Digitale Verwandtschaft. Memes als Bindeglied in der Kultur der Digitalität für Menschen ab dem Grundschulalter

In the organizer's words:

Family is a vague collective term for the most diverse forms of togetherness. It stands for origin and belonging, but also for obligation and conflict. As a central building block of social life, the family conveys rules and norms, shapes desires, fears and goals.

At the same time, there is no binding definition of what a family is. In different times and cultures, it can be understood and taken for granted in very different ways. The interdisciplinary lecture series "Beziehungsweise Familie" is dedicated to the contradictory reality of the nuclear family model that is widespread today, especially in Western industrialized countries, and asks for alternatives from a global perspective. Renowned academics from various disciplines and subject areas will present current research for discussion that examines the potential of alternative family and kinship concepts in terms of their creative, ethical and innovative aspects.

The interdisciplinary lecture series is the prelude to the Humboldt Forum's theme year of the same name, which starts in fall 2025.

The culture of digitality (Stalder 2017) expands the concept of kinship: people meet by reacting to digitalized content and constantly forming new communities, which are often already predetermined by algorithms.

Memes are links in this community: in an often humorous way, people use memes (Shifman 2014) to show each other which cultural references they allude to and to what extent they feel they belong. Prof. Anders' Competence Center for Poetic Education Digital at the HU builds on this culture of digitality and supports people from primary school age onwards in developing their own affiliations and becoming confident in the online community. Various school projects have shown that children particularly enjoy using memes to exchange meaningful content with others and produce astonishing interpretations of children's literary texts when negotiating literary ambiguity (Anders 2024).

Participants

Petra Anders studied German, History and Philosophy at the Universities of Göttingen and Vienna from 1992 to 1999. After completing her traineeship in Berlin, she worked as a teacher in Brandenburg, Baden-Württemberg and Hamburg. In 2010, she completed her doctorate at the University of Bremen on the subject of "Poetry Slam in the German classroom". From 2011 to 2012, she was a visiting scholar at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York City (specializing in digital storytelling and cultural studies). Her research focuses on film and literature didactics and education in a world that can also be shaped digitally. In April 2022, she received the 2021 Award for Good Teaching from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

The lecture is part of the interdisciplinary lecture series "Beziehungsweise Familie", which kicks off the Humboldt Forum's 2025-26 annual program of the same name.

The lecture series is taking place as part of a cooperation between the Humboldt Forum's network of institutions. Programmatic director of the cross-institutional cluster: Dr. Laura Goldenbaum.

- Free admission

- Duration: 120 min

- Language: German

- Room 3, ground floor

- Part of: Lecture series Beziehungsweise Familie