“Akten: Medientechnik und Recht” – The Seminar

Forschungsprojekt

Cornelia Vismann Reading Group

Cornelia Vismann's monograph "Akten: Medientechnik und Recht" (Fischer, 2000) inaugurated the field of law, media, and cultural techniques. Despite its significance, there has been limited engagement with Vismann’s texts, with only a few notable exceptions. This lack of engagement is particularly evident in the absence of interpretive frameworks that could further develop the research program she outlined in her initial book. Moreover, evaluating her work through conventional legal theory protocols carries the risk of reducing her investigations to nothing more than an application or extension of Friedrich Kittler’s media theory to law and legal history.

Vismann's work is distinct in its approach. She drew on the works of Friedrich Kittler, Werner Hamacher, and various other authors and research groups from 1990s Germany, yet her media theory stands independently. Her methodology included close readings of historical sources, unorthodox approaches to canonized texts such as Walter Benjamin’s writings, and innovative research methods like interviews and non-participatory observation.

This seminar aims to engage deeply with Vismann’s pioneering monograph, exploring her approach to theoretical construction, her theory of history, and the protocols she used to identify, connect, and analyze both old and new primary sources in bold and innovative ways.

Our goals include:

• Engaging in detailed readings and discussions of Vismann's work.
• Translating "Akten" into Portuguese and Spanish.
• Producing scholarly engagements with Vismann's theories.
• Compiling a collective volume on "Akten" at the seminar's conclusion.

Events

(1) 04 March 2024;

Subject: “A minor grammatology for files”

Reading materials: Cornelia Vismann, Akten (Fischer, 2011) 7-29; alternatively, Vismann, Files (Stanford University Press, 2008) xi-13.

Complementary reading: Cornelia Vismann, Cultural Techniques and Sovereignty, Theory, Culture & Society, v. 30, n. 6, 83-93 (2013); Jack Goody, The logic of writing (Cambridge University Press, 2012) 87-126.

(2) 28 March 2024;

Subject: Cancels, preambles, consumption

Reading materials: Cornelia Vismann, Akten, 30-66; alt. Vismann, Files, 13-38.

Complementary reading: Franz Kafka, Vor dem Gesetz, alt. Before the law, available here; Herman Melville, Bartleby, The Scrivener: A Story Of Wall-Street, available here

(3) 25 April 2024;

Subject: Transmission and translation

Reading materials: Cornelia Vismann, Akten, 67-99; alt. Vismann, Files, 39-61.

Complementary reading: Friedrich Kittler, The City as a Medium in The Truth of the Technological World (Stanford University Press, 2014).

(4) 29 May 2024;

Subject: Imperatoriam Maiestatem – Justinian and Friedrich The Second

Reading materials: Cornelia Vismann, Akten, 100-153; alt. Vismann, Files, 62-88.

Complementary reading: Ernst Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies (Princeton University Press, 1957) 97-143 (Frederick the Second).

(5) 26 June 2024;

Subject: The disenchantment and discipline of files

Reading materials: Cornelia Vismann, Akten, 154-203; alt. Vismann, Files, 88-101.

Complementary reading: Michel Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, trans. by Graham Burchell (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) 303-325 (Lesson Nine 8 March 1978).

(6) 31 July 2024;

Subject: Ceremony

Reading materials: Cornelia Vismann, Akten, 204-225; alt. Vismann, Files, 102-109.

Complementary reading: Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, On the Function of Rituals in the Holy Roman Empire in Evans et al. (eds.) The Holy Roman Empire 1495-1806 (Oxford University Press, 2011) 359-373.

(7) 28 August 2024;

Subject: Prussia – publicity, subjectification, and secrecy in the administration

Reading materials: Cornelia Vismann, Akten, 226-267; alt. Vismann, Files, 109-122.

Complementary reading: Friedrich Kittler, Flechsig, Schreber, Freud: An Information Network at the Turn of the Century in The Truth of the Technological World (Stanford University Press, 2014).

(8) 25 September 2024;

Subject: Büro

Reading materials: Cornelia Vismann, Akten, 267-300; alt. Vismann, Files, 123-146.

Complementary reading: Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (The World Publishing Company, 1962) 207-226.

(9) 30 October 2024;

Subject: Data

Reading materials: Cornelia Vismann, Akten, 300-331; alt. Vismann, Files, 147-160.

Complementary reading: Cornelia Vismann, Markus Krajewski, Computer Juridisms, Grey Room, v. 29, n. 12, 90-109 (2007).

(10) 27 November 2024. 

Subject: Icons

Reading materials: Cornelia Vismann, Akten, 332-338; alt. Vismann, Files, 161-164.

Complementary reading: Cornelia Vismann, Image and Law – a Troubled Relationship, Parallax, v. 14, n. 4, 1-9 (2008); Ernst Kitzinger, The Cult of Images in the Age before Iconoclasm, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, v. 8, 83-150 (1954).