Johannes Völz is Professor of American Studies at Goethe-University Frankfurt and the Speaker of the RTG “Aesthetics of Democracy.” His research combines literary studies with intellectual history and political aesthetics. An interest running through many of his writings pertains to the paradoxical dynamics of democracy: How do democratizing tendencies tip over into antidemocratic forces? And is it possible to detect, isolate, and mobilize democratic remnants and residues in democracies-gone-bad? As a scholar of literature, Johannes foregrounds the higher and lower frequencies of language; he listens to the whispers of meaning that exceed the conceptual and yet demand concept-driven elucidation. He is also passionate jazz fan and is invested in the idea that collective improvisation is a form of collective, democratic world-making. Currently he is completing a monograph on the aesthetics of populism, and he is hoping to also finish a book on autofiction and privacy in the not-too-distant future.
