Crisis and Communitas

Um den Begriff des Anthropozän hat sich in Wissenschaft und Öffentlichkeit seit 2000 ein kontroverser Diskurs entwickelt. Gabriele Dürbeck zeugt, inwiefern unterschiedliche, erzählerisch strukturierte Geschichten der gesellschaftlichen und politischen Sinnstiftung dienen.

Today, anti-state slogans, especially in the United States, are strongly associated with right-wing politics. After the 20th century, and especially the last thirty years, the idea of “non-state socialism” or “stateless socialism” might sound like a contradiction. That’s what I initially found interesting in the writings of Edward Abramowski, a Polish socialist, psychologist and intellectual […]

For the proof of war crimes and the medial mediation of the events, but also for finding a language of violence, destruction, solidarity, compassion and resistance, the documentation of the events is essential. But what does it mean to document war? And what is the role of the arts, especially film? Film programmer Olexii Kuchanskyi and filmmaker Oleksiy Radynski have organized an exhibition named “To Watch the War,” which shows 18 films at the Coalmine – Raum für Fotografie. In conversation with Sandra Biberstein they talked about the developments in experimental film and video work since the invasion that began 2014 in an attempt to suppress the popular Maidan uprising in Ukraine.

Crisis is a term increasingly heard these days – climate crisis, migration crisis, crisis of representation, identity, masculinity… Contemporary societies often react to crises by installing mechanisms of classification and order. Identitarian communities perceive themselves as an antidote to personal and social crises. On 14 and 15 November 2019, the symposium «Crisis and Communitas. Performative […]

Within art historical scholarship it is customary to argue that the avant-garde disappeared with World War Two or at the latest in the 1960’s. As Rosalind Krauss writes in her influential essay “The Originality of the Avant-Garde”: “The historical period that the avant-garde shared with modernism is over.” Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen argues in his lecture […]

Even though communism initially builds upon a concept of communitas as an egalitarian, open community, its historical reality often turned out more on the side of immunitas: mechanisms of othering and detachment led to the exclusion and condemnation of people because of their class, beliefs, language or ethnical background. “March 1968” symbolically marks a turn […]

In her lecture, Małgrozata Sugiera premises on Arturo Escobar’s observation that the recent global Eco-Eco-Crisis is “the crisis of a particular world or set of world-making practices, the dominant form of Euro-modernity” (Designs for the Pluriverse, 2017). Therefore, what is urgent is “a transition from the hegemony of modernity’s one-world ontology to a pluriverse of […]

A key feature of neoliberal culture has been its systematic inhibition of the emergence, survival and empowerment of ‘potent collectivities’ on any scale: from socially functional neighbourhoods to national political movements to transnational networks of solidarity. Democracy itself might be described as the potentiation of complex collectivities; and the directly anti-democratic, anti-social nature of neoliberalism had […]

Comments that appeared in the public sphere after the autumn elections in Poland didn’t take into account an important cultural dimension of the elections. The same can be said about the articles on the upcoming presidential elections in May 2020. People writing about Polish politics seem to look only at surveys or analyze performances of […]

At the end of February, the philosopher Giorgio Agamben reacted to the measures taken by the Italian government to face the CoVid-19 pandemic. “[T]he invention of an epidemic”, he wrote, “could offer the ideal pretext for broadening such measures beyond any limitation”[1] and thus reinforced his well-known thesis on the normalisation of the use of […]

In her Nobel Lecture Polish author Olga Tokarczuk talks about the emergence of a first-person narrative, its implications, the multiplicity of narratives and literature’s role in it. She also comes back to the imperative to be tender. «Tenderness is deep emotional concern about another being, its fragility, its unique nature, and its lack of immunity […]

“Our house is still on fire.” With this words Greta Thunberg startet her speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday, 21 February 2020, reprising her most famous line from an address last year at the forum. “Your inaction is fueling the flames by the hour.” Her remarks opened a panel discussion hosted […]

The process of political and economic transformation which started in Poland in the late eighties is narrated in terms of regaining freedom and establishing democracy. The end of the totalitarian regime also brought the end of censorship and political persecution, the beginning of the free market, and the free flow of commodities. However, on the […]

The present political majority in Poland (which supports the right-wing government) is characterized by nationalism and anti-refugee sentiments. The genesis of a thus-shaped majority should be traced back to post-1989 deregulation of social rights and dismantling of the working and peasant class. Following the disintegration of the previous class order, the only political subject capable of exerting influence on the government turned out to be a nationalistic community. This community treats nationalism as the basis of its political contract with the authorities and regards xenophobia as an instrument of its own agency.

