Past Activities and Upcoming Events

Upcoming Events

Conference "Disrupted Identites in the Light of 'Post-Everything'" - 14-16 May 2024

Past Events 

• Workshop "Identity - a Contested Category". Lecturer: Dr. Doris Bachmann-Medick, 29 January 2024
  
  Although the height of the identity debates in the 1980s and 1990s seems to have passed, the category of “identity” is still, surprisingly, flourishing. Contemporary discussions depict this “umbrella term” as a problematic, highly contested (but still useful?) category, whose analytical scope as well as positive and negative evaluations will be explored in this workshop. To what extent can we even make the worn-out “identity” category productive for our own work again? In which sense can we speak of post-identity? And will the category of identity itself be changed and shaped as a post-concept?
  We should distinguish between identity as a category of practice and organization of social movements, processes of migration, etc. and identity as an analytical category of research. An aim of this workshop will be to differentiate this ubiquitous term in a critical way. Our discussions will go beyond questions of personal identity towards issues of collective identities – of agent-oriented versus ascription-oriented forms of identity and identification. We will try to develop (new) alternative terms that might work in functionally equivalent ways while avoiding the pitfalls of the identity concept. 
  This class consists of three parts. In its first part, an introductory lecture on different approaches to the identity concept will be presented – including cross-disciplinary insights into contemporary problem fields and discourses of political, ethnic, cultural, gender-oriented and migrational identity, also post-identity approaches. In its second part, we could refer to a critical, thought-provoking  and seminal essay: “Beyond ‘Identity.’” (Brubaker/Cooper 2000). In its third part, our focus will be challenged by the other questions arising from the topic of the upcoming conference "Disrupted Identities in the Light of 'Post-Everything'" organized by the Research Area 6 Cultural Identities.
• Workshop “Die Ökologisierung der Gesellschaft/ Ecologization of Society“ Lecturer: Leander Scholz, 14 July 2022
• Lecture “National and Religious Identity in the Low Countries during the Grand Siècle” Lecturer: Roeland Goorts, 7 April 2021

              

• International Interdisciplinary Laboratory-Conference 23-25 June 2021, Online: “Cultural Identities in a Global World: Reframing Cultural Hybridity” (please visit https://www.uni-giessen.de/faculties/gcsc/newsboard/cfp-cultural-identities-in-a-global-world-1 ). Flyer below 

• Workshop: Cultural Fundamentalism – And the Rearticulation of Racism, 3.-5. July 2017

An event organized by Research Area “Cultural Identities” in cooperation with the Emerging Topic Research Group “Migration and Coloniality”, International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC)

Program: 

• Workshop: “The Academic Politics of Appropriation” (Summer Semester 2016)

Description

This full day workshop aims at taking a closer look at the concept of cultural appropriation. The conceptual focus will be on the different ways of academic knowledge production and the question of how academic practice is constantly entangled with modes of representation, differentialization, othering and thus appropriation.
Based on the readings, we will discuss how appropriation can be understood conceptually and in different academic disciplines (sociology, literature, history), what implications it has for field research and how the concept can also be employed towards an academic practice of solidarity and critical engagement. 
We will be joined by Prof. Dr. Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Prof. Dr. Verena Dolle and Prof. Van Laak, who will share their research on the topic of cultural appropriation.

Beschreibung:

Die Beschäftigung mit dem Konzept der kulturellen Identität konfrontiert uns desgleichen immer mit der Frage der Alterität, ihren Bedingungen und Möglichkeiten. Hiervon ausgehend lag der Fokus der Research Area 6 dabei weniger auf einer Untersuchung einer kulturellen Setzung des – wie auch immer konstruierten – Identitären und der jeweiligen Abweichung und Differenz, sondern vorweg auf der kritischen Auseinandersetzung mit Formen der Relationierung, sei es etwa als Modus der Abgrenzung oder in der Hoffnung auf eine radikale Offenheit bzw. auf grenzüberwindende Politiken der Freundschaft bis hin zur Egalisierung des Anderen. Wie auch immer diese Relation theoretisch zu konzeptualisieren ist, im Kontext ungleicher Machtverhältnisse konfrontiert sie uns unweigerlich mit dem Problem und dem Potential der Repräsentation; nach dem, was in dieser Beziehung zwischen Eigenem und Fremden präsent gesetzt wird und wie dieses, von wem repräsentiert und angeeignet wird.

