Kristoff Kerl ('Universität Köln, CSMCH-IASH Fellow 2019-20): "The Most Powerful Aphrodisiac." Psychedelic Substances and Sexuality in West Germany during the 1970s.
Please click here to go to the online talk.
Abstract:
During the late 1960s countercultural milieus started to rise in Western Germany. They constituted a significant social and cultural force until the early 1980s. Conceiving of societal problems in western capitalist countries as being caused by the predominant cultural conditions, counterculturists aimed at a radical transformation of the cultural conditions. By this means, they strived for a better life and, in the long run, for a society characterized by solidarity, sustainability, authenticity, self-fulfillment, and holism. In countercultural perspectives, both aims made a fundamental reconfiguration of the self, and closely connected, of the body necessary. Manifold practices of ecstatization were of fundamental importance in this context. In my talk, I will focus on the (often entangled) use of psychedelic drugs and the ‘liberation’ of sexuality as well as their politicization during the 1970s.