow­erful act of mask­ing not only con­ceals a per­son’s identi­ty, it can also create a new one.

The lively ex­change con­tinued out­side the con­fer­ence room: At­ten­dees re­sumed their dis­cussion dur­ing a recep­tion at the end of the first con­fer­ence day as well as during the two guid­ed tours of the Zen­tra­linsti­tut für Kun­stges­chich­te.

Text: International Doctorate Program "MIMESIS"