Dabei handelt es sich nicht nur um eine theoretische Frage, der wir uns konzeptionell im Rahmen einer Reading Group zum Thema „Repräsentation“ widmen (seit WS 2015/2016). Vielmehr konfrontiert uns unser forschungspraktischer Alltag selbst immer wieder mit der politischen Relevanz dieser Fragen. Vor allem dann, wenn wir etwa subalternisierte Gruppen analysieren, diese in unserer Forschung repräsentieren, uns deren kulturelleres Wissen aneignen und zu Eigen machen oder gar in Form einer wissenschaftlichen Arbeit Deutungshoheit über dieses Wissen beanspruchen. Diesen Aneignungsprozessen, die wir unter dem Konzept der „Cultural Appropriation“ zu fassen suchen, möchten wir uns im Rahmen einer internen Diskussionsplattform widmen. Was heißt es also, wenn wir, als privilegierte, z.T. weiße Akademiker_innen, Forschung zu subalternisierten und/oder unterrepräsentierten Gruppen machen? Welche Rolle nehmen wir dabei in dem Prozess von Wissensproduktion ein und wie können wir auf diese Rolle nicht nur als Nabelschau zurückblicken? Präsentieren wir uns dabei als Advokat_innen, Repräsentant_innen oder Vertreter_innen ein? Oder lassen sich diese Verhältnisse eher als ein gleichberechtigter, reziproker Austausch, oder gar politisch gesprochen als Moment der Solidarisierung, beschreiben? Oder grundlegender: Welche Möglichkeitsräume der Aneignung lassen sich überhaupt denken, von Sympathiebekundungen und Teilnahme bis hin zu Kritik und Distanz?

Mit dem Konzept der kulturellen Aneignung schlagen wir also hier vor allem auf analytischer einen Perspektivwechsel vor: dabei verschiebt die Idee der kulturellen Aneignung die Sicht auf bestehende Diskurse zur Relationierung und zur Repräsentation, insofern als hier sowohl nach den Möglichkeiten von kulturellen Aneignungs- und Translationsprozessen (vgl. hierzu etwa gegenhegemoniale Ansätze zu „Appropriation“ oder „Disidentification“; vgl. die RA6 Konferenz “W(h)ither Identity”) wie auch nach den Grenzen und Gefahren kultureller Enteigungsprozesse (vgl. insbesondere hegemoniekritische Ideen zu „Cultural Disposession“) gefragt wird. Das Konzept der kulturellen Aneignung erscheint uns dabei vor allem gegenwartskulturell äußerst produktiv, wirft es doch vor dem Hintergrund einer posthybriden und vernetzten Gesellschaft, innerhalb der kultureller Codes transnational in Bewegung sind, erneut die Frage nach der Autor_innenschaft über Kultur und über kulturelle Identität auf.

Programme

Reading Retreat: The Academic Politics of Appropriation 10:00-11:00: Cultural Appropriation as a Concept 

10:00-11:00: Cultural Appropriation as a Concept (Moderation: Sebastian Garbe and Veronika Zink)

Readings:

• Introduction (1-42): Sanders, Julie. 2006. Adaptation and Appropriation. London: Routledge.
• Introduction (1-27): Ziff, Bruce, and Pratima Rao. 1997. Borrowed Power: Essays on Cultural Appropriation. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

11:15-12:45: Input by and discussion with Prof. Dr. Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez

Readings:

• Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Encarnación. n.d. “Decolonizing Postcolonial Rhetoric.” in Decolonizing European Sociology. Transdisciplinary Approaches.

