20 Sept 2015

CFP



Forms of Appearances of the Political in Contemporary Democracies 1/6


IDENTIFYING THE POLITICAL
Conceptual Analysis: Rhetoric, Poetics and Populist Talk in Contemporary Politics

University of Latvia (Main Building, Raiņa bulvāris 19). February 22-23, 2016.


The Nordic Summer University (NSU) study group Forms of Appearances of the Political in Contemporary Democracies announces a CFP for its winter symposium. The first session of the group will be organized  in cooperation with the Latvian University in Riga, Latvia.

The topic, Identifying the Political, will address the verbal play and its connection to physical presences of today’s political reality and approach it from the point of view of social, artistic, aesthetic and cultural analysis.

By focusing on the conceptual base of the appearances of the political we wish to articulate clearly the artistic, aesthetic and cultural forces underlying today’s political thinking. We also want to inaugurate a debate on the role of cultural approaches in political analysis. To really discuss the political we need to establish a deeper understanding of the key concepts and their cultural extensions before elaborating on other forms of investigating them.

This could, for example, be related to the impact of concepts like migration / refugee. What cultural significance do these (or any similar politically explosive) concepts anchor to?

We wish to break new paths in connecting the cultural humanities and the political sciences. This symposium thus invites the participants to explore bravely new ways of studying the issue. We believe that experimentation is crucial for rethinking the political.

Our partner in the winter session 2016 is the University of Latvia in Riga and we collaborate closely with Pauls Daija, Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art & the Faculty of Theology.


About the Study Group

The intention of Forms of Appearances of the Political in Contemporary Democracies is to create a platform for future collaborations and applications, and to exchange knowledge and share common interest. It is important for the group to consult a variety of fields as broad as possible including political theory, philosophy, communication, social sciences and cultural studies, and we hope that scholars from all areas of interest would join us.

Participating in this first meeting of the group does not imply any obligation for participating in future meetings. We hope, however, that participants will be involved in building a strong community on this topic for future activities reflecting the diversity of interests in the community. Future seminars will focus on History, Material Culture, Activism, Political Art and Aesthetics in the Everyday, and Communication. The list of sites for the study circle is planned to be of the following order: Riga, Orivesi (NSU Summer Camp), Bratislava, St. Petersburg, Berlin (NSU Summer Camp) and Copenhagen, but changes and additions might apply. And we are open to any propositions concerning collaboration partners and sites.

We invite proposals for presentations addressing different problems relating to this call. We hope that academicians, artists, students, third sector agents and intellectuals would participate. Please don’t hesitate to ask any questions from the coordinators!

Format of presentation can be either:
15 minutes presentation + 15 minutes discussion
or
30 minutes presentation + 10 minutes discussion.
Please indicate your wish in the abstract!

We encourage you to give an oral presentation, i.e. no dry reading of a paper or reading from texts on power points (use power points for pictures, illustration of similar material). What matters is the content and what you have to say, not the rhetorical performance. Any form of experimental presentation is very much welcomed.

Submit an abstract (300-500 words) via e-mail to the coordinators Max Ryynänen & Carsten Friberg: max.ryynanen@nsuweb.org and/or carsten.friberg@nsuweb.org.
If you wish to participate without giving a presentation, please write a short (150-300 words) description of yourself.

Deadline of submitting: November 30, 2015.

The applications will be viewed ASAP. Applicants will be notified of their acceptance no later than December 15. Preliminary program will be announced late December 2015.

Later submission is possible but we will prioritize early submissions.

The participation fee:
Students, unemployed and freelancers €30
Baltic students €10
Others €50.

We will use the fees to cover some food and other expenses for the participants.

Please bookmark the blog of the study circle: http://appearancesofthepolitical.blogspot.com.

Link to the Nordic Summer University here.

18 Sept 2015

Appearances of the Political in

Appearances of the political.


This study circle aims at investigating the aesthetic appearance and the experiences of the political in contemporary democracies. What form does the political have today? How do we make sense out of it?

By the political we understand political acts and manifestations in all forms including not only debates and decisions but also institutional and material organization as well as communication and actions of everyday living. The political is thus a wider notion than political institutions and philosophies; it includes how our everyday is embedded in ideologies forming our thoughts and actions.

The focus on appearance is a focus on forms in which the political appears, thus a question of
aesthetics and aestheticization. This, again, covers a wide range of phenomena fromthe direct use of
aesthetic means in the staging and presentation of politicians and events of political significance to the
organization of our environment. A central phenomenon is the way the media aestheticizes politics
making the media the heart of the everyday both for what is said and how it is said.

This topic is covered by a variety of disciplines such as aesthetics, rhetoric, communication, material culture studies, anthropology, sociology, gender studies, pedagogy, and philosophy. The aim of the study circle is to bring these different disciplines into dialogue based on expertise in each discipline and the importance of including knowledge from other disciplines.

Full presentation - note the aim is identical to the short presentation so im case the full presentation os placed after the short presentation it may not make sense to repeat this part.
Aim of the proposal

This study circle aims at investigating the aesthetic appearance and the experiences of the political in contemporary democracies. What form does the political have today? How do we make sense out of it?

By the political we understand political acts and manifestations in all forms including not only debates and decisions but also institutional and material organization as well as communication and actions of everyday living. The political is thus a wider notion than political institutions and philosophies; it includes how our everyday is embedded in ideologies forming our thoughts and actions.

