Impressions from the workshop “FREEDOM OF THE PEN VERSUS THE DEMANDS OF MORALITY"
The Honours Programme sponsored a self-organised event by Laura Bella Theis.
Laura Bella Theis
Published: | By: Laura Bella Theis und Jennifer Mark
Flyer Workshop ‘Freiheit der Feder versus Forderung der Moralität’
Image: Dr. Dörte GoldensteinNew Perspectives on the Relationship Between Ethics and Aesthetics
On 20 October 2025, honours student Laura Bella Theis invited participants to discuss and collaborate on research papers exploring the relationship between ethics and aesthetics. For the workshop entitled ‘Freedom of the Pen versus the Demand for Morality – On the Relationship between Aesthetic Autonomy and Ethical Practice,’ Laura Bella Theis designed her own event concept, selected applicants, and took on the entire organisation.
The event aimed to bring together master's students, doctoral candidates and postdocs from the fields of philosophy, literary studies, comparative literature, musicology and art history.
Funding through the Honours Programme
Laura Bella Theis's research project is supervised by Prof. Dr. Alice Stašková, who also provided support in organising the event. The event concept received consistently positive feedback and will certainly be repeated in the future.
The Honours Programme provides organisational and financial support to talented students for academic activities such as workshops, conferences, panel discussions and other events.
Cover image of Friedrich Schiller's ‘Kleineren prosaischen Schriften’, 1801.
Screenshot: https://archive.org/details/kleinereprosaisc31schi/page/n5/mode/2upA critical view of the relevance of aesthetic autonomy
As part of the Honours Programme, Laura Bella Theis examines the relationship between aesthetic autonomy and ethical practice, based on Friedrich Schiller's theoretical writings in general, and the systematic connection between texts from the third volume of Schiller's Kleineren prosaischen Schriften in particular.
In addition to contributions on Schiller's theoretical writings, the programme also included essays on a wide variety of subjects and perspectives.
Drawing on current debates in public discourse and research discussions in recent years, the workshop also questioned the relevance of aesthetic autonomy as an 18^(th)-century concept against the backdrop of the controversial phenomenon of post-autonomous art.
The programme for Laura Bella Theis's workshop can be found herepdf, 798 kb · de.