- Lunch Break -

14:00-15:30: Input by and discussion with Prof. Dr. Verena Dolle

Readings: 

• O. de Andrade, Anthropophagisches Manifest (1928)
• Koch-Grünberg, Auszug aus seiner Sammlung von indigenen Mythen und Legenden (1924), Quellenangabe: Koch-Grünberg, Theodor (1924). Vom Roroima zum Orinoco. 2. Bd. Mythen und Legenden der Taulipang- und Arekuna- Indianer. Stuttgart: Verl. Strecker und Schröder, 51-53.
• M. de Andrade, Macunaíma (Roman/Rhapsodie) - Kapitel VIII (1928)

15.30-16:30: Facing Cultural Appropriation (Moderation: Amina Nolte and Tara Rahimi)

Readings: 

• Chapter 11 (268-289): Young, James O., and Conrad G. Brunk. 2009. The Ethics of Cultural Appropriation. Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Part 3, Chapter 1 (137-168): Ziff, Bruce, and Pratima Rao. 1997. Borrowed Power: Essays on Cultural Appropriation. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. 

16.45-18:15: Input by and discussion with Prof. Van Laak

Readings: van Laak, Dirk. 2016. Epilogue: Europeans Globalizing. In: Diogo, Maria Paula/van Laak, Dirk. Europeans Globalizing – Mapping, Exploiting, Exchanging

18:15-19:00: Closing Discussion

Reading List

Introduction

• Foucault, Michel. 2001. Das Leben Der Infamen Menschen. Berlin: Merve Verl.
• Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1998. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture 271–313.

Cultural Appropriation as a Concept

• Ashley, K. 2002. “The Cultural Processes of ‘Appropriation.’” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 32(1):1–15.
• Cuthbert, Denise. 1998. “Beg, Borrow or Steal: The Politics of Cultural Appropriation.” Postcolonial Studies 1(2):257–62.
• Lindner, Oliver, and Pascal Nicklas. 2012. “Adaptation and Cultural Appropriation : Literature, Film, and the Arts.”
• Introduction (1-42): Sanders, Julie. 2006. Adaptation and Appropriation. London: Routledge.
• Young, James O. 1994. “The Ethics of Cultural Appropriation.” 30:67–77.
• Introduction (1-10): Young, James O., and Conrad G. Brunk. 2009. The Ethics of Cultural Appropriation. Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Introduction (1-27): Ziff, Bruce, and Pratima Rao. 1997. Borrowed Power: Essays on Cultural Appropriation. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Cultural Appropriation and the Colonial Order of Knowledge

• Boidin, Capucine, James Cohen, and Ramón Grosfoguel. 2012. “Introduction: From University to Pluriversity: A Decolonial Approach to the Present Crisis of Western Universities.” Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge 10(1).
• Boatcã, Manuela. 2012. “Catching Up with the (New) West: The German ‘Excellence Initiative,’ Area Studies, and the Re-Production of Inequality.” Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge 10(1).
• Lander, Edgardo, and Mariana Past. 2002. “Eurocentrism, Modern Knowledges, and the ‘Natural’ Order of Global Capital.” Nepantla: Views from South 3(2):245–68.
• Chapters 1, 7 and 17: Taussig, Michael. 2008. “Mimesis and Alterity.” A Particular Hiustory of the Senses 1–159.

Facing Cultural Appropriation

• Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Encarnación. n.d. “Decolonizing Postcolonial Rhetoric.” in Decolonizing European Sociology. Transdisciplinary Approaches.
• Rankin, Stephen. 2014. “Crossing into the Cultural Other: A Dialogic Reading Strategy.” ariel: A Review of International English Literature 45(1):79–102.
• Chapter 11 (268-289): Young, James O., and Conrad G. Brunk. 2009. The Ethics of Cultural Appropriation. Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Part 3, Chapter 1 (137-168): Ziff, Bruce, and Pratima Rao. 1997. Borrowed Power: Essays on Cultural Appropriation. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. 

