States of Need / States of Emergency: Towards a Political Grammar of Exigency

Project Information

NOT

Grant agreement ID: 101025546

DOI

10.3030/101025546

Project terminated on 31 July 2022

EC signature date 19 April 2021

Start date 1 August 2021

End date 31 July 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 174 806,40

EU contribution

€ 174 806,40

Coordinated by

LUDWIG-MAXIMILIANS-UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - NOT (States of Need / States of Emergency: Towards a Political Grammar of Exigency)

Reporting period: 2021-08-01 to 2023-07-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

States of Need / States of Emergency (NOT) is a critical study of the emergency-discourse of modern European politics. My thesis is that the political preoccupation with states of emergency tends to overlook – with dire consequences – underlying chronic and ostensibly less urgent socio-economic and ecological conditions, or what I call states of need. This structural relation is captured in the ambivalence of the German word “Not,” which means at once emergency and need. Since the French Revolution, the history of European politics has been defined by an always asymmetrical negotiation of the tension between emergency and need. This asymmetric articulation of political life is perpetuated by habits of speaking about politics, which are in turn rehearsed in literary and historiographical genres for representing the political theater. The overall objective is to analyze the way in which the grammar of modern politics reproduces the myopic, dramatic, subject- and anthropocentric perspective that privileges emergency over need by addressing a diverse archive of literary and theoretical texts from the eighteenth century to the present. In the spirit of Horizon 2020, appreciating the place of Europe in the contemporary world involves understanding the complex legacy of emergency/need that continues to inform national and global politics – as the European migrant crisis, the climate emergency and the corona crisis have made clear.

I was offered and accepted a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor of German at New York University beginning August 1, 2022. This meant that I had to terminate my MSCA Fellowship after only 12 months. This is the report on the first 12 months of the fellowship, although I continue to be engaged in the project States of Need / States of Emergency.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The primary object of the project is a scholarly monograph, which has progressed with draft chapters devoted to exigency, infrastructure, human rights, and “political nature” in the modern history of the European political theater.

In connection with the ecological concerns of the project which address the rethinking of the political theater in the Anthropocene, I co-organized the international, interdisciplinary symposium Bad Taste? Culture and Consumption in the Great Acceleration hosed by the LMU Munich and the Berlin ICI Institute for Cultural Inquiry with support of the MSCA Horizon 2020. The symposium explored the politics of aesthetics in the period of accelerating consumption and associated ecological destruction since the 1950s. The well-attended event was free and open to the public. A publication based on the event is planned.

In March, I participated in a conference at the LMU Munich on the subject of “complaints” as a form of political engagement and system critique, "Beschwerde führen: Systemkritik zwischen Engagement und Exzess," 29/03/22-30/03/22).. I contributed a paper on the problem of literature and the law in times of decolonization focusing on J. M. Coetzee’s novel Disgrace. The hybrid (in-person/online) conference was free and open to the public. A publication of conference proceedings is planned.

Given my work on political theory and the Anthropocene with a focus on climate justice, I was invited to prepare entries on “Democracy” and on “Equity and Equality” for the Handbook of the Anthropocene, forthcoming with Springer, a publication which can expect to reach a wide audience.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

In the course of research and writing, it became clear that an effective way to structure my investigation into the “grammar of exigency” was through a consideration of what I am calling “political theater.” Political theater refers both to works and productions of theater that generate reflections on or interventions in politics and the theatrical dimensions that inform modern politics and political theory. A thorough analysis of the grammar of political life involves examining the dramaturgy and theatrics of the political. The aim of the project is to uncover in the archive of political theater more nuanced articulations of politics that are better able to acknowledge social and ecological questions that have long been occluded from the political scene. The book will contribute to a growing field of interdisciplinary work between theater studies and political theory. It furthermore responds to the need in the contemporary university to interrogate and reevaluate the methods, archives and epistemologies of the humanities in the light of the “climate emergency.”

In pursuing the project beyond the MSCA, I plan to continue to organize scholarly events open to a diverse public that critically interrogate entrenched perceptions of the political insofar as a more capacious and sensitive understanding of what constitutes political life is essential to addressing the most pressing socio-economic and ecological concerns.

robinson-photo.jpg