Johanna-Charlotte Horst | Auerbach Lectures 29.06.2026
Zum Gemeinen
#Commonplace#Commonsense#Commonopinion
Abstract
The affordance of digital platforms is geared towards a desire for novelty. Even though Instagram saves everything that has ever been posted, the way the app works suggests that transience is its default mode of use. Yet, despite the impermanence of the posts, certain image compositions and motifs establish themselves as stable forms. This pictorial eloquence is not due to the constant creativity of all users, but rather the result of the constant copying of what already exists. In this respect, the internet can be described as a copying machine (Dirk von Gehlen) that reproduces and recombines. The recurring forms of communication that emerge from this, I argue, can be analysed as a digital re-edition of the rhetorical commonplace. From the ephemerality of information, a repertoire of recyclable forms crystallises, which are deployed as commonplaces in a rhetorical sense, i.e. with specific communicative aims. In my lecture, I would like to use individual examples of digital platitudes to highlight the resonance between contemporary communication strategies and ancient rhetoric.
The talk will be held in German.
Location & Time
Library Erich Auerbach Institute, Weyertal 59 (back building, 3rd floor), 50937 Cologne
Montag, 29.06.2026 | 18:00
Contact
Maximilian Kloppert
E-Mail: m.kloppert(at)uni-koeln(dot)de