• Workshop on Postmodern Subject by Eva Raimann (Summer Semester 2015)
• Keynote and Master Class on Migration by Helga Mitterbauer (June 9, 2015)
• Workshop "Libidinal Economy" organized in collaboration with RA3 (May 28, 2015, 09:00-19:00, room: B29)

»The English unemployed did not become workers to survive, they hang on tight and spit on me, enjoyed the hysterical, masochistic, whatever exhaustion it was of hanging on in the mines, in the foundries, in the factories, in hell . . . enjoyed the mad destruction of their organic body . . . the decomposition of their personal identity . . . the dissolution of their families and villages . . .« proposed Lyotard, at the time provocatively, in his seminal Libidinal Economy. In the wake of post-68 failure, referring to Marx's analysis of early industrial capitalism and his political project as being marked by a peculiar libidinal investment in capitalism, he proposed a kind of unfruitful expenditure of libidinal energies as a means of disavowal from within.
Taking cue from such notions, we would like to propose a one-day workshop, the aim of which is rethinking the connection between desire and political economy within late capitalism. Is Lyotard's notion of joyful investment in work still hold and what form does it take in cognitive, affective, relational labour? Can desire be reinvested otherwise? How have late capitalist modes of investment of desire changed sexual politics proper? What kinds of norms are being put into place and through what economic, political, biological, biochemical etc. Dispositifs? What role does sexual industry and sexual work play in contemporary regimes of investment of desire? And most importantly: how could desire be invested otherwise?
Realizing desire and sexuality play a crucial role in contemporary modes of power operation and articulations of political economy, in contemporary 'pharmakopornocapitalism, to borrow Beatriz Preciado's term, the workshop on Libidinal Economy proposes to engage with this and more questions, with the aim of creating an open platform for the discussion of issues that tackle our bodies and subjectivities most intimately. From the molecular to the subjective, what are contemporary normative economies of desire and how could we work towards their destabilization?

In order to tackle these and more related questions, we organize a one-day long seminar retreat with three intensive reading sessions and three discussions, opened by impulse talks on the topic, given by Prof. Greta Olson, Prof. Gerald Siegmund, and Prof. Encarnación Gutiérrez-Rodriguez.

Program

9:00 Introduction Marcel Wrzesinski

9:15-10:00. Workers and other Whores. Marcel Wrzesinski and Katja Čičigoj

• Lyotard, J.F. "A desire named Marx” Libidinal Economy: Bloomington. Indiana University Press, 1993: 95- 122.
• Bennet, David. “Libidinal economy, prostitution and consumer culture” Textual Practice 24(1), 2010, 93–121.

10:15 -11:45 Lusting after Patriarchy: Fifty Shades of Grey, False Consciousness, and the Negotiation of the Heterosexual Economy. Greta Olson

• James, EL. Fifty Shades of Grey (2011). Any edition and language.
• West, Robin L. "The Erotic Appeal of Submission"en The Difference in Women’s Hedonic Lives: A Phenomenological Critique of Feminist Legal Theory, Wisconsin Women's Law Journal 15 (2001): 199-209
• Illouz, Eva. “Epilogue: Sadomasochism as a Romantic Utopia" en Hard-Core Romance: Fifty Shades of Grey, Best-Sellers, and Society. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2014: 63-77.

13:00-14:00 Hot Slut Orgies, Testo-junkies, and other Commodities. Veronika Zink and Danae Gallo González

• Marcuse, Herbert. “The Transformation of Sexuality into Eros“ and “Eros and Thanatos”. Eros and Civilization. Beacon Press, Boston, MA, 1955: 197-238
• Beatriz Preciado. “Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics” Eflux (2013) http://www.e-flux.com/journal/testo-junkie-sex-drugs-and-biopolitics/

14:15- 15:45 Labour & Affect. Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez.

• “Domestic Work and Affective Labor”, Women's Studies International Forum. 46 (2014) 45–53.
• Optional readings: Chapters 4 and 6. Migration, Domestic Work and Affect: a Decolonial Approach on Value and the Feminization of Labor. New York: Routledge, 2010.

