Summer School - Genealogies of Diversity: Contexts and Figurations of a Controversial Concept, 9–12 October 2017, Germany

Publish Date: Feb 13, 2017

Deadline: Mar 15, 2017

Event Dates: from Oct 09, 2017 12:00 to Oct 12, 2017 12:00

About the summer school 

7th International Summer Academy of the Center for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL) Berlin, 9–12 October 2017
Call for Papers, Deadline: 15 March 2017

The upcoming ZfL Summer Academy will discuss the question of diversity from the perspective of literary and cultural studies. Our focus will be on the history of the discourse on diversity – it’s genealogy in respect to different theoretical and cultural contexts and its relation to similar concepts like hybridity or multiplicity. Of great interest are furthermore rhetoric strategies and aesthetic forms, which represent or call for diversity. We invite doctoral students and post-docs in the fields of humanities, social sciences, and philosophy to apply.

»Diversity« is a highly controversial topic in the current political debate. The reactions to the most recent wave of refugees as well as the election victories of Donald Trump in the US and other populist parties in Europe have led to intense debates, including but not limited to the question of how much and what kind of diversity is possible and desired in our societies. »Diversity« has practically turned into a battle cry, with some using it to insist on an as yet unfinished emancipation project, while others see it as a dangerous and illusory attempt to undermine national identities. However, far from the populist crowd, self-critical voices can also be heard declaring that »identity liberalism« (Mark Lilla) has failed, and levelling accusations that this approach has left true social problems by the wayside in favour of promoting »diversity«. Are we facing a new »clash of cultures«, one being fought not between different civilisations, but rather as a global conflict between an urban »cosmopolitan hybrid culture« and an identity-based »cultural essentialism« (Andreas Reckwitz)? What impact will such a conflict have on the future? Does the discourse about »diversity«, which only recently began to assert itself in Germany, still have a bright future, as the continually advancing globalisation would have us believe? Or does the term already belong to the past, and are we about to be hit by »hard times«?

Taking these conflicts as a starting point, during the Summer Academy we will employ a cultural studies perspective to investigate how we talk about diversity: Which discourses and guiding metaphors play a role in this context, and where do they stand in relation to previous conceptualisations and depictions of »differentiation« and »diversity«? Even now the discourse about diversity presents itself as highly complex and constantly switching between descriptive concept and political policy. While social scientific diversity research describes the collaboration between different (political, economic, social, cultural) factors and perceptions that generate diverse and often very heterogeneous group identities and minority subject positions, »diversity« as policy aims to provide marginalised minority positions with equal participation in society. Accordingly, »diversity« plays a role in contexts that at first glance seem totally unrelated, such as in the field of law in conjunction with affirmative action policies or the freedom of religion, in social theory, or in regard to cultural aesthetics. Taking a genealogical approach enables us to explore how exactly connections and linkages arise between different contexts.

However, what seems to hold even greater promise – particularly considering how tense the current debate is – is to take a step back and place the discourse of diversity into the context of other and older discourses that have played a central role in theoretical debates within cultural studies. This encompasses concepts such as heterogeneity, hybridity, complexity, multiculturalism, creolisation, pluralisation, polyphony, alterity, biodiversity, multitude, global assemblage or the rhizomatic desiring machine. All of these concepts describe differentiating, dynamic, and multiple life forms, societies, and individuals that are juxtaposed with homogenising and normative models that stem from previous times and are now regarded as anachronistic. They express a de-hierarchisation and pluralisation of positions, the rejection of a uniform, ubiquitously applicable order, and focus on the self-will and worth of each individual, including non-human creatures. These concepts seek to combine ways of thinking that include the academic as well as the ethical, aesthetic, and political aspects of an object. But where can we find the links between these approaches, which developed in very different political and theoretical contexts (post-structuralism, post-colonialism, ANT, chaos theory, environmentalism)? What fundamental trenches run between them, and which unchallenged premises are they based on? What utopian potential do they possess, and to what extent does the emphasis of difference also implicate a hope for a chord of many-voiced togetherness and opposition, that manages to be at least compatible if not entirely harmonious?

One important question that arises here revolves around how approaches that are so focused on differences relate to concepts of cosmopolitanism and humanism, which, by contrast, uphold the universality of specific values and human rights. This tension can be observed, for example, in UNESCO conventions that support the advancement of »cultural diversity« in the name of the »unity of mankind«. The term »biodiversity«, which stems from a UN convention in 1992 and has turned into a highly successful slogan for implementing environmental protection measures, research programs, and even exhibition strategies, has had a similarly tension-filled trajectory. When natural and cultural diversity along with the terms’ use for description and its role in political requirements are all combined, it is particularly easy to see which arguments and assumptions and historical prerequisites play a role in discourses about »diversity«.

