Hörsaal-Leben

Abstract

Lecture Hall Life. The Practice of the Lecture in 18th Century Universities Comparing the practices of lecturing in Halle and Göttingen during the 18th century through the eyes and ears of their listeners opens up access to the history of the lecture as a cultural performance. As a knowledge technology, the lecture was on the one hand a complex text machine, and on the other hand a communicative practice with its own spatial, social, material and performative settings. Academic teaching was further characterised by an economisation that created strong competition among scholars and fostered a moral economy of lecture fees. As social spaces lecture halls showed little separation between public and private spheres, since they were very often located in the professors’ private houses. The offer, attendance and economy of lectures gave rise to various forms of deviance, while teaching on the object and the production of textbooks contributed to the formation of subject-disciplinary identities and demarcations. Thus, the everyday life of lectures is a key to understanding academic knowledge cultures in economic, epistemic and social terms.