Practices of Critique

5-7 December 2013

Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, Campus Westend
Cluster of Excellence "The Formation of Normative Orders"


Poster (pdf): click here...

Program (pdf): click here...







Lecture on 5 December 2013

Video:

Audio:

Lecture on 7 december 2013
"Why Did Bouazizi Burn Himself? Fatal Political Action as Embodied Critique"

Video:

Audio:

Practices of critique are intertwined with normative orders in manifold ways. They contain and refer reflexively to critical contentions, and they can enable as well as suppress critique. On the one hand, critique can draw on the justificatory basis of normative orders. On the other, such an immanent critique always harbors the danger of contributing to the reproduction of the conditions it questions. Further, critical practices of social movements and theoretical interventions are often confronted with the argument that there is no uncontaminated position from which to formulate critique. Accordingly, the question arises as to what forms critique can assume and under what historical, political and social conditions critique can appear at all. In this context it is essential to reconstruct the theoretical foundations of critique and power structures as well as the practices in which both are instantiated.

The conference will tackle this complex with 25 panels from a variety of disciplines. There will also be plenary lectures by Andreas Fischer-Lescano (University of Bremen) and Banu Bargu (SOAS, University of London) as well as a roundtable discussion featuring Robin Celikates (University of Amsterdam), Juliane Rebentisch (HfG Offenbach), Teivo Teivainen (University of Helsinki) and Sonja Buckel (Kassel University):

Please see the full program or visit http://www.normativeorders.net/en/events/young-researchers-conferences for more information. Attendance is free but limited. Please register until December 2, sending your full name and institutional affiliation to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Presented by:
Cluster of Excellence "The Formation of Normative Orders" in cooperation with  "100 Jahre Goethe-Universität" and the involvement of "Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach"



Pictures:







Program:

Thursday, 5 December 2013, Casino 1.801, 6-8pm

Opening Lecture

Between Force and Violence. A Critique of Law in World Society
Andreas Fischer-Lescano (University of Bremen)

Welcoming address by Klaus Günther (Co-Speaker, Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders”, Goethe University Frankfurt)

Followed by reception

This event marks the beginning of the series “Traditions and Perspectives of Critique”, organized by Nicole Deitelhoff, Christopher Daase and Thorsten Thiel as part of the GU 100 Celebrations.


Friday, 6 December 2013

Building Normative Orders EG.01, 9.30-11am

Dogmatik – Apologie oder Kritik von Normativität

Panel convenors: Matthias Goldman, Dana Schmalz

Discussants: Franz Ebert, Matthias Goldmann, Christoph Krenn, Dana Schmalz

Markus Patberg (Hamburg): Verfassungspolitik und rationale Rekonstruktion

Martin Russell Varga (Tübingen): Juristische Dogmatik als Mittel der Herrschaft und Herrschaftslegitimation

Katharina Isabel Schmidt (Yale): Der Formalismus-Mythos im deutschen und amerikanischen Rechtsdenken des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts

Michaela Hailbronner (Heidelberg, Yale): Dogmatik - eifersüchtige Geliebte


Friday, 6 December 2013, Building Normative Orders EG.02, 9.30-11am

Negotiating Dissensus. Frontiers of Political Critique (bilingual)

Panel convenor: Aylin Zafer

Discussant: Aylin Zafer

Kolja Lindner (Berlin, Paris): Laizismus provinzialisieren

David Dilmaghani (Bordeaux): The Grimace of the Revolt. A post-Hegelian contribution

Alexandros Alexandropoulos (London): Nietzsche, the status of critique, commitment and dissensus democracy


Friday, 6 December 2013, Building Normative Orders 5.01, 9.30-11am

Revolution and Reflection: 1789 and beyond

Panel convenors: Mareike Kajewski, Louise Zbiranski

Discussant: Mareike Kajewski

Friedemann Pestel (Freiburg): Reflections in the Emigration from France: Ideas of Continuity in Response to the French Revolution (1789-1814)

Ori Rotlevy (Tel Aviv): Barricades and Revolution – Marxist Reflections on a Critical Relationship

Damian J. Rosanovich (Jena): Between Marat and Napoleon: Hegel's Interpretation of the French Revolution


