Border Talks: The Problematic Status of Media Borders in the Current Debate about Intermediality

Abstract

The debate about intermediality is characterized by a variety of heterogeneous approaches, spanning a wide range of subject matter and research perspectives. A large number of critical approaches make use of the concept, each with their own premises, methodology, terminology and delimitations. Likewise, the specific objectives pursued by different disciplines in conducting intermedial research (for example, media studies, literary, theatre and film studies, art history, musicology, philosophy or sociology) vary considerably. While some approaches focus on general media-historical developments or genealogical relations between media, on medial transformation processes, on the very formation of a given medium or on the process of medialization as such, others aim at questions of media recognition (Medienerkenntnis) or at understanding general functions of media. Further approaches, mostly coming from the realm of literary studies and related fields, such as my own, emphasize various forms and functions of concrete intermedial practices in specific individual texts, films, theatre performances, paintings and so on. Considering this background, it is not surprising that the question — still declared ‘fundamental’ in 2001 — of what ‘ the concept of intermediality actually means’ 1 now seems outmoded and has been reformulated with regard to various intermediality conceptions and their respective heuristic potential. 2 These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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