230318 Processes of Civilisation: A History of Manners (S) (WiSe 2025/2026)

• How does one become ‘civilised’? What did it mean to become ‘civilised’, for a male or a female living in 1600? 1800? 1940? 2025?
• What were/are the incentives to ‘civilise’ oneself? In other words: why bother?
• Cui bono, i.e. who benefits if people accept that they must ever strive to ‘civilise’ their manners and their bodies further? What are the ‘advantages’ of a civilised society?
• What is the connection between ‘civilised’ manners and body management? What are the features of a ‘civilised’ body?
• What are the interrelations between checking and disciplining one’s animal impulses and feelings of shame? How are these related to the ability to empathise with others?
• When/Why did physical strength and aggression stop being a good guarantor of socio-economic success? What character traits/behaviour patterns took their place?
• Using a fork and blowing your nose into a handkershief are all very ‘nice’, but what is the link between these forms of body management and a successful career at court the 17th century?
• Which social groups were the first to become ‘civilised’? What were their motivations?
• By which means and media were/are people taught what ‘civilised’ behaviour looks like?
• How are texts that propagate normative behaviour, or punish deviant behaviour, to be interpreted? Subversion of the norm or containment of deviance? Abhorrence or celebration of man’s animal nature?
• How have people deliberately violated the rules of ‘civilised’ conduct in order to express social and ideological opposition to systems and figures of authority?

Literaturangaben

We will try to understand the ways in which the construction of the self (esp. of the body and its 'management') is shaped by social discourse and power and discuss the aforementioned questions by consulting Norbert Elias, Mikhail Bakhtin, Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Foucault, and Judith Butler.
We will read extracts from early modern plays; conduct books; modern adverts and commercials, and others.