Friday, 6 December 2013, Building Normative Orders 5.02, 9.30-11am

Religion and Critique

Panel convenors: Aletta Diefenbach, Thomas Kuhn

Discussants: Markus Faltermeier, Maren Freudenberg, Petra Tlcimukova

Maren Freudenberg (Berlin): The Emerging Church Movement in the USA as a critique of 20th century American religion

Markus Faltermeier (Munich): Natural Law and the Social Order: The Emergence of an American Catholic Critique of Capitalism between 1880 and 1920

Petra Tlcimukova (Olomouc): New Religious Movements and it´s Critique of Modern Society – ISCON, Universe People and SGI in Czech Republic


Friday, 6 December 2013, Building Normative Orders EG.01, 11.15am-12.45pm

(Non-)Compliance and Critique

Panel convenors: Andreas Corcaci, David Roth-Isigkeit

Discussant: Samir Alatovic

Mathias Poertner (Berkeley): Institutional Capacity for Compliance: Domestic Compliance with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights

Domenica Dreyer (Bonn): Non-compliance as Reason of State - lessons from border policy practices in EU member states


Friday, 6 December 2013, Building Normative Orders EG.02, 11.15am-12.45pm

Knowledge and Action

Panel convenor: Andreas Müller

Discussants: Claudia Czingon, Andreas Müller

Hauke Behrendt (Stuttgart): Rationale und moralische Kritik

Fabien Truong (Paris): High Social Theory Meets Lowly Social Reality. Teaching Bourdieu in the Parisian Banlieue

Rosa Koumari (Berlin): Kritik als epistemische Untugend


Friday, 6 December 2013, Building Normative Orders 5.01, 11.15am-12.45pm

Freiheit und Kritik

Panel convenors: Katia Backhaus, Michael Holldorf

Discussants: Guido Barbi, Nicklas Baschek, William Callison

Nicklas Baschek (Hamburg): Jargon der Ernsthaftigkeit

Guido Barbi (Munich): Freiheit und Gegebenheit: Grenzen und Voraussetzungen des kritischen Individuums

William Callison (Berkeley): Foucaults Untersuchung und Kritik der politischen Rationalität


Friday, 6 December 2013, Building Normative Orders 5.02, 11.15am-12.45pm

Praktiken der Kritik nach dem Arabischen Frühling

Panel convenor: Nadia Ouerghemmi

Discussant: Leonie Holthaus

Jan Wilkens (Hamburg): Problematiken und Verhältnis zwischen ‚Aufbegehren’ in der WANA Region und ihrer Beobachtung

Youssef Dennaoui (Bonn): Protest und der Wandel normativer Ordnungen im Kontext des arabischen Frühlings

Regine Schwab (Berlin): Kritik als Hindernis für gesellschaftliches Lernen? Der Fall des (post)-revolutionären Ägypten


Friday, 6 December 2013, Building Normative Orders EG.01, 2-3.30pm

Legal Indeterminacy in International law and Contemporary American Constitutional Law

Panel convenors: Michel de Araujo Kurth, Hanne Weismann

Discussants: Michel de Araujo Kurth, Hanne Weismann

Nina Reiners (Potsdam): Indeterminacy as a chance for NGOs’ involvement in international law-making

James Fry (Hong Kong): Cleaved International Law through the Indeterminacy of Tertiary Rules

Sebastian Dregger (Ingolstadt-Eichstätt): The Problem of Indeterminacy in Contemporary American Constitutional Thought


Friday, 6 December 2013, Building Normative Orders EG.02, 2-3.30pm

Die Kritik auf der Leinwand – Darstellungsformen von Rechtfertigung

Panel convenors: Judith-Frederike Popp, Jochen Schuff

Discussant: Judith-Frederike Popp

Sebastian Seidler (Berlin): Erschütternde Kritik - Körperliche Erfahrung und Kritik im Kino am Beispiel von Gaspar Noés Irréversible

Christoph Büttner (Constance): Alles authentisch, nichts politisch?– Neuere deutsche Kino-Blicke auf die „Volksgemeinschaft“

Falk Bornmüller (Magdeburg): Moralisches Wissen und sich darstellende Rechtfertigung im Film


Friday, 6 December 2013, Building Normative Orders 5.01, 2-3.30pm

Democracy in Theory and Practice – or both?