The aim of the summer school

The aim of the Summer Academy is to establish genealogies that reach beyond the theoretical debates of the second half of the 20th century. It is notable that in epistemological liminal spaces – at the threshold between different epistemes or at the founding of new types of knowledge – the discussion often revolves around phenomena of variety and plurality that, at least at first glance, seem to resemble that which is labelled »diversity« in current debates. For example, the discovery of »society« as a research subject at the beginning of the 20th century was accompanied by intense discussions about »individualism« and »social differentiation« (Georg Simmel). In the middle of the 19th century, diversity played a decisive theoretical role in the work of Darwin and the subsequently developed theories of evolution. Here, the concept of diversity appears both as a prerequisite and as a consequence of evolutionary dynamics and is therefore deeply anchored within the theory. When Darwinist »population thinking« became liberated from the concept of variation as an (abnormal) divergence from a (essentialist) type, diversity became a natural phenomenon from which all advanced development proceeds. At the close of the 18th century, cultural theorists described the plurality of cultures and diversity of natural life forms as an »organic« and »genetic« context stemming from the same source.

And even at the start of the 18th century, a main idea of Leibniz’s theory of monadology centred on a plurality of individual creatures who all differ from each other, but whose differences are calibrated to allow them to live together as a single unit. Whether and how connections between these discourses and the current debate can be made – for example, establishing whether the value placed on cultural diversity is a result of the significance of the concept within evolutionary theory (Peter Wood 2003), must be investigated on a case by case basis. What is to be expected is that the implicit or explicit recourse to these earlier discourses has substantially contributed to how diversity is understood within subsequent debates.

The genealogical approach seeks to explore not only the history of the concept of diversity, but also the specific figurations and forms of expression of the concept. »Diversity« is not simply a theoretical concept, but is associated with a practice that is essentially also an aesthetic practice. Precisely because it defies a hierarchical structure, diversity must be shown, made visible or audible. For the arts, the search for the cohesion among manifold elements is an established part of tradition. Today, in light of the conditions of globalised modernity, a very fundamental question must be asked anew: is it even possible to depict diversity? And in so doing, is it possible to avoid giving an impression of disorder? What resources are used, what contexts are invoked, in what stories or rhetoric are such depictions embedded? Which utopian and which dystopian images of a world of diversity are circulating today?

The topicality of this aesthetic question cannot be overestimated, seeing as the political programme of diversity is accompanied by a radical change in the representation of collective belonging and individual subjectivity. Clothing styles, gestures, ways of speaking, and consumer behaviour as well as aesthetic preferences, cultural codes, and everyday practices all serve to indicate subtle differences and distinctions. Simultaneously, it must be noted that diversity is a category developed within the urban West primarily to describe post-colonial metropolitan regions, and that this category may have limited heuristic epistemic value for other parts of the world. It therefore bears exploring whether questions about identity ascription and particular interests, cultural codes and distinction gestures, but also about  a collective imaginary and state repression, are of totally different historical and cultural-political significance in post-socialist societies in Eastern Europe or the developing countries of the global south.

How do such varying local and socio-political conditions influence the opportunities available for aesthetic production and reception? As the arts and especially literature are always a medium through which to appropriate, change or question existing value concepts in fictional and affective ways and to develop alternative models or utopian visions, then the question arises as to whether a specific poetics of diversity exists that resists specific canonised forms of knowledge and power. Or does the opposite hold true, with artistic representations of diversity simply following a transcultural global style that has by now become part of the medial mainstream of constantly changing fashions and hypes that obscures the actual challenges of the present?

Our goal during this Summer Academy is to discuss projects that deal with the question of diversity from the perspective of literary or cultural studies. We invite doctoral students and post-docs in the fields of literary studies, cultural studies, art history, media studies, social sciences, the history of science, and philosophy to apply. Please send a short project outline (1 to 3 pages), explaining the topic and theoretical framework as well as the current stage of your project. During the Summer Academy we will spend equal amounts of time reading paradigmatic foundational texts together and discussing the research projects of participants. We will also enjoy keynote speeches by Emily Apter and Stefan Hirschauer and engage in discussion with our speakers.

Details

VenueZentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung, Schützenstr. 18, 10117 Berlin

Organisers: Eva Axer, Matthias Schwartz, Georg Toepfer, Daniel Weidner

Keynotes: Emily Apter (New York), Stefan Hirschauer (Mainz)

Participants: Doctoral students and post-docs (we particularly encourage applications from applicants from the USA, Eastern Europe and Israel)

Number of Participants: ca. 12 participants

Languages: German and English. Prerequisites are good listening comprehension and excellent reading ability, as the source texts will be read in the original; doctoral students are welcome to present their projects in English.

Applications: Please send a CV and 1-3 page project outline by 15 March2017 via Email to Sabine Zimmermann, zimmermann@zfl-berlin.org

Applicants will be notified by 01 April 2017.

Academy fee: 100 EUR (includes lunches and tea breaks among other things)

Applicants are responsible for their own travel and accommodation arrangements and dinner costs.

In special cases, the Center for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL) offers a reimbursement of travel costs and fees. Please submit a request, including a brief explanation and an estimate of your travel cost

For more information click "Further official iformation" below.


This opportunity has expired. It was originally published here:

http://www.zfl-berlin.org/event/genealogies-of-diversity-contexts-and-figurations-of-a-controversial-concept.html

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