Announcement: 18.11.2025 Lecture of Erhard Schüttpelz: Der liebe Gott und die Details

3 November 2025

Prof. em. Dr. Erhard Schüttpelz, winner of the Aby Warburg Foundation’s 2025 Science Award and a CAS »Imaginaria of Force« fellow in the winter term 2025/26, will give a lecture on the topic »Der liebe Gott und die Details« at this year's Science Award Ceremony.

The lecture explores the consequences of investigating possible "pathos formulae“ outside of European traditions of image-making, and of comparing them with Warburg’s Renaisance corpus. What consequences does this comparison have for Warburg's "pathos"? In order to respond to this question, the lecture draws upon a corpus of images that ethnologist Julius Lips worked on in the 1930s: the depiction of colonizers by the colonized. Pathos formulas are "visual symbols of greedy persecution, brutal triumph and unrestrained lamentation". All three "emotional superlatives" can be studied without restriction in Lips's corpus. However, these are not based on panel paintings, but on dances, forms of therapy and ceremonies. There is no image without physical movement. To adequately represent this aspect, the lecture is accompanied by a film that is being completed for this occasion.

Time: Tuesday, November 18, 2025, 7:00 pm (in German language)
Venue: Warburg-Haus, Heilwigstraße 116, 20249 Hamburg

Further information: https://www.warburg-haus.de/en/events/