Panel convenor: Ronan Kaczynski

Discussant: Steven Klein

Fabian Anicker (Düsseldorf): The Pitfalls of the Ideal Speech Situation – Reconsidering Habermas

Richard Milner (Cork): Approaching a Reconstructive Critique of the Response to the Irish Economic Crisis

Sabrina Engelmann (Darmstadt): Democracy Protection as a Non-Ideal Democratic Theory

Naveh Frumer (New York): Impasses of Injustice: Social Diagnosis versus Normative Analysis in Contemporary Critical Theory


Friday, 6 December 2013, Building Normative Orders 5.02, 2-3.30pm

Coping with Critique – The Reaction of International Organizations to Normative Contestation

Panel convenor: Lisbeth Zimmermann

Discussant: Sara Dezalay

Andrej Lang (Berlin): How do national courts matter?

Johannes Gunesch (Jerusalem): The UNDP response to the Egyptian uprising

André Nunes Chaib (Paris): Representation and Participation: A Critique of the Position of non-state Actors within International Organizations


Friday, 6 December 2013, Building Normative Orders EG.01, 4-5.30pm

Kritische Rechtsbetrachtungen: Wohin zielt ihre Kritik und worauf zielt die Kritik an ihnen?

Panel convenors: Jonas Heller, David Roth-Isigkeit, Benedict Vischer

Discussant: Dr. iur. Isabelle Ley

Carlos Becker (Frankfurt/Main): Gegen das Recht? Demokratie und Widerstand in der neuen französischen Philosophie

Esther Neuhann (Berlin): Zeitstrukturen des Rechts. Über die Möglichkeit einer kritischen Theorie der Gerechtigkeit

Klass Hendrik Eller (Paris): Rechtskritik durch Vertrag. Zum transformativen Potential transnationaler Privatregimes


Friday, 6 December 2013, Building Normative Orders EG.02, 4-5.30pm

Kritik der politischen Kunst

Panel convenor: Anne Kersten

Discussant: Anne Kersten

Sebastian Löwe (Halle): „Politkitsch!“ – Zur diskursiven Funktion des Kitsch-Urteils am Fall der 7. Berlin Biennale (2012)

Andrea Sakoparnig (Berlin): Das Politische der Kunst

Anne Gräfe (Frankfurt/Oder): Die Politische Differenz in der Kunst

Maria Magdalena Ludewig (Berlin): Ausgestellte Haut als Offensive der ungeschützten Kritik


Friday, 6 December 2013, Building Normative Orders 5.01, 4-5.30pm

Sociology of Critique (bilingual)

Panel convenor: Thorsten Thiel

Discussant: Andreas Busen

Stefanie Bognitz (Halle): Dispute as Critique

Ole Pütz (Bielefeld): Linking Argument and Reflexivity in Interaction: The Case of Anti Nuclear Power Groups

Lisa Knoll (Hamburg): Der Disput und seine Vermeidung


Friday, 6 December 2013, Building Normative Orders 5.02, 4-5.30pm

Work and Precarity

Panel convenors: Franziska Müller, Patrick Sachweh

Discussant: Franziska Müller

Cyprien Tasset (Paris): Precarious knowledge workers as a critical class

Ondřej Lánský (Prague): Genealogy of Labor and Relevant Social Practices

Martin Nový (Brno): Illusion of Reality and Reality of Abstraction: To Adorno’s Sociological Method


Friday, 6 December 2013, Building Normative Orders 5.01, 6-7.30pm

HFG short film

KRITIK/CRITIQUE

composed by Rotraut Pape, HFG Film/Video.


Saturday, 7 December 2013, Hörsaalzentrum HZ 9, 9.30-11am

Lecture
Why Did Bouazizi Burn Himself? Fatal Political Action as Embodied Critique
Banu Bargu (SOAS, University of London)


Saturday, 7 December 2013, Building Normative Orders EG.01, 11.15am-12.45pm

Transnationaler Konstitutionalismus zwischen Herrschaft und Kritik

Panel convenor: Kolja Möller

Discussants: Johan Horst, Daniel Loick, Kolja Möller

Pola Cebulak (Brussels/Geneva): Die Rolle des richterlichen Aktivismus des EuGH in der pluralistischen Architekur des globalen Rechts

