This doctoral project explores the emergence of a critical student culture at Goethe University Frankfurt during the long 1960s, with a particular focus on artistic practices, media formats, and forms of student self-organization. At its core is an in-depth engagement with Diskus, a politically and culturally engaged student journal whose development exemplifies the creation of a new form of critical public sphere. The analysis situates Diskus within the broader cultural dynamics at the university, where initiatives such as the neue bühne theatre, the student film studio, and the campus gallery opened up spaces for aesthetic practice, social reflection, and democratic participation. The project argues that these initiatives created not only aesthetic, but also epistemic and political spaces of possibility, in which new forms of public discourse, critical thought, and media articulation were tested—ultimately laying the intellectual groundwork for the 1968 student revolt.

The practical part of the dissertation consisted in curating the exhibition Kunst der Revolte // Revolte der Kunst (Frankfurt 2018), which examined the interplay between artistic practice and political activism in Frankfurt 50 years after ’68. The exhibition focused on emancipatory initiatives before and after 1968, particularly those incorporating feminist, decolonial, or experimental perspectives. Alongside historical positions from the 1960s (including Abisag Tüllmann, Inge Werth, Claudia von Alemann, Bazon Brock, Thomas Bayrle, Barbara Klemm, Alexander Kluge, and Harun Farocki), it presented contemporary artistic works (by Jonas Englert, Anna McCarthy, Frauke Zabel, Frankfurter Hauptschule, Realism Working Group, and Holger Wüst) that engage with the emancipatory concepts of the revolt and reconsider their relevance in the face of today’s social challenges. The exhibition and the accompanying symposium were documented in the book Kunst der Revolte // Revolte der Kunst (2019).

Supervisors:

P​rof. Dr. Christian Janecke

Prof. Heiner Blum