Periodic Reporting for period 1 - NOT (States of Need / States of Emergency: Towards a Political Grammar of Exigency)
Berichtszeitraum: 2021-08-01 bis 2023-07-31
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.
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.
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.