16-17:30 Memory, Technology, and Sublimation: The Libidinal Economy of Desire. Gerald Siegmund 

• Bernard Stiegler: Denken bis an die Grenzen der Maschine, Berlin/Zürich; Diaphanes Verlag, 2009: 60-110
• Bernard Stiegler: Hypermaterialität und Psychomacht, Berlin/Zürich: Diaphanes Verlag, 2010: 35-69

18:00-19:00 Revolution beyond the Pleasure Principle: Dethroning Sex. Katja Čičigoj and Veronika Zink.

• Noys, Benjamin "The End of the Monarchy of Sex: Sexuality and Contemporary Nihilism”
• Theory, Culture & Society 2008 (SAGE, Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, and Singapore), 25(5): 104–122
• Malabou, Catherine:"Towards a Plasticity of the Compulsion to repeat," "The Subject of the Acident" and "Conclusion" from The New Wounded - From Neurosis to Brain Damage. Fordham Universty Press.2012. 189 - 217.
  Readings
• Lyotard, J.F. "A desire named Marx” Libidinal Economy: Bloomington. Indiana University Press, 1993: 95- 122.
• Bennet, David. “Libidinal economy, prostitution and consumer culture” Textual Practice 24(1), 2010, 93–121.
• James, EL. Fifty Shades of Grey I(2011). Any edition and language.
• West, Robin L. "The Erotic Appeal of Submission"en The Difference in Women’s Hedonic Lives: A Phenomenological Critique of Feminist Legal Theory, Wisconsin Women's Law Journal 15 (2001): 199-209
• Illouz, Eva. “Epilogue: Sadomasochism as a Romantic Utopia" en Hard-Core Romance: Fifty Shades of Grey, Best-Sellers, and Society. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2014: 63-77. 
• Marcuse, Herbert. “The Transformation of Sexuality into Eros“ and “Eros and Thanatos”. Eros and Civilization. Beacon Press, Boston, MA, 1955: 197-238
• Preciado, Beatriz. „The invention of the pharmacopornographic bed“. Pornotopia. An essay on Playboy's architecture and biopolitics. New York: Zone Books, 2014: XX
• “Domestic Work and Affective Labor”, Women's Studies International Forum. 46 (2014) 45–53.
• Optional readings: Chapters 4 and 6. Migration, Domestic Work and Affect: a Decolonial Approach on Value and the Feminization of Labor. New York: Routledge, 2010.
• Bernard Stiegler: Denken bis an die Grenzen der Maschine, Berlin/Zürich; Diaphanes Verlag, 2009: 60-110
• Bernard Stiegler: Hypermaterialität und Psychomacht, Berlin/Zürich: Diaphanes Verlag, 2010: 35-69
• Noys, Benjamin "The End of the Monarchy of Sex: Sexuality and Contemporary Nihilism” 
• Theory, Culture & Society 2008 (SAGE, Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, and Singapore), 25(5): 104–122
• Malabou, Catherine:"Towards a Plasticity of the Compulsion to repeat," "The Subject of the Acident" and "Conclusion" from The New Wounded - From Neurosis to Brain Damage. Fordham Universty Press.2012. 189 - 217.
• Film series: “Disobedience. The Protesting Demos" organized in collaboration with RA3.
  
  If the more broad scope of the screenings is to tackle the question of the aesthetic form certain kinds of politics take and the political stakes of certain forms of aesthetics, after dealing with the topic of the aesthetics of political propaganda and the performance of ideology in the Summer Semester 2014 and with the aesthetics and politics of sexual liberation and non-normative sexualities in the Winter Semester 2014/2015, in the Summer Semester 2015 we wish to focus on forms of rebellion and revolution. Disobedience, uproar, protest, revolts, rebellion, terrorism, are attempts of transgressing and breaking with the ideological patterns and norms already in place, sometimes being labeled as the hoped-for expression of the civil will for liberty, equality, and democracy, sometimes being feared as a fatal attack on our established value system. One way or another in disobedience the oppressed and unheard-of begins to speak: the demos is revolting. Continuing our theoretical discussions on disidentification (RA6) and performing politics (RA3) we will engage with diverse modes of civil disobedience and discuss their limits and potential against the backdrop of their historic, political and cultural conditions.
• Preparatory meeting: April 28th, 2015, Café Amelie 20:00

  Reading Session: Benjamin, Walter. (1999). "Critique on Violence". In: Selected Writing, Vol. 1. Belknap/Harward. Pp. 277-300.