Right in the middle of it. This is where PJ Harvey’s ninth album «The Hope Six Demolition Project» begins. Right in the middle of the «Community of Hope», which is located at the Benning Road – also known as «Pathway of death» – in the quarter Ward 7. It is a place of crisis, misery […]

Panikattacken und Angstzustände – aufgrund familiärer Zusammenhänge? Generationenüberschreitende Ängste können trennendes wie verbindendes Moment zugleich sein. Die feministische psychoanalytische Bindungstheorie arbeitet hier mit dem Konzept der intersubjektiven Beziehung – einer nicht-hierarchischen Bindung zwischen Menschen, auf die Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft hochgerechnet werden kann.

Na kilka dni przed premierą Klątwy Oliviera Frljicia, która stała się spektakularną manifestacją konfliktu teatru i Kościoła we współczesnej kulturze polskiej, uczestniczyłam w zdarzeniu, które kazało mi gruntownie przemyśleć problematykę aborcji jako istotnej stawki w rozgrywce sztuki awangardowej o władzę symboliczną, a zarazem jako zagadnienia transnarodowego, którego lokalne przejawy stanowią symptomy przemian zachodzących w polityce […]

Polish writer Tadeusz Konwicki’s 1969 novel Zwierzoczłekoupiór (The Anthropos-Spectre-Beast) may be regarded as a children’s tale, but it is just as much a mapping of the social and cultural order after the events of the so-called Polish March 1968. Its escapist note reflects the isolation and despair felt by individuals in the crisis of commonality[1] […]

Zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts fand sich Europa in einer regelrechten Kulturkrise wieder: ein radikaler kultureller Wandel wälzte aufgrund der Industrialisierung im 19. Jahrhundert das Alltagsleben, die Arbeitswelt wie auch Wissenschaft und Kunst um. Wahrnehmungs- Denk- und Handlungsmuster wurden erschüttert. Dies führte dazu, dass sich völlig neue Verhaltensweisen  herausbildeten. Insbesondere das Theater der historischen Avantgardebewegungen […]

What to do if confronted with an extremely contagious virus that medical experts say they have not seen before and don’t understand, and which is fast spreading and killing hundreds of people? a) Take precautionary measures to stop the virus spreading and prepare the health system for a potential shock? Or b) Ignore it, blithely […]

The process of political and economic transformation which started in Poland in late eighties is narrated in terms of regaining freedom and establishing democracy. The end of totalitarian regime brought the end of censorship, of political persecution, the beginning of the free market and free flow of commodities. But on the other hand Polish transformation […]

In recent weeks, one practice in particular became (in)famous in slowing down the Covid-19 pandemic: social distancing. But the strategy of „distancing“ first and foremost means physical separation and disciplining along scripts for the performance of bodies. Thus, the interaction with others and ourselves gains an edge on body awareness. A glimpse at a corporeality in Zurich, Switzerland.

Lorsque 200 000 personnes ont fui leur pays après le soulèvement hongrois d’octobre 1956, la Suisse a fait preuve d’une solidarité sans précédent. Elle a accueilli quelque 13 000 personnes sans condition. Tiphaine Robert examine les effets de la crise de 1956 et son impact sur la politique d’asile en Suisse.

Prawda o nieludzkim i antydemokratycznym charakterze kapitalizmu rzadko bywa tak dobrze widoczna jak podczas pandemii, której jesteśmy świadkami. Zarazem jest ona okazją do postępowej zmiany społecznej na wielką skalę. Czy to prawda, że jak mawiał Mao Zedong, skoro na świecie zapanował chaos, sytuacja jest znakomita?

Giorgio Agamben writes about the end of being a student as a form of life and about the decay of universities in the times of e-learning.

In einer Selbstreflexion versuchte ich anhand der aktuellen Situation rund um Corona, Lockdown und Pandemie mir ein Bild darüber zu machen, was ein Mensch zu Hause in Selbstisolation erlebt und welche Fragen einem beschäftigen. Seht es als Dokumentation oder Inszenierung – oder beides!

Abstandhalten, Maskenpflicht, Ausgangssperre… Das ist kein Horrorfilm, das ist unsere Realität. Im Jahr 2020 leidet die ganze Welt unter einem gefährlichen Virus und alle Menschen sind davon betroffen – wir sind alle wegen des Virus in unserem Alltagsleben eingeschränkt. In meiner Fotoserie will ich mithilfe des Motivs von Fenstern versuchen, unsere heutige Zwangssperre wiederzugeben.

The philosopher Shaj Mohan talks in the interview with Auwn Gurmani about hypophysics, a thinking that identifies Gandhi’s description of the “good value” of a thing with “natural state”. He notes that hypophysics is a species of racism. The idyllic a priori that Gandhi refers to corresponds to the experiences of privileged groups, the life of the highest castes. This idyll is maintained by colonial conditions. As an alternative, Shaj Mohan pleads for a “world democracy”, which we achieve through the obscure experience.

