January 20, 2025
Book Launch and Symposium
We are happy to present our work and project at the Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung in Berlin on January 20, 2025. The event, which is open to the pubic, is hosted by Patrick Eiden-Offe and will present our recent publications and work projects. Find out more here.
December 12, 2024
New Publication: Welcome to Fear City
A further installment of The Arts of Autonomy: A Living Anthology of Polemical Literature is now online. The anthology is expanded on a rolling basis and is hosted on the Hypotheses platform: https://artsautonomy.hypotheses.org/
Council for Public Safety: Welcome to Fear City. A Survival Guide for Visitors to the City of New York.
Edited by Sakina Shakil Gröppmaier.
Available here.
December 4, 2024
Guest Lecture - HKB Bern
David Bebnowski will be giving a guest lecture at the Hochschule der Künste Bern (HKB), Switzerland, on 4th December. The lecture discusses the interconnections of printed matter and pressure as a political force by focusing on pamphlets from various fields and journals of the New Left and the New Right in Germany and other states.
December 10, 2024
Guest Lecture – Janet Lyon
We are happy to welcome Professor Janet Lyon (Pennsylvania State University) for a guest lecture. Janet Lyon’s Manifestoes: Provocations of the Modern has been a seminal text for much of the scholarship on polemical cultures.
The lecture takes place on December 10, 2024 at 18:00 and is open to the public.
December, 2024
Conference: Macropolitics and Microtexts
Pierre-Héli Monot will address the Institute of Language Studies and Research, Kolkata, upon invitation by Prof. Anindya Sekhar Purakayastha on December 16. His paper, entitled Macropolitics and Microtexts: A Brief Transnational History of Local Protest, discusses the recent emergence of a global archive of polemical literature and its historical precedents in political history.
November 20, 2024
Guest Lecture: Gloria Fears-Heinzel
We are happy to host Gloria Fears-Heinzel (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt) for an online guest lecture on Wednesday, November 20 at 16:15.
Gloria Fears-Heinzel’s dissertation project was inspired by previous research for their M.A. thesis which dealt with the effects of sexism and machismo on Black women leaders of the Black Panther Party during the 1960s and -70s. On Wednesday, they will be providing an overview of their thesis, as well as a case study from two research trips to libraries and archives across the U.S., made possible by a generous grant from the Gerda Henkel foundation.
October 31, 2024
Doctoral Defense - Sakina Shakil Gröppmaier
Sakina Shakil Gröppmaier will defend her thesis on Thursday October 31st, 14-16, at the Amerika-Institut. This will be a hybrid event. To register, please contact: Sakina.Groeppmaier@lmu.de
October 18, 2024
New Publication: Murray Rothbard's Populist Blueprint
David Bebnowski recently published an essay in the special issue "(Re)Imagining Flyover Fictions" of the Journal of the Austrian Association for American Studies (JAAAS). In his essay "Murray Rothbard's Populist Blueprint: Paleo-Libertarianism and the Ascent of the Political Right", David offers a close reading of the 1992 pamphlet "Right-wing Populism: A Strategy for the Paleo Movement" by libertarian intellectual Murray Rothbard. By focusing on the key strategic considerations contained within the pamphlet and its political implications, David shows that Rothbard designed a new – and by now very familiar – route to political influence for the Right. Central to Rothbard's strategy was "outreach to the rednecks," who served as a constituency for an emerging "paleo-coalition" of paleo-conservatives and paleo-libertarians. These strategic goals proposed ways for the American Right to appeal to the "real people" as the core imaginary in populist politics. Relying on the concept of flyover, David shows that these right-wing libertarian ideas made it possible to position conservative politics and the political Right as anti-establishment forces advocating for the interests of Middle Americans. Donald Trump's political ascent is characteristic of this vision.
October 19, 2024
New Publication: Activist Writing: History, Politics, Rhetoric
We are happy to announce the publication of our edited collection Activist Writing: History, Politics, Rhetoric, edited by Pierre-Héli Monot, David Bebnowski, and Sakina Shakil Gröppmaier. This collection is published open-access by intercom Verlag (Zurich).
Historically, the printed word is arguably the single most important infrastructure for activist politics. The essays gathered in this volume explore crucial examples of activist writing in sociological, historical, and literary-theoretical perspective. Together, they show that manifestos, pamphlets, open letters, and polemical speeches have left a significant imprint on the political fabric of Modernity. As a political practice, pamphleteering has continually remoulded available forms of democratic participation, thus fundamentally shaping contemporary concepts of activism.