• April 29^th, 2015, Café Amélie 20:00
  Die Dritte Generation (1979, BRD)
  Rainer Werner Fassbinder
  “The Third Generation” is a bittersweet satire, a cynic society without any political motivation and hope, a carnivalesque play of pointless revolt, a clutter yelling bereft of meaning. Differences between the state apparatus and the protesting demos become increasingly blurred in terms of aesthetics as well as politics. In his 1979 critical take on the future of revolutionary practices Fassbinder’s film is ever more relevant for questioning certain modes of contemporary social movements as well as present day post-critical discourses of democracy. Understanding the film as a consequence and as a carrying on of “Germany in Autumn“ and the political situation back then, we will show a short extract Fassbinder’s contribution to this collaborative film prior to “The Third Generation”.

• Preparatory meeting: May 5th, 2015, Café Amélie 20:00
  Reading Session: Ruth Sanz Sabid. (2015). "They call it Democracy. Cultural Memory and Anti-Austerity Protests in Spain". In: Stuart Price and Ruth Sanz Sabid, Contemporary Protest and the Legacy of Dissent. Rowman & Littlefield
  Optional: Price, Stuart. (2015). "The legacy of Dissent Class, Gender and Austerity". In: Stuart Price and Ruth Sanz Sabid, Contemporary Protest and the Legacy of Dissent. Rowman & Littlefiel 

• May 6^th, 2015, Café Amélie 20:00
  15M: Excellent. A Wake-up call. Important (2013, Spain)
  Stéphane M. Grueso
  “15M: Excellent. A Wake-up call. Important“ is a documentary film produced by the collective Madrid.15M.cc. It is a non-profit documentary based on the principles of "free culture”. It revolves about what is known as the “15M”, a demonstration organized by Real Democracy NOW! that paved the way for what has been called «15M Movement» or the «Spanish revolution», an unprecedented collective awakening in Spain around the central square of Puerta del Sol in Madrid. It entangles interviews about the past, present and future of the movement, in-field video footage with the voice over of a first person self-reflective narrator in order to provide an overview of this internationally still not very well-known protest movement.
  
  

• Preparatory meeting: May 19th, 2015 Café Amélie 20:00
  Reading Session: Gould, Deborah. (2009). Moving Politics. Emotion and ACT UP's Fight against AIDS. Univeristy of Chicago Press. Pp. 213-265.

• May 20^th, 2015, Café Amélie 20:00

  Lemmy Caution. Ermittlung gegen die Wirklichkeit (Deutschland, 2005)

  Gruppe Slatan Dudow

  Geheimagent Lemmy Caution kommt nach Berlin, um Ermittlungen gegen die kapitalistische Wirklichkeit aufzunehmen. Er soll herausfinden, warum die Menschen an Verhältnissen kleben, die für die meisten von ihnen nur Leid, Elend und Not bereithalten. Die deutsche Abwehr, die ihn schon erwartet, schickt ihm ihre Agenten auf den Hals. Mit ihnen wird er spielend fertig, nicht aber mit der geheimnisvollen Doppelagentin Svobodnaja. Eine vermeintliche Spur führt in die Villa des Großindustriellen Bertotti (hinter dem sich der Chef der deutschen Abwehr, Müller-Goebbels, verbirgt). Durch den Verrat Svobodnajas gerät Lemmy dort in eine Falle. Doch in letzter Sekunde schlägt sie sich auf Lemmys Seite und rettet ihm das Leben. Als Lemmy, der sich Hals über Kopf in ein anderes Mädchen verliebt, seinen Auftrag aus den Augen verliert, erschießt ihn Svobodnaja, um sich – ihrer eigenen Eifersucht gewahr werdend - „ihre Freiheit zu bewahren“. Sterbend sinniert Lemmy über seinen Grundirrtum, eine mächtige, alles steuernde Organisation dort erwartet zu haben, wo überpersönliche Verhältnisse walten.

