Critical Stances

Critique articulates itself mostly through and in the form of language. Since the end of the 18th century, there has been a dynamization and fluidization of the understanding of form, such as the topoi of the break, the marginalization, the tearing and opening, or counter-concepts such as "anti-form" (F. Schlegel) or "informe" (Bataille) indicate. However, these multifarious attempts to "build on the structure through demolition" (Benjamin) testify to the dependence of all articulation on the forms of its (re)presentation [“Darstellung”]. This panel examines what this means for the understanding of critique and the constitution of its object, by means of writing practices, which neither deny their dependence on (re)presentation, nor let it obtrude, but, on the contrary, work explicitly with it. Since the 1960s, also influenced by Romanticism, literacy practices have proliferated, which generate their critical statements less argumentatively than through the programmatic use of formal means. They take up their object in processes of mimicry, mimesis, parody, or inversion, to repel, mirror, satirize, or exaggerate it, so as to affirm, reject, reinterpret, and constitute it.

At the same time, through the use of rhetorical figures and phrases, the writing self, along with its attitude, reflections, affects and instruments, visibly enters the critical scene. The panel asks for the use and effects of such critical writing practices that are aware of their modes of (re)presentation, beyond the self-reflexive apprehension of the interlacing of object, writing subject, and (re)presentation: what modes of (de)subjectivation take place in such writing practices? How do legitimating claims of critique change? Does the dominance of the form of (re)presentation invalidate or replace the argument and possibly the entire critical gesture? What forms of mediation and experience are generated by the rhetorical, poetic, and aesthetic methods used? Where and how can political effects of critical intervention be registered by and in the respective form of (re)presentation?

organized by: Holger Kuhn, Nadine Schiel, Beate Söntgen, Heiko Stubenrauch

Colonial rule was and is the prerequisite for the global assertion of capitalism. Its material effects are articulated not only politically and economically, but also discursively. Although the materiality of the discursive is not identical with that of the economic, those discourses are also permeated by economic forms and power relations. They not only determine who can speak and can be heard, but also what can be said at all, which topics will be visible and to what extent. Thus, the question of the possibility of critique also appears as a question of the interweaving of economic relations with the conditions of visibility and effectiveness.
The section "Critique of the Postcolonial" asks about the reciprocal relation between critique and political strategies that are aimed at changing postcolonial power relations. Is it, for example, more promising to deconstruct Western representational regimes (provincialization), or should rather, in radical renunciation from Western concepts, distinct discourses be developed (decolonization)? How can such a renunciation look like? Or is a renunciation impossible, because the reciprocal conditioning of Western and non-Western does not allow such a distinction? Does the distinction between the Western and the non-Western even reproduce the regime of representation that it wanted to criticize? How is a decentralization of hegemonic discourses possible if a submission to the discursive conditions is a prerequisite for any participation? Is the representation of subordinate positions by non-subordinate actors always a continuation of the postcolonial rule, or is it therefore indispensable to make subaltern positions heard at all? In what way or at what sites and scenes become postcolonial strategies of critique concrete? How, then, does a critique of the postcolonial work, that aims at changing the conditions of postcolonial rule while itself being shaped by those conditions.

organized by: Susanne Leeb, Liza Mattutat, Nelly Y. Pinkrah 

Critical stances, which differentiate the "art of not being governed like that" (Foucault), have developed in modern power-knowledge fields and under the specific technical-medial conditions of imagination and presentation. With the advent of digital technologies, the modern constituting conditions of critique have now begun to shift. In the digital, in particular, the relationships between the critical subject, its possibilities of critical practice and its object were transformed fundamentally. For the production of knowledge is genuinely determined by new logics.

The central cultural techniques of the critical subject have at least since the Enlightenment been those of reading and writing, and they have characterized the transcendental physiognomy of the critical subject as such. The question of its agency arises at the moment, when these cultural techniques are at risk to lose their supremacy, and it is as radically different as the question of critique in the digital as such: which power-knowledge fields are constituted in digital cultures and to what extent and in what manner is critique subsequently transformed? What concept of critique is formed when the alphabetical subject is inserted into algorithmic environments, and which forms might a critical stance take on in such environments?
In order to answer these questions, we invite in the section “Critique and the Digital” to examine the processes of transformation, to which critical subjectivity, the problem of critique and the concept of critique are subjected to under digital conditions. The forms, that critique can take on in the digital, play as much of a central role in this discussion as the question of critique as such.

organized by: Erich Hörl, Nelly Y. Pinkrah, Lotte Warnsholdt 

In modern societies, the constitutional state is the form of legitimate power. The "rule of law" is intended to dissolve every form of direct rule from some people over others, by democratically enabling for everyone to participate. In this way, all legal relations are coagulated violent relations, that is, violent power relations translated into forms of law. The force of law, the state monopoly of power and the institutional management of power relations provide legal stability. But the law itself is historical and changeable. In order to confront this tension between permanence and changeability, the law provides ways and means to further its development. Legality thus becomes the primary criterion for the legitimacy of interventions into the law and thereby into the established social order.
Critical practices that seek to change the law, which also applies to themselves, challenge precisely this precarious equation of legality and legitimacy. Not every legal means is considered legitimate, and not every legitimate critique finds its legal means. Critical practices must therefore always be located simultaneously within and outside of law. If they limit themselves to the sphere of law, that is, if they pursue their objectives solely by taking legal action, their demands are de-politicized. If, on the other hand, critical practices locate themselves outside the sphere of law, that is, if they resort exclusively to militant means, they are disqualified as violent and unintegratable. 

In the section "What's legit? Critique of Law between Legality and Legitimacy", critical practices are to be taken into consideration given this tense relation between legality and legitimacy. What is the relation between power and legal relations? What distinguishes critical strategies in their use of democratic methods, counter-hegemonic interventions into the law, and militant actions? What are their potentials and weaknesses? What reach do they have? Above all, how do these strategies relate to one another? Are they mutually exclusive, do they go along with each other, or are they each appropriate for different situations?

organized by: Liza Mattutat, Roberto Nigro, Lotte Warnsholdt