REAL, IMAGINED, AND DISPLAYED FRAGILITY – VULNERABLE POSITIONS AND POSITIONING IN SOCIETY

A CONFERENCE SERIES ON CONTRADICTORY DISCOURSES OF MARGINALITY

Bremen-Turku-Warsaw-Stockholm Series on Studies in Discourse and Contradiction. BTWS Series 2018–2021 | #3

A research network at the University of Warsaw, University of Bremen, Åbo Akademi University (in Åbo/Turku) and Stockholm University address questions of social positions and positioning in a conference series on contradictory discourses of marginality and demarginalizations. 

Social positions and positioning stand in connection to linguistic practices of stance taking and staging, of making oneself heard. Questions of marginal or central membership in groups and mechanisms of belongings have a high significance in constituting voices of actors in emerging discourses. In these processes of positioning in the sense of stance taking and/or staging, contradictory discursive figurations become visible which often represent a challenge for modern democratic societies. 

The goal of the conference series is to reach an understanding of contemporary discourses shaped by contradictory configurations through in-depth analysis. The conference series is also associated with the section Discourses on Centrality and Marginality – Discourse Linguistic Agendas in Times of Contradiction at the XIV. Congress of the International Association for Germanic Studies in Palermo, Italy (IVG 2020) and the European Research Network on Discourses of Marginality and Demarginalizations.

mit Prof. Dr. Bernhard Kempen | Präsident des Deutschen Hochschulverbandes; Institut für Völkerrecht und ausländisches öffentliches Recht, Universität zu Köln.  

Nähere Veranstaltungsdetails werden zeitnah zur Verfügung stehen.

Die Kontrapunkte-Reihe ist eine Veranstaltung von Worlds of Contradiction in Kooperation mit dem Fachbereich Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften, dem Institut für Interkulturelle und Internationale Studien und dem Institut für Ethnologie und Kulturwissenschaft der Universität Bremen. Sie sind auch Teil des Kolloquiums für Politische Theorie.

*Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s YISARES Autumn Research School had to be postponed to October 2021. The exact dates will be announced shortly.*

To reach a deeper understanding of extractivist capitalism as a global logic of accumulation, this Autumn School aims at mapping its different forms across transnational spaces and emerging relational geographies including current developments in finance, logistics and digital economies. Such a mapping requires a “retooling” of theories, analytical frameworks, and methodologies that help us engage with the multiple contradictions of this particular logic of capitalism – in particular to rethink the Global South into this logic. To do so, the Autumn School will address the political economy of extractivist accumulation, its ecological and social implications, the attendant transformations of (post-)colonial knowledge, juridical and political re-orderings and authoritarian tendencies, discursive and cultural practices of legitimation, and ultimately questions of dissent, protest and resistance.

The Autumn School offers participants an outstanding learning environment with faculty members including Deval Desai, Michi Knecht, Sandro Mezzadra, Martin Nonhoff, Shalini Randeria, Ranabir Samaddar, Klaus Schlichte, Ingo H. Warnke and Ruth Wodak. The intensive interdisciplinary programme is composed of six content modules, plus a hands-on research design workshop module and includes lectures, Q&A-sessions, interactive small-group roundtable sessions, micro-group sessions, and plenary debate. The programme aims at enhancing the participants’ critical engagement with a variety of cutting-edge disciplinary approaches, and fostering lasting collaborative international exchange among students and scholars from the Global South and North.

We invite applications from outstanding MA-students, PhD-candidates and postdoctoral researchers in political, social or cultural science, geography, linguistics, law, international relations or related disciplines. Participants are selected on the basis of the quality of their applications, which includes a letter of motivation, an academic CV and a brief research proposal connected to the topic of the autumn school.

For further information about our venue please visit Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg (Institute for Advanced Study)