• Preparatory meeting: May 26th, 2015, Café Amélie 20:00
  Reading Session: Raunig, Gerald. (2007). “eventum et medium. Event and Orgiastic Representation in Media Activism” eipcp european institute for progressive cultural policies. 6. http://eipcp.net/transversal/0707/raunig/en

• May 27^th, 2015, Café Amélie 20:00

  The Case of the Grinning Cat (2006, France)

  Chris Marker

  French documentary and cinema-essayist Chris Marker reflects on French and international politics, art, and culture at the start of the new millennium. In November 2001, the filmmaker became intrigued, as did many other Parisians, by the sudden appearance of alluring portraits of grinning yellow cats on buildings, Metro walls and other public surfaces. Marker's cinematic efforts to document the mysterious materializations of this charming feline throughout Paris are a recurring theme of THE CASE OF THE GRINNING CAT. This engaging record of Marker's cinematic peregrinations throughout the city, visually energized by his free-association montage style, chronicles strikes, demonstrations, memorials, election campaigns, celebrity scandals, international political incidents, and a seemingly endless variety of political protests (against the Iraq War, against China's occupation of Tibet, against the government's ban on the wearing of Muslim headscarves).

• Meetings of the Reading Group "Thinking Sociality – Images of Society" 
  The concept of cultural identity is highly linked to our understanding of social reality, collectivity and sociality. But what is sociality and how can we grasp this seemingly indefinable conglomerate of subjects, which has variously been characterized by metaphors such as “the social engine”, “the social organism”, “the social system” or “network-society”? Whether facing a holistic or a more individualistic social ontology, every model of society that tries to describe the social as such is a reproduction of social reality with all its theoretical, social and political implications. 
  In this reading group we aim at questioning the idea of society. By looking at social theory from a genealogical perspective, we are analyzing different notions and concepts of sociality with their underlying representations, abstractions, and predictions about the social and their utopian and dystopian visions of collectivity. Engaging for example with early social theories such as “Social Physics” (Quetelet), “Social Darwinism” (Spencer), and Saint-Simonianism we will compare these approaches with more vitalistic images of society (e.g. Durkheim, Bataille) and systemic approaches to society (e.g. Parsons, Luhmann). Serving as a basis to question contemporary thoughts about the social (e.g. Hardt & Negri, Massumi, Latour, Baudrillard) we will critically investigate their theoretical and political potentials as well as limitations.
• Meetings on Thursdays (23.04; 07.05; 25.06) 
  Readings:
  Feathertsone, David. (2012). Solidarity. Hidden Histories and Geographies of Internationalism. Zed Books. & Gramsci, Antonio. (1926). Some aspects of the Southern Question. Online Ressource.
  Derrida, Jacques. (2006). The Politics of Friendship. "Oath, Conjuration, Fraternization or the Armed Question". Verso Books. & Schmitt, Carl (1996). The Concept of the Political. University of Chicago Press. 
  Further readings to be announced.

• Workshop: Collective Identities and Performativity (Summer Semester 2014 & Winter Semester 2014/15)

• Workshop: Performativity, Politics and post-identitarian forms of Subjetivization. (Summer Semester 2014 & Winter Semester 2014/15)

• Film series: “The Aesthetics of Politics – the Politics of Aesthetics”: In collaboration with RA3: Cultural Transformation and Performativity Studies. (Summer Semester 2014 & Winter Semester 2014/15)

• Leela Gandhi: Master Class "On Global Ethics: Some Histories and Practices" & Lecture "Postcolonial Ethics and the Practice of Democracy" (Summer Semester 2014 & Winter Semester 2014/15)

• Conference: "W(h)ither Identity”: Locating the Self and Transforming the Social" (Winter semester 2013/2014)