The European Spa as a Transnational Public Space and Social Metaphor

The project sets out to rethink the spa as a core concept and object of European debate.

It investigates how the European spa, with its characteristic institutions such as the Kurpark, sanatorium, grand hotel and casino, developed into a transnational public space and functioned as a stage for the negotiation of political, social and cultural issues of European relevance. We ask how long the institution of the spa served as such transnational space, where different nationalities, ethnicities, and social classes met. Or conversely, when specific groups of spa visitors were excluded from the resorts, and for what specific reasons. To this end, we analyse historical records, textual and visual representations of spa culture from the 19th century to the present day in their contemporary contexts, paying particular attention to the amenability of the spa and its institutions to be co-opted as social metaphors (healthy collective; asylum; refuge; paradise; factory; egalitarian utopia; etc.). We work on the hypothesis that there is a distinct, transnational and intermedial spa narrative in European culture, with a set of topical motifs (the taking of the waters; the allegorical meaning of landscapes), discursive elements (the juxtaposition of eros and thanatos, discipline and leisure; individual and collective body) and narrative styles (i.e., multi-layered time). Examples would include formed by travelogues, diaries, novels and films. Think of authors like Thomas Mann, Anton Chekhov, Dubravka Ugrešić and Milan Kundera, or directors like Alain Resnais and Nikita Mikhalkov.