CFP: Challenging Collectivities

Submission deadline: April 5, 2015

Conference date(s):
October 29, 2015 - October 31, 2015

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Conference Venue:

Philosophy, Sociology, Socialpsychology, Human Geography, Political Theory, Literature, Goethe University of Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Topic areas

Details

In their political force as well as in the conditions of their constitution, collectivities entail essential ambivalences: processes of collectivization often carry totalizing tendencies with them or planish differences. At the same time, however, they possess emancipatory promise and transformative potential. Precisely because of its ambivalence, the concept of collectivity requires constant actualization and critical reflection. The ubiquity of collective phenomena warrants questioning well-established presuppositions and theories. To which constellations do we refer when we speak about collectivities? What are the forms of collectivity surrounding us today? Might concepts of collectivity and collective action-oriented political practice harbor diagnostic and emancipatory potential? Or does collectivity perforce imply serious problems and dangers?

The conference “Challenging Collectivities” raises such questions from an interdisciplinary perspective. Focusing on the role of collectivities, we want to theoretically reflect and empirically consider a wide range of contemporary phenomena. We are interested in developments such as contemporary social and political movements, the debate surrounding the so-called digital revolution associated with new forms of networking, the newly arising debate on the concept of life forms and their political or critical potentials, the relevance of a collective unconscious for the analysis of contemporary events, and discussions of global phenomena which invite us to reconsider collective formations – especially in regard to the concept of (maybe even non-human) agency. Thus, the conference engages questions concerning the conditions and forms of collective action, the social transformation that occurs in social and political movements in continuation of and/or against established models, and the manifestations of violence that occur in processes of collectivization

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