Event Post with the text "Ivan Kalmar: White but not quite. Is there anti-eastern European racism?"

Ivan Kalmar, White But Not Quite: Is There Anti-Eastern European Racism?

Ivan Kalmar, Anke Hilbrenner (HHU Düsseldorf) & Klaas Anders (RTG Contradiction Studies)

04/06/2025 7:00 pm

Foyer Großes Haus, Goethepl. 1-3

Discussion in English

In White But Not Quite: Central Europe’s Illiberal Revolt (2022), Ivan Kalmar examines the political and cultural developments in Central Europe, in particular the emergence of illiberal movements in post-communist societies such as the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary. Kalmar analyses how historical experiences, nationalism and, in particular, the behaviour of the West after 1989 have shaped a form of resistance to liberalism and globalization. The book offers an in-depth perspective on the dynamics of these transformations.

The event will take place on Sunday, April 6, in Bremen and on Tuesday, April 8, in Oldenburg.

Bremen

Foyer Großes Haus (Goetheplatz 1-3, 28203 Bremen)

19:00

Introduction: Klaas Anders (GRK Contradiction Studies)

Moderator: Anke Hilbrenner (HHU Düsseldorf)

Oldenburg

Kulturzentrum PFL (Peterstraße 3, 26121 Oldenburg)

18:00

Moderator: Hans-Christian Petersen (BKGE Oldenburg)

The event is part of the festival So macht man Frühling. More info: https://www.somachtmanfruehling.de/

In cooperation with Bremer Bündnis für deutsch-tschechische Zusammenarbeit e.V., Forschungsstelle Osteuropa, Rosa-Luxemburg-Initiative Bremen, BKGE Oldenburg, and the Working Group on Colonial Continuities Oldenburg.

Back to overview
interstice

“The contradiction of law in Derrida lies in the interstice that separates the impossibility of deconstructing justice from the possibility of deconstructing law.”

Andreas Fischer-Lescano
prison of difference

“‘Contradiction is the prison of difference‘ writes the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. Worlds of Contradiction asks: how can we explain and describe the world without making it more coherent and systematic than it is?”

Michi Knecht
Afterlife of colonialism

“Contradiction comes in many different forms. None is so debilitating than when the coloniser transitions, textually not politically, to decoloniality without taking the responsibility for the afterlife of colonialism, which they continue to benefit from. Self-examination and self-interrogation of the relations of coloniality, a necessity, seem nearly impossible for the coloniser who continues to act as beneficiary, masked in the new-found language of White fragility, devoid of an ethical responsibility of the very system of White domination they claim to be against.” (Black Consciousness and the Politics of the Flesh)

Rozena Maart
power and resistance

“Michel Foucault says: “Where there is power, there is resistance, and […] this resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power” (History of Sexuality I, The Will to Knowledge, 1976, p. 95)”

Gisela Febel
ideal of a contradiction-free world

“Science has long been animated by the ideal of a contradiction-free world in which logical orders could merge with society, politics, culture and language. In the GRC Contradiction Studies we are working on ways of describing the multiplicity and complexity, the danger and beauty of our worlds that clearly go beyond concepts of freedom from contradiction.”

Michi Knecht