Events

What is “East Germany”? We want to talk about a region often perceived as gray, cold, and politically right-leaning. We aim to discuss how East German lifeworlds are constructed in media representations, political debates, and cultural and literary narratives, navigating between self-description and external attribution, between memory and the present.

In fall 2025, Worlds of Contradiction (WOC) will be 10 years old. An overview of the planned program is available on the WOC website.

Early Career Networking Workshop as part of the 10th anniversary of the WOC Contradictions Festival with members of the WOC Graduate Network (WOC GradNet), the DFG Research Training Group 2686 Contradiction Studies, the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS), the Institute for Social Research (IfS) and the GRK 2638 Normativity, Critique, Change

Medieval debates about the human will take place against the backdrop of a particular tension: that between a person’s own will, usually considered free, and the will of an “other,” especially the will of God. In the Christian tradition, this tension is succinctly expressed in the prayer petition “Fiat voluntas tua,” “Thy (not my!) will be done.” It was perhaps most radically developed in medieval mysticism. The mystics also found a solution to it that seems to amount to a paradox: to will nothing. But the tension between wanting and not wanting also plays an important role outside of theology and mysticism. The lecture will outline different perspectives of medieval (and early modern) texts on the volitional paradox of “wanting not to want.” It will also attempt to build a bridge to relevant contemporary discourses, such as the concept of “un/controllability” (“Un-/Verfügbarkeit”) in sociological resonance theory.

At the Sommerakademie Feministische Rechtswissenschaft 2024.

This interdisciplinary workshop will address the rise of neoliberal illiberal politics and their connection to anti-intellectualism and discourses around academic freedom. Based on the guest lecture, we will discuss a variety of cases, ranging from the US-American moral panic around ‘Critical Race Theory’, Bolsonaro’s intentional attacks on University funding, discourses around ‘islamo-leftism’ and ‘wokism’ in France to the ban of Gender Studies in Hungary. What do those cases and the growing hostility against researchers tell us about the global state of democracy? How and why are academics and their modes of knowledge production targeted not only by far-right actors but increasingly also by the state?

In psychoanalysis and pedagogy, there is a long tradition of thinking about contradictions, which are not only at the center of reflections on action in theory, but also in practice – qua connection of the respective discipline with a profession. In addition to Freud’s dictum that psychoanalysis and pedagogy are among the “impossible professions” due to these contradictions, one of the best-known pedagogical concepts is that of the “antinomies of pedagogical action” according to Helsper et al. First, information is provided about these theoretical traditions in order to build interdisciplinary bridges. Then, the theory of trilemmatic inclusion is used to develop a proposal on how formal-logical contradictions (Aristotelian), contradictory imperatives for action in a situated practice (antinomic) and self-contradictory desire (psychoanalytic) can be related to each other.

The role of orality in philosophy is an old and intriguing topic. Some have claimed that philosophy cannot exist as an oral tradition because sophisticated thought presupposes a written form. Others (including Plato) have claimed that writing destroys memory. Still others have formulated central statements in catchy aphorisms and proverbs that are easy to memorise and immediately invite you to unfold their meaning: „You cannot enter the same river twice.“ Fortunately, however, we can enter into discussion with Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Anke Graneß & Lindokuhle Shabane, to unfold the role of orality in philosophy, especially in an African context where oral traditions have always played a crucial role.

In this guest lecture, Éric Fassin will present his new book State Anti-Intellectualism and the Politics of Gender and Race (CEU Press 2024). Using France as his main case study and combining it with reflections on the situation in countries such as Brazil, Turkey, Russia, Hungary and the United States, his book presents a compelling and careful analysis of current anti-intellectualism. He argues that today’s anti-intellectualism can no longer be analyzed in terms of local politics nor along Cold War geopolitical divisions. Instead, we are faced with a global phenomenon, which is not limited to ostensibly illiberal regimes.
Bringing together public interventions, articles and blogs which examine examples of state racism, gender politics, censorship and cancel culture in the period from President Sarkozy until today, as well as direct attacks against academics – both firsthand and against others, Fassin’s book makes an urgent plea for the importance of intellectual work in a global moment of political anti-intellectualism.
Fassins Buch versammelt öffentliche Interventionen, Artikel und Blogs, die Beispiele für staatlichen Rassismus, Geschlechterpolitik, Zensur und Cancel Culture in der Zeit von Präsident Sarkozy bis heute sowie direkte Angriffe auf Akademiker – sowohl aus erster Hand als auch gegen andere – untersuchen, und ist ein dringendes Plädoyer für die Bedeutung intellektueller Arbeit in einem globalen Moment des politischen Antiintellektualismus.

Talk at the The 49th Annual Meeting of the African Literature Association: Filiations and Affiliations. Bonds, Entanglements, and Social Networks in African Literatures and Cultures.