IMPULSE-Focus II with Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht

 June 10, 2026: 9:30 am to 4 pm

IMPULSE, Adenauerallee 131, 53113 Bonn

With a public lecture entitled "Imagination as Sensory Power – An Energy at the Edge of Human Existence", Prof. Dr. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht contributed to the IMPULSE-Focus Event Series. 

The conference explored debates occurring over the past few decades among analytic philosophers in relation to the broad conceptual field of “imagination” directing intellectual attention to how this faculty is used in everyday life. This included debates on how treating imagination as a form of “sensory imagination” revives classical ideas about its connection to aesthetic experience.  

Several of the issues discussed were related to the status of conscious objects that possess the vividness of perception without depending on external stimuli; leading to the question: how does imagination enable us to envision possibilities beyond ordinary reality through literary fiction and myths of higher worlds?

Built on the public lecture, during the second day of the event, Prof. Dr. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and colleagues from the University of Bonn, including Prof. Dr. Markus Gabriel, Prof. Dr. Adrian Hermann, Dr. Philip Bechtle, Moritz Johannes Mey and Bruno da Rocha Schultz explored, together with the participants, questions of imagination and (human) existence at the intersection of philosophy, literature, improvisation, and physics. 

The workshop thereby worked with experimental, transdisciplinary formats, including an escape room currently implemented at IMPULSE (2051 Energie im Weltraum) and improvisational methods. The escape room encouraged participants to explore imagination, problem-solving, and alternative perspectives beyond ordinary ways of thinking, thereby complementing the discussions on imagination and human existence that were central to the event. Additionally, through improv theater techniques, participants physically probed, experienced, and discussed the ambiguities between fiction and reality, highlighting the immediate bodily effects of imagination.

Our Guest: Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht

Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht studied Romance and German literatures, philosophy, and sociology in Germany, Spain, and Italy. He subsequently taught at the Universities of Konstanz, Bochum, and Siegen. In 1989, he became the Albert Guérard Professor in literature at Stanford University, where he retired in 2018. At the University of Bonn, he holds the status of Distinguished Professor Emeritus. As a scholar, Gumbrecht focuses on Central European and South American literatures and cultures. At the same time, he writes on the Western philosophical tradition, with a particular emphasis on nineteenth- and twentieth-century French and German texts, and seeks to analyze forms of aesthetic experience in twenty-first-century everyday culture. In Europe and in South America, Gumbrecht is also known as a public intellectual. Over the past forty years, he has published about two thousand texts (translated into more than twenty languages) including books such as Production of Presence: What Meaning Cannot Convey, In Praise of Athletic Beauty, and Lives of the Voice. In March 2026 his intellectual autobiography appeared under the title Sepp — Mein Leben auf Halbdistanz.

Have a look for yourself!

Visiting us for an event on the second floor? Make sure to check out the results of the FOCUS II workshop! 
You will find them exhibited in the workshop room, along with an invitation to explore your own sensory power. 

Any questions? Don’t hesitate to get in touch!