Forschungsprojekte

Wahrnehmen, Rechtsprechen und Verwerten in der kolonialen Moderne. Zum Nexus von ursprünglicher Akkumulation, race und westlicher Ästhetik

In Zusammenarbeit mit Ruth Sonderegger (Akademie der bildenden Künste, Wien) und Pablo Valdivia (Europa Universität Viadrina), gefördert durch die Volkswagen-Stiftung, Aufbruch – Neue Forschungsräume für die Geistes- und Kulturwissenschaften (2022-2024)

Dieses Projekt untersucht, inwiefern die westliche philosophische Ästhetik in Mechanismen der Entrechtungs- und Enteignungsgewalt verwickelt ist, die die koloniale Moderne prägen. Dabei werden insbesondere die bis heute vernachlässigten Dynamiken der Rassifizierung und ihre komplexe Verschränkung mit ökonomischer Verwertung, patriarchaler Macht und instrumenteller Naturherrschaft berücksichtigt. Das Projekt schließt in dieser Hinsicht an aktuelle Debatten zur fortgesetzten ursprünglichen Akkumulation an. Im Fokus steht die Problematik, wie sich moderne Mechanismen enteignender Gewalt in die Gründungsnarrative ästhetischer und rechtlicher Subjektivierung eingeschrieben haben und weiterhin epistemisch wirksam sind. Auf Grundlage dieser Analysen stellt das Projekt die spekulative Frage, wie sich eine Theorie des Ästhetischen all jener Praktiken des Sinnlichen annehmen kann, die einen Aufbruch jenseits ego- und wertlogischer Schemata vollziehen. Das Forschungsprojekt wagt diesen Aufbruch zu einer anderen Ästhetik, indem es minoritäre, dekoloniale und ökonomiekritische Denktraditionen in eine neue Konstellation bringt. So sollen Möglichkeiten und Zukünfte einer heterodoxen Politik des Sinnlichen fassbar werden, die mit den Subjekt- und Autonomiebegriffen der kolonialen Moderne brechen. Wo Eigentum war, sollen Differenz und Relation werden.

Forschungskooperation: Protests, art practices and culture of memory in the post-Yugoslav context, University of Ljubljana, Department of Philosophy (Leitung Dr. Gal Kirn) (seit 2021)

The project researches the role of artistic practices, the culture of memory and protests in the last period of post-socialist transition in the post-Yugoslav context. If the first decade of transition was marked by ethnic wars and demise of socialist welfare state, then the last decade was marked by the rise of authoritarian neoliberalism and a strengthening of social inequalities. What was once held high as neoliberal utopia in the pursuit of individual happiness through entrepreneurialism has been brought to an end, and with it, one of the flagships of the post-socialist transition also fell: the belief that the transition is leading to an "open", democratic and more just society. This project starts from a key premise of critical theory, which argues that transition is (has been) neither a homogeneous nor a neutral process, but a process marked by a series of contradictions and even regressions, which at the most extreme point manifest themselves in wars and rehabilitation of local fascism. The research focus is based on the case studies from Slovenia, but also includes an analysis of some important cases and events from the selected post-Yugoslav countries. The project addresses three main sets of questions: (1) What are the key commonalities and differences of transition in the post-Yugoslav context? How have alternative politics and art responded to the collateral damage / negative effects of the transition? (2) How did alternative practices mobilise emancipatory traces of the past (Yugoslavia, partisan struggle, self-management) that go beyond nostalgia? (3) Who were the real agents of democratisation, and in which places and with which demands did the protests and uprisings succeed in shaking up the hegemonic constellation, and in which places did they merely support the status quo?

Weitere Informationen: https://www.ff.uni-lj.si/en/protests-art-practices-and-culture-memory-post-yugoslav-context

After 1968. On the Notion of the Political in Post-Marxist Theory (2007–2012)

In light of the diagnosis early formulated by Socialisme ou barbarie that in Marx’s philosophy the question of politics has been partially obscured by evolutionist, teleological or economist theorems, the research project examines different approaches to instigate a re-politicisation of Marxism undertaken in contemporary currents of French philosophy, particularily in (post)-structuralism, deconstruction and left-Heideggerianism. These undertakings belong to a series of heterodox Marx readings, in which Marx is read through concepts not derived from the critique of political economy, German idealism, or early French socialism, but referencing rather unexpected authors like Epicurus and Lucretius, Spinoza and Descartes, Nietzsche and Sorel, Bataille and Heidegger. Departing from Nancy and Lacoue-Labarthe’s work at the Centre de recherche philosophique sur le politique the research project focusses on a critical reconstruction of post-Marxism’s key concepts like class and mass, labour and desire, value and crisis, causality and event, clinamen and den, bio- and necropolitics, subject and assemblage. The project pursues a symptomatic reading strategy in which particular attention is payed to the conceptual fractures, aporiae and equivocations articulated in contemporary French reconstructions of Marx’s critique of political economy and its concomitant idea of politics.

Conferences, workshops and seminars with Miguel Abensour (University of Paris-7), Nathan Brown (University of California, Davis), Andrea Cavaletti (Iuav University of Venice), Roberto Esposito (University of Naples), Filippo Del Lucchese (Brunel University, London), Giorgos Fourtounis (Panteion University, Athens), Christian Kerslake (Middlesex University, London), Mikko Lahtinen (University of Tampere), Michael Löwy (EHESS, Paris), Matteo Mandarini (Queen Mary University, London),Warren Montag (Occidental College, Los Angeles), Vittorio Morfino (University of Milano-Bicocca), Rodrigo Nunes (PUCRS, Porto Allegre), Michaela Ott (University of Fine Arts, Hamburg), Jacques Rancière (University of Paris-8), Jason Read (University of Southern Maine), Miguel Robles-Duran (Parsons, New York), Martin Saar (Goethe University of  Frankfurt/M.), Thomas Seibert (philosopher, Frankfurt/M.), Ruth Sonderegger (Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna), Panagiotis Sotiris (University of Mytilene), Kathrin Thiele (University of Utrecht), Caroline Williams (Queen Mary University, London), Frieder Otto Wolf (Free University of Berlin), Steve Wright (Monash University, Melbourne), and others.

The project was integrated in a three-part research network at the Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht, including the projects of Mladen Dolar (University of Ljubljana) on French Hegelianism and Dominiek Hoens (Circle for Lacanian Ideology Critique, Hogeschool Gent) on the future of Lacan.