1,721,012 research outputs found
On Minor Universality
Full text linkOur contribution seeks to render intelligible minor forms of a world-consciousness generated through social and cultural practices. Departing from Zineb Sedira’s installation “Dreams Have No Titles” for the French Pavilion of the 2022 Venice Biennale and concluding with our project’s research exhibition “The Pregnant Oyster: Doubts on Universalism” at Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt, we discuss how narrative forms (beyond the book) produce experiences of a shared world. Shifting from an understanding of universality as effect of the universal in particular worlds, we return to the epistemological proposal of the microstoria (Ginzburg, Levi, Revel) to inverse this relation. In doing so, we suggest the concept of a minor univer- sality, by which we describe the genesis of a universal consciousness from concrete contexts. Our notion mobilises Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the minor through their engagement with Franz Kafka. We draw on it to address the Algerian anti-colonial struggle and the practice of sonic radio resistance described in Frantz Fanon’s “This is the Voice of Free Algeria”. Not captured through the binary of power/resis- tance, minority/majority, ours/yours, the minor produces instead a potentiality for change, for the not-yet, which foreshadows and intuits a new humanity.European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Gran
On the ends of universalism
Full text linkStarting with the times of Napoleon Bonaparte and the nexus between
European universalism and imperialism, ending with the 1989 scenario and its
global implications, this essay analyses the ends of European universalism. It
does so in a double sense by addressing its interests and objectives, as well as the
end of its legitimation in the times we live in. Through amontage of historical and
philosophical constellations from1769 to 2019, ranging fromGoethe and Champollion
to Max Lingner and Frantz Fanon, Alain Mabanckou and Camille de Toledo,
it seeks to understand the promises and hopes that universalismwas carrying, as
well as the deceptions and losses that were caused by its epistemic implication in
power relations. The history of universal progress entails a dialectics of contestation
and provincialisation, both in a European and in a global perspective. If 1989
has left us with an end of utopia, then we need to understand this history to draw
hope for a minor universality.ERC Consolidator Grant "Minor UNiversality
Montaigne und die kulturelle Differenz. Ein Parcours durch den Mittelmeerraum und die italienischen Städte
No full textThis essay highlights Montaigne’s perception of the power relationships and cultural constellations of the Mediterranean, his tendency to place the Mediterranean in a wider context and to question the legitimacy of mediterranean-centric narratives. It examines particularly some passages from the "Journal de voyage" where Montaignes focus his attention on certain hybridizations in the society, architecture, language of Italian cities
Existential present: The moment as a threshold to humanit
Full text linkThe conversations leading to this publication were supported by the project “Minor Universality. Narrative World Productions After Western Universalism”, which received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (Grant no. 819931)
The Mediterranean Sea as border space: a geo-literary analysis
Full text linkDer Schwerpunkt meiner Dissertation liegt auf der Analyse der Art und Weise, wie das Mittelmeer als Grenzraum in fünf literarischen Werken, die von 2005 bis heute erschienen sind, dargestellt und wiedergegeben wird. Indem ich das Mittelmeer sowohl als Gegenstand der ästhetischen Darstellung behandle, analysiere ich diese Werke, um die Symbolik der maritimen Grenzen zu untersuchen. Auf diese Weise versuche ich, ein Paradigma für das Verständnis der Mittelmeer-Grenze als dynamisches, vielschichtiges, allgegenwärtiges, (un)sichtbares und performatives Konstrukt zu entwickeln. Der Korpus der Analyse umfasst literarische Werke, die im Mittelmeerraum veröffentlicht wurden, und sich mit dem Thema der clandestine migration, der Transmigration und der Abwanderung befasst.
