The course aims at studying discourses of immediacy in modernity. It conveys central positions of science studies and aesthetics which thematise immediacy affirmatively and critically and situates them historically.

The course shows to what extent "literature" from the 19th to the 21st century and the - often empirical - sciences of the social are mutually dependent. It is based on theoretical social science texts as well as literary genres that are used to model knowledge, primarily crime novels and spy novels, but also travelogues and city novels or genres such as the social science survey.

The lecture presents the methodological diversity of sound studies inasfar as they are related to the study of literature and undertakes to critically assess exemplary works. It offers an overview of central aspects of the sonic turn, with the aim of presenting and examining methodological instruments for literary studies oriented towards the history of knowledge.