Portraitfoto Samia Mohammed

Samia Mohammed

Towards a Critical Contemporary Theory of Freedom between
Necessity and Independence

Based on the observation that (political) interpretations of freedom are historically and currently characterized by contradictions, the dissertation project aims at systematically relating contradiction and freedom in order to propose a contemporary critical-theoretical concept of freedom. Thinking together radical democratic theory, Afropessimism, and feminist perspectives on the Anthropocene is thought to enable a double perspective on acts of contradiction as practices of freedom on the one hand and on the manifold and potentially contradictory conditions and grounds of freedom on the other.

Research interests
  • Feminist theory
  • Radical democratic theory
  • Poststructuralist Theory
  • Political Economy
  • Theories and Utopias of Socialism
  • Theories of Freedom
Vita
  • 2019–2022
    MA Political Science/Political Theory at the University of Bielefeld, Goethe-University Frankfurt a.M./TU Darmstadt.
    Master thesis The Socialist Calculation Debate between Mastery of Nature and Emancipatory Promises: Democracy and Human Nature Relations in Socialist Utopias.
  • 2015–2019
    BA Political Science, Literature at the University of Bielefeld
    Bachelor thesis What culture is not – Ethnic Racism, Cultural Relativism and the Concept of Cultural Appropriation. An Analysis of Understandings of Culture in Rightwing and Leftwing Political Discourse.
  • 2018
    ERASMUS+ semester at the University SciencesPo Bordeaux, France.
  • 2016–2022
    Student/scientific assistant at University of Bielefeld, Faculty of Sociology, Department 4 Politics and Society.
Publications
  • 2024
    Co-Editior of Zeitschrift Luxemburg Issue Zukunft mit Plan 01/2024.
  • 2024
    Rabea Berfelde / Justus Henze / Samia Mohammed / Eva Völpel: “Für eine Linke mit Plan.” In: Zeitschrift Luxemburg 01/2024.
  • 2023
    Zukunft jenseits des Marktes. Demokratie und gesellschaftliche Naturverhältnisse in sozialistischen Utopien. Baden-Baden: Nomos.
  • 2020
    Arnold, Clara/Flügel-Martinsen, Oliver/Mohammed, Samia/Vasilache, Andreas (Eds.): Kritik in der Krise. Perspektiven politischer Theorie auf die Corona-Pandemie. [Critique in Crisis. Political Theory Perspectives on the Covid Pandemic.] Baden-Baden: Nomos.
  • 2020
    Verletzliche Freiheit? Zur Kritik neoliberaler Freiheitsverständnisse in der Corona-Krise [Vulnerable Freedom? On the critique of neoliberal concepts of freedom in the Covid Crisis]. In: Arnold/Flügel-Martinsen/Mohammed/Vasilache (Hrsg.), Kritik in der Krise. Baden-Baden: Nomos, S. 33–47.
  • 2020
    Arnold, Clara/Mohammed, Samia Einleitung: Kritisches Denken als gemeinsame Praxis [Introduction: Critical thinking as collective practice]. In: Arnold/Flügel-Martinsen/Mohammed/Vasilache (Hrsg.), Kritik in der Krise. Baden-Baden: Nomos, S. 7–13.
Talks, Workshops, and Events
  • 2024
    Talk Das Klima des Sozialismus. Demokratische Planwirtschaft als Utopie heute. 11th January 2024, Kukoon Bremen. 11th January 2024, Kukoon Bremen.
  • 2024
    Invited Panelist at the Workshop Socialisation and Social Theory, 6th – 7th May 2024, organised by Critical Theory in Berlin.
  • 2023
    Invited guest at the panel discussion Living with Contradictions as a Mixed-Race Person. With Kwanza Muși Dos Santos, Deborah Ekoka and Nelson Sindze Wembe. Kukoon Kulturzentrum Bremen am 16.11.2023.
  • 2023
    Co-Organizer of the International Congress Political Theory in Times of Uncertainty, 27th – 29th September 2023, University of Bremen.
  • 2023
    Co-Organizer and speaker at the panel On the Methodology of Contradiction at the International Congress Political Theory in Times of Uncertainty, 28th September 2023, University of Bremen. Together with Dr. Christian Leonhardt, Prof. Dr. Martin Nonhoff and Carolin Zieringer.
city

“The city is a laboratory not only of modernity, but also of contradiction.”

Julia Lossau
l’illusion d’une unité

“Foucault speaks of contradiction as l’illusion d’une unité.”

Ingo H. Warnke
decolonial scholarship

“Creating decentralizing and decolonizing scholarship on contradiction, contradictory phenomena, and contradicting processes is a challenging task.”

Kerstin Knopf
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
paradox

“The basis of law is not an idea as a systematic unified principle but a paradox.”

Andreas Fischer-Lescano