The focus on appearance is a focus on forms in which the political appears, thus a question of
aesthetics and aestheticization. This, again, covers a wide range of phenomena fromthe direct use of
aesthetic means in the staging and presentation of politicians and events of political significance to the
organization of our environment. A central phenomenon is the way the media aestheticizes politics
making the media the heart of the everyday both for what is said and how it is said.

This topic is covered by a variety of disciplines such as aesthetics, rhetoric, communication, material culture studies, anthropology, sociology, gender studies, pedagogy, and philosophy. The aim of the study circle is to bring these different disciplines into dialogue based on expertise in each discipline and the importance of including knowledge from other disciplines.


The work of the study circle
Themes of the circle, corresponding to the six seminars:

- Conceptual analysis. The intention of the study circle is to create a platform for future collaborations and applications. This makes it crucial to establish a conceptual common ground making explicit the understanding of key concepts and elaborating on different forms of investigation to create a platform for sharing common interest and exchanging of knowledge. It is important for the circle to consult more fields including political theory, philosophy, communication, social sciences and cultural studies.

- Historical. For a common platform serves also analysis of 20th century phenomena. The '60s and '70s displayed a wide range of new forms of appearances of political activities like, for example, personal appearance in fashion and anti-fashion including specific styles like punk and fetishizing expressions of military forms of guerrilla soldiers and freedom fighters. Also the cold war had many forms of political expressions in both Soviet idea of political form and free market informed ideology.

- Material culture. Public space is planned and organised in accordance with particular political ideas, not least of free market and consume. Functionalist architecture has displayed ideas of educating the modern citizen while also enhancing specific, unintended, ideas of modern life such as individualism as goes the Situationist critique.
In similar fashion design contributes to forming physical space in accordance with ideologies and intentions. Design is important for how we view space: how it is accessible, hierarchies, limitation of certain actions. Design is also used for changing actions like forming social and environmental sustainability.

- Activism. Since the1960s the active forms of the political have been plural from marches and manifestations over interventions and happenings to more radical forms like occupations and violent forms such as terrorism. In recent years we have witnessed a revitalisation of mass movements by use of internet and social media, creation of new movements like Occupy and Indignados, and new activities like the hacktivism of Anonymous. In relation to environment we find guerrilla gardening along with local protests against corporate use of natural resources engaging people across traditional political groupings. Many forms of activism also face political resistance defining - or redefining - the political space threatening democratic rights with agendas of terrorism challenging or reshape the space for political activism.

- Political arts and aesthetics in the Everyday. The power’s have always had an alliance with art defining and supporting art as official appearance of the ruling ideology. This is no less the case today, the powers only have changed from kings to consensual ideologies in the democracies. At the same time a whole margin of contemporary art is actually activist, having impact both in politics and the art world. A possible case to look into is the Ultracontemporary biennale in Copenhagen 2017. This will be studied with cooperation with political artists. Artistic research and experimental artistic work will so meet the already cross-scientific work of the circle, and help to both mirror it and to provide new alternative ways of looking at the subject.

- Communication. Media have in many ways changed our ways of communication, both concerning content and form. The use of social media can be seen as an expansion of the public debate becoming easy accessible to all, though also changing ethical standards of what can be said as well as changing discourses from arguments into statements. They are also operating on terms not known, like algorithms, and becoming a battlefield for political and economic powers deeply embedded in different forms of control.


Nordic relevance
While there are more individuals and institutions in the Nordic/Baltic area concerned with studies in topics related to aesthetics and cultural studies there are, to our knowledge, not an established strategy or even research groups dedicated to studying the appearances of the political in our culture combining research from a philosophical/conceptual approach with also analysis of specific cases using skills of social and human sciences. The big issue is as well to bring in aesthetic inquiry into the world of politics.

Political engagement and communication is rapidly changing these years. The Nordic countries have a tradition for an inclusive democracy through institutions such as unions and NGOs as well as citizen’s groups related to specific topics. To develop analysis of this forms also an important starting point for discussing different forms of appearances as well as sharing experiences between Nordic traditions and other European countries.

The theme of the circle makes is obvious that activities are not only of interest for researchers but also for a wider public with whom the circle should aim at having more dialogues both for learning from practice and also for informing practice.


Methodological considerations for the running of the study circle

Motivation
The political in democracies seems to become both present in an increasing plurality of forms as well as to disappear or at least to be emptied of political content.
Modern media seems, as one example, an invitation to a more widespread and elaborate appearance of the political offering both access to news and information as well as participation. Social media has rapidly taken a central position in many political acts, however also contributing to transforming political discourses into easy and non-committal opinions. Similar the political communication is becoming a professionalised activity of political communication and new-speech where the political debate is more a matter of the form of presentation than ideas and visions. This contributes to influencing the participation in the political life and to mistrust in politicians and political institutions. Parallel to this the public space becomes increasingly appropriated by consume and market as an ideology forming public space thus public opinion. Such phenomena could be seen as examples of how the political debate and awareness is becoming suppressed in western societies.
The motivation of the study-circle is found in experiences of how the political is made present, in how these forms are developing and transformed, and in what consequences these forms of appearance have.

Plan
Winter 2016, Riga
Conceptual analysis

Summer 2016
Historical

Winter 2017, Saint Petersburg
Material culture

Summer 2017
Activism

Winter 2018, Tallinn
Political art and aesthetics in the Everyday

Summer 2018
Communication