Die fünf Grenzromane umfassen verschiedene Genres, darunter die bio-fiktionale Erzählung von Catozzella Non dirmi che hai paura (2014) [Sag nicht, dass du Angst hast (2016)], die spekulativ Fiktion von Charfi Le Baiser de Lampedusa (2011), die composite novel von Lalami Hope and other dangerous pursuits (2005) [Hoffnung und andere gefährliche Bestrebungen], der Kriminalroman von Pajares Aguas de venganza (2016) [Gewässer der Rache] und der realistische, teilweise volksmärchenhafte Roman, von Khaal African Titanics (2008, Englische Übersetzung. 2014), die zur Inszenierung kritischer Untersuchungen über die maritime Grenze werden. Die Dissertation schlägt eine geo-literarische Lesart der Grenzliteratur vor, die sich aus einem breiten Korpus theoretischer Schriften über Grenzen aus den Sozial und Geisteswissenschaften – Kultur und Literaturwissenschaften – herausarbeitet. Das Projekt richtet sich darauf aus, diese beiden Disziplinen miteinander ins Gespräch zu bringen, indem der soziokulturelle, literarische und politische Beitrag der Grenzliteratur berücksichtigt wird. In diesem Sinne ist meine Dissertation ein Beitrag zu Border Studies, Border Aesthetics und Mediterranean Studies.The primary focus of my dissertation is the analysis of the ways in which the Mediterranean Sea is rendered and modeled as a border space in five border literary works published from 2005 to the present. Treating the Mediterranean Sea as both the topic of literary analysis and the element of aesthetic representation, I investigate these works to examine the imageries of the maritime border as they transpire in literature. In so doing, I am seeking to provide a paradigm for comprehending the Mediterranean border as a dynamic, multi-scaled, ubiquitous, (in)visible and performative construct. The corpus of analysis comprises of literary works published in different languages and countries, notably from around the Mediterranean Sea, that address the theme of clandestine migration, transmigration, relocation and the social and cultural challenges they bring forth. The five border novels span genres, including bio-fictional narrative, Catozzella's Non dirmi che hai paura (2014) [Don't tell me you are afraid (2016)], speculative fiction, Charfi's Le Baiser de Lampedusa (2011), composite novel, Lalami's Hope and other dangerous pursuits (2005), detective fiction, Pajares' Aguas de venganza (2016) [Waters of revenge] and realist one interlaid with folktales, Khaal's African Titanics (2008 English transl. 2014), becoming the staging of critical investigations about the maritime border. The dissertation proposes a geo-literary reading of border fiction, working its way out from a large body of theoretical writing on borders born of the social sciences and the humanities — cultural studies and literary criticism. The project aims to put these two larger disciplines into conversation with one another by taking into consideration the socio-cultural, literary and political contribution of border fiction. In this line, my dissertation is a contribution to Border Studies, Border Aesthetics, and Mediterranean Studies
Multilingual Literatures and the Production of Universality Through Translation: Cassin, Diagne, Tawada
Full text linkDoes the failure of European universalism imply that we should get ridof the universal as a pernicious idea or does it, on the contrary, reveal the ur-gency of defining a truly universal concept of universality? In the current debatetouching both societal and geopolitical issues, philosophers Barbara Cassin andSouleymane Bachir Diagne position themselves similarly, both tracing the episte-mic dimension of the problem back to the beginning of the European history ofideas. Considering the abstract logos of philosophy as the bedrock of a“pathologyof the universal”(Cassin)–in Diagne’s words an“overarching”,“imperial”uni-versal–they put it to the empirical test of translation. My paper argues that thestrategy of“untranslatables”that they explore is also at work in contemporarymultilingual literature and examines the political potential of its poetic thinking.If writers are capable of letting the reader experience this“more complex”(Cassin)or“lateral”(Diagne) universality on the basis of translingual poetics, then they areprivileged protagonists in the intellectual debate outlined above.This article was written up during a postdoctoral fellowship of the European Consolidator Grant project 'Minor Universality. Narrative World Productions After Western Universalism', which received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement No. 819931)
Un cénotaphe littéraire pour les morts sans sépulture : Mathias Énard en thanatographe
No full textCet article est consacré au roman ZoneZone (2008) de Mathias Énard, un roman qui donne la parole à Francis, un vétéran de la guerre de Croatie devenu espion au service de la République française. Les listes de victimes, de bourreaux et de crimes de guerre que le narrateur ressasse en un flux monologique de 512 pages, rythment ce roman qui prend, avec sa structure paratactique, le caractère d’une liste, en référence à son intertexte central : l’auteur yougoslave Danilo KišKi , Danilo. Énard s’inscrit ainsi dans la tradition de la thanatographie, une écriture portant sur l’expérience de la mort violente. Tel son modèle, il a recours à une stratégie élaborée de l’abréviation et de l’énumération, déplaçant l’évocation de l’horreur du niveau manifeste du texte au niveau latent
Neue Ansätze in der Frankophonieforschung
Full text linkZu:
Mende, Silke. 2020. Ordnung durch Sprache. Francophonie zwischen Nationalstaat, Imperium und internationaler Politik, 1860-1960 (Studien zur Internationalen Geschichte, Bd. 47), Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter/Oldenburg.
Messling, Markus. 2019. Universalität nach dem Universalismus. Über frankophone Literaturen der Gegenwart. Berlin: Matthes und Seitz
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