Organizers:
Anja Röcke, Anna Katharina Schaffner and Greta Wagner
Date and place:
5 March 2021 in Hamburg/virtual
Topic:
Opinions are divided on the topic of self-optimization. While a considerable and steadily growing number of people who use practices of self-optimization, a clear skepticism towards optimization often dominates the German feuilleton landscape. German-language media discourses about self-optimization are often characterized by pessimistic and alarming diagnoses of the present. This interdisciplinary conference, to which sociologists, psychologists, historians, and cultural scientists will contribute, seeks to shed light on the different meanings, preconditions, and consequences of self-optimization in Germany and beyond.
Guiding questions:
- What are the social, technical and societal preconditions on which the idea and practice of self-optimization are based and what are the possible individual and societal consequences?
- What is the significance of the idea and practice of self-optimization for the respective individuals as well as for society as a whole?
- What impact does the Corona pandemic have on the idea and practice of self-optimization?
- What is the relationship between self-optimization and self-improvement?
- What kind of psychological explanatory models can explain the discomfort with the optimization culture on the one hand, and the enthusiasm and conviction of optimization-supporters on the other?
We will address these and other questions to critically examine the self-optimization debate with a specific focus on the situation in Germany from new sociological-sociological, comparative, and psychological perspectives.
Speakers:
Oswald Balandis, Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Ulrich Bröckling, Universität Freiburg
Vera King, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt und Sigmund-Freud-Institut Frankfurt
Anja Röcke, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Anna Katharina Schaffner, University of Kent and HIAS-Fellow Hamburg
Program
9.00
Introduction
9.15
Anna Katharina Schaffner, University of Kent and HIAS Fellow Hamburg
A plea for self-improvement
9.35
Comment (Sighard Neckel) and discussion
Moderation: Anja Röcke
10.10
Anja Röcke, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Between media-buzzword and sociological concept. Theses on self-optimization
10.30
Comment (Greta Wagner) and discussion
Moderation: Anna Katharina Schaffner
11.05
Coffee break
11.20
Ulrich Bröckling
“… that, in the best case, it won’t be quite so bad.” About inverse optimization
11.40
Comment (Anja Röcke) and discussion
Moderation: Greta Wagner
12.15
Lunch
13.00
Vera King, Goethe University Frankfurt and Sigmund Freud Institute Frankfurt
Lost in Perfection – Optimization in the Crisis
13.20
Comment (Anna Katharina Schaffner) and discussion
Moderation: Greta Wagner
13.55
Oswald Balandis, Ruhr University Bochum
Psychosocial aspects of technically mediated self-optimization. A qualitative study on practices of self-tracking.
14.15
Comment (Sophia Prinz) and discussion
Moderation: Anja Röcke
14.50
Concluding discussion
Moderation: Anna Katharina Schaffner
15.00
End