“I can’t breathe”: the last sentence of the African-American George Floyd, who was stifled by the Minneapolis police, resonates powerfully in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Indeed, the global health crisis has highlighted the inequalities in health care systems, especially in the US, where the African-American population is particularly affected. Beyond police violence, it […]

In the interview with Krithika Varagur philosopher Shaj Mohan talks about the protests in India and its similarities to the situation in the United States. He points out that what we perceive as extreme events, such as pogroms and lynching, are prepared by everyday discriminations.

Belarusian voices are few and far between in international debates about the ongoing protests in Belarus. In this webinar, Belarusian sociologists will share their views and analysis of the current protest wave. Among other things, they discuss the role of striking workers; class, gender, and violence; patterns of mobilization and self-organization; the mobilizing effects of trauma; the impact of urban space; the legacy of previous protests; the role of protest in forging different types of communities; and the ways in which the post-industrial shift and other long-term transformations in Belarusian society have affected its political economy.

While the coronavirus still rages in the US, the Performa Biennale reacts to the current climate of crisis by devoting a free online exhibition to it. In “Threshold. Arts in Times of Crisis”, art works from the five last decades, including performance video recordings or pieces of video art, are broadcasted live 24 hours a day in a loop on the Biennale’s free access page.

Am 22. Oktober 2020 hat das oberste Gericht Polens das bereits restriktive Abtreibungsgesetzes verschärft. Die vorsitzende Verfassungsrichterin Julia Przylebska erklärte Schwangerschaftsabbrüche im Falle einer schweren Fehlbildung des Fötus für verfassungswidrig. Warum in der Abtreibungsdebatte der letzten Jahre das «ungeborene polnische Kind» als radikale Manifestation des Opfers einer atheistischen, also nicht-polnischen Gesellschaft gesehen wird und wie diese Opferrolle mit der Geschichte Polens zusammenhängt, erklärte die Kulturwissenschaftlerin Dorota Sajewska im Interview, das im März 2017 geführt wurde.

Kaum wurde der große Impf-Sieg über die Pandemie verkündet, begannen schon die Probleme. Lieferpausen sollen die Produktionskapazität der Fabriken erhöhen. Die bereits bestellten Mengen machen die Impfstoffe für ärmere Länder praktisch unerreichbar. Und die Strategien in der Impfstoffproduktion sowie -verteilung machen klar: Die vorgeschlagenen Lösungen kranken an der Privatisierung des Gesundheitssektors und der Ausrichtung an maximalem Gewinn. Ein Kommentar von Przemysław Wielgosz.

Wenn ontologische Fragen zu Kultur und Kommunität[1] im Zentrum eines privat oder öffentlich geführten Diskurses, eines Seminars oder Kolloquiums, einer Diskussion oder eines Gesprächs stehen, sich plötzlich jedoch nicht bloss die vom einzelnen Subjekt her gedachten, geografisch nahen Kulturen und Kommunitäten in einer epidemischen Krise befinden, sondern zugleich auch alle geografisch fernen, quasi die Summe […]

Mit der ersten Welle der Covid-19-Pandemie in der Schweiz wurde ab dem 3. März 2020 bisher eingeübte und selbstverständliche Regeln der Zivilgesellschaft, deren Ökologien und Ökonomien massiv in Frage gestellt.[1] Davon betroffen waren nicht nur soziale Verhaltensmuster und politische Entscheidungswege, Betriebsabläufe und Wirtschaftsflüsse, sondern in hohem Masse auch Bildungseinrichtungen sowie das Kunstfeld und die Kulturindustrie, […]

On February 24, Russia started a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, resulting in the declaration of a state of war. Tadeusz Koczanowicz outlines in his commentary on Putin’s appearances, how his speak is consisted of rumblings about Russian history and current diplomacy and that there is no sense in his claims, but only underlying violence.

Among Western journalists and political analysts there is noticeable trend to analyze the war in Ukraine in terms of “spheres of influence”. This imperial thinking frames the land conquest ordered by Vladimir Putin as a reaction to “Western expansion”. In a desperate bid to say something original, talking heads and Twitter intellectuals from both the left and the right talk about “NATO’s overexpansion in the East” and thereby reinforce Putin’s claims that Russia is threatened.

What follows after growth? The idea of relentless growth and progress is nowadays the only economic force that matters. It means increased living standards. But at the same time, it would be irresponsible to continue ignoring the human and environmental costs, the lost livelihoods and damaged landscapes that economic growth and all its promises causes. […]