Hannah Franzki (London): Internationales Strafrecht und staatliche Souveränität

Mareike Gebhardt (Regensburg): Die Ausgrenzung des Anderen


Saturday, 7 December 2013, Building Normative Orders EG.02, 11.15am-12.45pm

Other Voices, Other Critique? Critical Knowledges Otherwise

Panel convenor: Johanna Leinius

Discussant: Harpreet Cholia

Luis Manuel Hernández Aguilar (Frankfurt am Main): Changing Meanings-New Practices: The Multidirectional Critique of the Independent Totonac Organization (OIT)

Gyunghee Park (Cork): The Cosmopolitanisation of Memory: 'Comfort Women' and the Politics of Remembering

Daniela Hrzán (Berlin): Moving Beyond Legacies of Colonialism: “Practices of Critique” in Discourses about Female Genital Cutting since the 1990s

Federico Oliveri (Pisa): Migrant Activism and the Future of Citizenship: How Border Struggles Produce Critical Knowledge and Reshape Normative Orders


Saturday, 7 December 2013, Building Normative Orders 5.01, 11.15am-12.45pm

Von Shitstorms und Empörungswellen – Gründe und Abgründe der Internetkritik

Panel convenor: Matthias Kettemann

Discussant: Matthias Kettemann

Tom Poljanšek (Stuttgart): Eine Kritik kritischer Praxis

Jennifer Eickelmann (Bochum): Shitstorms und Geschlechterordnung

Theresa Züger (Berlin): Digitaler ziviler Ungehorsam – DDoS als kritische Praxis?


Saturday, 7 December, Building Normative Orders 5.02, 11.15am-12.45pm

Politiken der Unsicherheit, Kritik der Sicherheit

Panel convenor: Jannik Pfister

Discussant: Jannik Pfister

Anna Kern (Marburg): Nicht immer schlimmer, sondern immer anders

Kerrin-Sina Arfsten (Freiburg): Widerstand in Politiken der Unsicherheit

Christoph Burmeister (Frankfurt/Oder): Der hausgemachte Terrorist. Über das Regieren (mit) der Angst im Präventionsstaat seit '9/11'


Saturday, 7 December 2013, Normative Orders EG.01, 2-3.30pm

Critical Theory and Global Justice: Justice, Law and Democracy Beyond the State

Panel convenor: Malte Ibsen

Discussant: Julian Culp, Malte Ibsen

Nele Kortendiek (Duisburg-Essen): Democratising Global Social Justice

Johannes Schulz (Frankfurt/Main): Towards a Habermasian Internationalism?

Ardevan Yaghoubi (Oxford): Three Kantian Questions about International Law

Wulf Loh (Stuttgart): Collective Self-Determination – A Normative Reconstruction of International Law


Saturday, 7 December 2013, Building Normative Orders EG.02, 2-3.30pm

Krise und Kritik im Banken- und Finanzwesen

Panel convenors: Claudia Czingon, Lisa Herzog

Discussant: Lukas Hofstätter

Matthias Thiemann (Frankfurt am Main): Wie begrenzt man Regulierungsarbitrage? Kritische Dialoge und die Rolle lokaler "compliance officers"

Falk Lenke (Bremen): Kampf ums Vertrauen: Legitimationsstrategien deutscher Banken seit der Finanzkrise

Sarah Lenz (Frankfurt/Main): Ethische Banken


Saturday, 7 December 2013, Building Normative Orders 5.01, 2-3.30pm

Normativität der Sozialkritik I: Sozialphilosophische Begründung der Sozialkritik

Panel convenors: Aletta Diefenbach, Victor Kempf

Discussant: Victor Kempf

Sebastian Bandelin (Marburg): Kritik als Aufklärung praktischer Widersprüche

Oleksii Viedrov (Kiev): Zu Robin Celikates’ Begriff der Sozialkritik

Samuel Müller (New York): Die Vortäuschung kultureller Übersetzung. Zum Verhältnis von religiösen zu säkularen Sinngehalten in der kritischen Theorie von Jürgen Habermas


Saturday, 7 December 2013, Building Normative Orders EG.02, 4-5.30pm

Pathologies, Loneliness and Therapy: Relations between Psychology and Critique

Panel convenor: Marina Martinez Mateo

Discussant: Greta Wagner

Janosch Schobin (New York): Laments of Loneliness as Social Criticism? Analysing Public Confessions of Desolation

Naveen Kanalu (Nice, Frankfurt am Main): Critique and Clinique as Epistemologies: French Perspectives on Contemporary Social Theoretic Analysis

Alexander Hirschfeld (Bamberg): Governing the Mind: Burnout - Danger or Risk?


