Power, Resistance, Fascism: Re-reading Foucault in the Present (LIAS Workshop)
25. Jun - 26. Jun
LIAS Workshop organized by Alex Demirović, LIAS Alumnus | Serhat Karakayali, LIAS Faculty Fellow | Nancy Luxon, LIAS Senior Fellow and Roberto Nigro
Date: Wednesday, 25.06. 5:00-8:00 pm | Thursday, 26.06. 9:00 am-6:00 pm
Location: Leuphana Campus, Central Building, Lecture Hall 4 (25.6.) & C40.704 (26.6.)
Language: English
Presentations by: Alex Demirović, LIAS Alumnus, Frankfurt | Serhat Karakayali, Leuphana Universität | Isabell Lorey, KHM, Köln | Nancy Luxon, LIAS Senior Fellow | Minkah Makalani, Baltimore | Roberto Nigro, Leuphana Universität | Jonas Oßwald, Wien | Morten Paul, Duisburg-Essen
Inputs by Activists: Fabian Virchow, Researcher on right-wing extremism and neo-Nazism, Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences | Julia Dück, trade union secretary, Verdi, Berlin | Anika Taschke, Senior advisor for neo-Nazism, Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, Berlin
With the intensification of right-wing political movements in Germany, Austria, Hungary, the United States, and France (among other countries), the world finds itself faced with the question of whether fascism is emerging once again as a political force, or with a new form of nationalism, authoritarianism and fascism. What resources can we draw on to diagnose and think through this new political moment?
This workshop proposes a two-part event. The plenary session on Wednesday, June 25 will draw together political activists to hear their diagnoses of current right-wing political trends, and to debate how to problematize this present moment. The next day, eight scholars will convene to debate this same problematic drawing on the thought of Michel Foucault, the pre-eminent theorist of power in the 20th century. Our current political situation poses a twofold challenge for Foucault's analysis of power: Are his concepts — such as exclusion and incarceration, surveillance, population, biopower and biopolitics, governmentality, and the ethics of the self — useful for understanding this development toward a new authoritarianism or fascism? Do they help us to better understand current social dynamics? And conversely, do current social developments direct us back to Foucault, so as to find intellectual and political resources for thinking about, for example, migration and transnational politics?
This workshop will re-read Foucault’s texts as an attempt to contribute to a non-fascist life and to explore whether his concepts can help us to understand current power politics. Simultaneously, it draws on recent political experiences to develop a more nuanced understanding of Foucault's work and how far it can be “stretched.” We will think with, against, and beyond Foucault interpreting his analyses as attempts to decipher the comprehensive underlying authoritarian logic of modern capitalist societies — the intricate practices of exclusion, confinement, surveillance, normalization and pathologization, the implementation of biopolitical logics to manage migration and colonial entanglements — as well as the resources for moving toward non-fascistic life. Beyond rhetorical impact, what is the value of such terms as fascism, authoritarianism, totalitarianism, control society, and autocracy, and how they construe specific conjunctures of power?
Program
25. June
Lecture Hall 4
5:00 pm Reception of the workshop participants
5:30-6:00 pm Introduction to the workshop by the organisers
6:15-8:00 pm Panel Discussion: Antifascist Praxis in the 21st Century / Podiumsdiskussion: Antifaschistische Praxis im 21. Jahrhundert (in German language)
Fabian Virchow (Researcher on right-wing extremism and neo-Nazism, Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences)
Julia Dück (Trade union secretary, Verdi, Berlin)
Anika Taschke (Senior advisor for neo-Nazism, Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, Berlin)
26. June
Central Building, C40.704
9:00-9:30 am Introduction to the Workshop
9:30-11:00 am Session 1: Rethinking Fascism with Foucault
Roberto Nigro: »Foucault and Fascism: How to Fill an Empty Space?«
Alex Demirović: »Governmentality - a New Power After Fascism«
11:15 am-12:45 pm Session 2: Antifascist Mode of Life
Jonas Oßwald: »Introduction to the non-fascist life: Foucault and the Problem of Power«
Morten Paul: »The Fascist Inside You: Foucault as a reader of Deleuze and Guattari«
2:00-3:30 pm Session 3: Practices of Resistance
Isabell Lorey: »Deviantisation and Denunciation: Foucault's Micropolitics of Power«
Nancy Luxon: »Desire, Bodies, and the Need for Shelter«
4:00-5:30 pm Session 4: Migration and Transnational Politics
Minkah Makalani: »‘A Bit Cracked‘: Prophetic Utterance and Unspeakable Coloniality in Ousmane Sembène’s Camp de Thiaroye«
Serhat Karakayalı: »Policing Migration, Disciplining Society: Racial Governmentality and the Fascist Drift«
5:30-6:00 pm Closing Remarks
Click here to download the Programme.