New video: Martina Wagner-Egelhaaf on concepts of demons from antiquity to the present day

Literary scholar Martina Wagner-Egelhaaf from the Cluster of Excellence spoke about ideas of demons from antiquity to the present day in a lecture at the Warburg House in Hamburg. Under the title "Dämonenkraft. Heimsuchungen (in) der Moderne", she examined the idea of the demonic in the works of Plato and Goethe, but above all in contemporary novels, poems and dramas. She emphasized that although the demonic in modernity is a metaphor, not a belief, it still has an effect - for example when it comes to critically addressing the relationship between the individual and the community or political conditions. Watch the video [DE]

At the Cluster of Excellence, Wagner-Egelhaaf is researching ideas of demons in the interdisciplinary project "Demons: medialities between literature and art, religion and politics". Early modern historian Ulrike Ludwig and art historian Bettina Krams are also involved in this project. Wagner-Egelhaaf is also researching the project "Figures of Hate. Prolegomena to a literary and cultural history". (tec/vvm)