Projektseminar: Körper-Selbst-Verhältnisse (Teil 1)
Instructors: Jun.-Prof. Dr. Tobias BollShortname: P Empir. Projekt 1
Course No.: 02.149.26MA0401
Course Type: Projektseminar
Anwesenheitspflicht
Attendance in person is mandatory.Contents
The empirical project starts with an everyday, seemingly self-evident fact: that our embodied being-in-the-world is the foundation and condition of possibility for our social being-in-society. We have a body, and at the same time, we are this body. This fundamental assumption is also central to the sociology of the body, the conceptual framework within which this empirical project is situated. In this project, we turn this assumption into a sociological phenomenon and an object of empirical investigation.Our focus is on the individual body and the relationships between self and embodiment. Empirically, we examine social practices and fields of practice in which the relationship between self and body becomes a theme, a problem, or an object of individual and collective engagement. We assume that behind the everyday, taken-for-granted experience of being a body and "being my body," there are social processes that produce and (more or less) stabilize the specific relationship between self and body. We aim to reconstruct and theorize these processes through concrete cases, investigating them at practical, discursive, narrative, and corporeal levels.
How are relationships between body and self produced, negotiated, or transformed in social practices? What happens when these relationships become crisis-ridden or change—due to illness, aging, or societal pressures, or when the self shifts its affiliation with human categories such as gender? How are self-identifications with cultural groups embodied? What roles do knowledge systems, discourses, norms, power, and resistance play in these processes?
Empirically, we explore these questions through cases, which participants will select in the first weeks of the course. Possible cases might include medical settings, digital spaces, or everyday practices such as sports, nutrition, or fashion. Methodologically, the project employs qualitative approaches, with research designs that may integrate ethnographic observations, qualitative interviews, and discourse analysis.
The project is linked to ongoing research in the subproject "Reflexive Human Differentiation: Self-Problematizations of Belonging to Categories of Gender and Sexuality" within the Collaborative Research Center 1482: Studies in Human Differentiation (for more information: https://humandifferenzierung.uni-mainz.de/en/forschung/projekt/d02-reflexive-humandifferenzierung). The empirical project spans two semesters. In the first semester, we will develop the theoretical and conceptual foundations, formulate our own research questions, design field access strategies, and begin data generation.
Additional information
Course language is German.If an examination procedure has been initiated in one of the empirical projects by registering for the exam, the examination must be completed in that same project.
Dates
| Date (Day of the week) | Time | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 10/22/2026 (Thursday) | 14:15 - 17:45 | 00 141 (K7) Übungsraum 9139 - Am Kisselberg |
| 10/29/2026 (Thursday) | 14:15 - 17:45 | 00 141 (K7) Übungsraum 9139 - Am Kisselberg |
| 11/05/2026 (Thursday) | 14:15 - 17:45 | 00 141 (K7) Übungsraum 9139 - Am Kisselberg |
| 11/12/2026 (Thursday) | 14:15 - 17:45 | 00 141 (K7) Übungsraum 9139 - Am Kisselberg |
| 11/19/2026 (Thursday) | 14:15 - 17:45 | 00 141 (K7) Übungsraum 9139 - Am Kisselberg |
| 11/26/2026 (Thursday) | 14:15 - 17:45 | 00 141 (K7) Übungsraum 9139 - Am Kisselberg |
| 12/03/2026 (Thursday) | 14:15 - 17:45 | 00 141 (K7) Übungsraum 9139 - Am Kisselberg |
| 12/10/2026 (Thursday) | 14:15 - 17:45 | 00 141 (K7) Übungsraum 9139 - Am Kisselberg |
| 12/17/2026 (Thursday) | 14:15 - 17:45 | 00 141 (K7) Übungsraum 9139 - Am Kisselberg |
| 01/07/2027 (Thursday) | 14:15 - 17:45 | 00 141 (K7) Übungsraum 9139 - Am Kisselberg |
| 01/14/2027 (Thursday) | 14:15 - 17:45 | 00 141 (K7) Übungsraum 9139 - Am Kisselberg |
| 01/21/2027 (Thursday) | 14:15 - 17:45 | 00 141 (K7) Übungsraum 9139 - Am Kisselberg |
| 01/28/2027 (Thursday) | 14:15 - 17:45 | 00 141 (K7) Übungsraum 9139 - Am Kisselberg |
| 02/04/2027 (Thursday) | 14:15 - 17:45 | 00 141 (K7) Übungsraum 9139 - Am Kisselberg |
| 02/11/2027 (Thursday) | 14:15 - 17:45 | 00 141 (K7) Übungsraum 9139 - Am Kisselberg |
