Internationale Tagung: Silence in Analogue and Digital Communication in Western Modernity: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Its Phenomenology and Change

This conference explores how processes of change affecting the conditions, means, and opportunities of communication in the western world since 1800 have affected the perception and the evaluation of silence. Silence is understood broadly as the absence of communication where it could have been expected, and it encompasses forms of concealment. Our approach is phenomenological; as soon as communication is perceived or claimed as absent, or can reasonably be argued to be absent, we are dealing with silence. The object of investigation is therefore not limited to synchronous oral communication, but also includes a multitude of written, oral, and multimodal forms of analogue as well as digital communication. Considering case studies from such diverse areas as art and literature, politics, gender relations, and protest, memory and (social) media, we trace the uses, functions, perceptions, and evaluations of silence, opening up new perspectives on the historical variety and change of communicative norms and expectations in Western modernity.