Saturday, 7 December 2013, Building Normative Orders 5.01, 4-5.30pm

Normativität der Sozialkritik II: Soziologische Perspektiven auf Sozialkritik

Panel convenors: Aletta Diefenbach, Victor Kempf

Discussant: Aletta Diefenbach

Matthias Koch, Benedikt Reusch (Bielefeld): Soziales Leiden und Kritik

Carolin Amlinger (Trier): Künstlersozialkritik

Ricarda Biemüller (Bielefeld): Analyse normativer Prämissen des sozialen Phänomens des Mülltauchens


Friday, 6 December 2013, and Saturday, 7 December 2013, 1-2pm

“A symbol, in iron and stone, of German commercial and scientific manpower.”

Guided tour around the IG Farben Building and the Norbert Wollheim Memorial

What is now claimed as "the most beautiful Campus in Europe" was once the head office of one of the biggest corporations worldwide, namely the IG Farben. They were heavily involved with the national-socialist regime, took profit of the war of extermination and were running their own concentration camp nearby Auschwitz. This guided tour will shed light on the perpetrators and their victims and the struggle for a Memorial on the newly found Campus.

Due to limited attendance the same tour is offered twice. Please register in advance at the conference desk.


Saturday, 7 December 2013, Casino 1.801, 8-10pm

Academia and Critique

Roundtable discussion with Robin Celikates (University of Amsterdam), Juliane Rebentisch (HfG Offenbach), Teivo Teivainen (University of Helsinki) and Sonja Buckel (Kassel University), Moderation: Thomas Biebricher (Goethe University Frankfurt)

Venue: Casino 1.801/1.802

Practices of critique are inextricably intertwined with normative orders, not the least because the justificatory basis of normative orders usually provides the foundationof immanent critique. But such critique always harbors the danger of contributing to the reproduction of the conditions it questions. Critical social movements, in particular, are often confronted with the argument that there is no uncontaminated position from which to formulate critique, a challenge that academic critique tends to circumvent by presuming to speak from an objective point of view. But, at second glance, academic practices of critique are deeply embedded in and constitutive of social processes.

This panel aims to reflect on the possibilities and limitations of academic critique within academia itself as well as concerning its relations to society. Although academia is always embedded in its social environment and therefore never merely academic, it exceeds its own scientific measures as well as its social and legal frames by formulating critique: when including a critical intention, academia enters new stages with their own aesthetic and political modes of operation and perception. We explicitly aim to explore these stages that academic critique acts on, claiming that going beyond the idea of academia as autonomous arena of objective knowledge production means scrutinizing academic institutionalized practices. An examination of the privileged position of academic research within knowledge production and its implications seems necessary. Various interesting questions arise out of this problem:

Is social science research always political? What is the role of the university in social conflicts and how has it changed? What is the relation between radical dissent and academic practices? How do they influence each other, what barriers for exchange exist and is it desirable to overcome these barriers? If so, how should such a connection be shaped and how can it be maintained? Can academia itself be a space not of the appropriation and consumption of social experience and alternative knowledges, but their amplifier? Which role does academic knowledge production play in the reproduction of hegemony?

Also, the panel discussion will ask whether critical research should be close to critical social movement practices, and (how) can it work against perpetuating the academic privilege? Can and should knowledge production within academia transcend individual careers and be a mode of resistance and solidarity? And what implications and consequences would such a stance have for academic research?

Conference organizers: Katia Backhaus, Andreas Corcaci, Claudia Czingon, Michel de Araujo Kurth, Jonas Heller, Ronan Kaczynski, Jonathan Klein, Johanna Leinius, Marina Mateo Martinez, Jannik Pfister, Judith-Frederike Popp, David Roth-Isigkeit, Aylin Zafer and Louise Zbiranski.

The organizers would like to thank all panel convenors and discussants, and everybody at the Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders” and Goethe-University Frankfurt who made this conference possible through their continuing support, especially Nicole Deitelhoff, Désirée Dietrich, Rainer Forst, Klaus Günther, Michael Graf, Linde Storm and Rebecca Schmidt. Many thanks!


Previous Young Researcher's Conferences: click here...