With contributions by David Bebnowski, Dustin Breitenwischer, Sakina Shakil Gröppmaier, Laura Handl / Carsten Junker, Pierre-Héli Monot, Stefanie Kremmel, Nils C. Kumkar, Juliane Prade-Weiss / Vladimir Petrović, Florian Sedlmeier, Christoph Streb, and Daphne Weber. Find out more here.
October 2024
New Publication: Murray Rothbard and the New Right-Wing Populism
David Bebnowski recently published an essay in the online edition of the German newspaper DIE ZEIT together with Quinn Slobodian (Boston University). In their essay, David and Quinn focused on the libertarian intellectual Murray Rothbard and his influence on the global New Right. By paying special attention to Rothbard's 1992 pamphlet "Right-wing Populism: A Strategy for the Paleo Movement," they outline strategic considerations behind the political ascent of politicians like Donald Trump and Argentinian president Javier Milei. But the impact of right-wing libertarianism was not limited to politics in the Americas: around 2000, the German New Right also remodeled itself in line with the rising influence of Rothbard's libertarian movement. Thus, these libertarian approaches also help to explain the founding and rise of the German far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).
Murray Rothbard (1926–1995), Wiki Commons, Ludwig von Mises Institute, Creative Commons 3.0
Summer 2024
July 24, 2024
Conference - Manifesto Now!
We are happy to give a joint paper at the upcoming Manifesto Now! conference. The event takes place on Wednesday, July 24 at the Technical University of Dresden. Pierre-Héli Monot and David Bebnowski will present their recent work and discuss current transformations of pamphleteering. Find out mere here.
Edit:
June 28
New Publication – Hedwig Dohm
David Bebnowski recently published an essay in the German newspaper Neues Deutschland on the early German feminist Hedwig Dohm on the occasion of the 105th anniversary of her death. In the essay, David focuses on Dohm’s rhetorical vehemence, her political radicality, and recalls that she was one of the most determined and earliest advocates of female suffrage in 19th-century Germany.
Hedwig Dohm (1831–1919) in 1870 at age 39. Public domain.
June 17, 2024
Conference Paper — Radical Press and Radical Pressure
David Bebnowski took part in a presentation of his most recent article, “Radical Press and Radical Pressure,” in the Austrian Journal of Historical Studies at the University of Vienna on June 17, 2024. Under the headline “Revolution and Gender,” this presentation was part of the retirement celebrations organized for Prof. Dr. Gabriella Hauch, who co-edited the special issue on “Radicalities,” of which David’s essay is a part.
Picture taken by Johannes Hloch: hloch.at.
May 22, 2024
Guest Lecture – Anya Shchetvina
We are happy to host Anya Shchetvina (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) for a guest lecture on Wednesday, May 22 from 16:00-18:00 online. Anya Shchetvina will speak about digital manifestos and society-building between the 1980s and 2020s. For registration and more information, please contact: p.monot@lmu.de
May 16, 2024
New Publication – Radical Press and Radical Pressure
David Bebnowski recently published a new essay entitled “Radikaler Druck – Druckerzeugnisse und Radikalitäten in der zweiten Welle des Feminismus in den USA" (en. "Radical Press and Radical Pressure. Printed Matter, Pamphlets and Radicalities in US Second Wave Feminism"). The second wave of feminism, starting in the 1960s and continuing through the 1970s, was a period of feminist resurgence. Contemporaries witnessed an emerging network of radical feminists who fiercely attacked male-centred society and intensely questioned the roles women had traditionally played in the United States. The semantic identity of pressure and the press in German (Druck) allows for the application of the term “Druckerzeugnisse” in order to analyze the functions of pamphlets across a range of radical feminist activism. The essay draws on influential pamphlets by groups such as the Redstockings, Cell 16, The Feminists or individual authors such as Valerie Solanas or “Joreen”. By analyzing these pamphlets, the essay follows three aims. Firstly, the second wave of feminism is portrayed as a densification of radical feminist discourse. Secondly, similarities between a variety of feminist self-understandings are traced. Thirdly, the different, often opposing political standpoints are pointed out in order to map the networks of radical feminism. The essay was published in the Austrian Journal of Historical Studies as apart of the special issue Was ist radikal?, edited by Theresa Adamski and Gabriella Hauch. The journal features a host of contributions from different authors that shed light on different understandings of radicalism. All articles are available open access.
May 15, 2024
New Publications
Three further installments of The Arts of Autonomy: A Living Anthology of Polemical Literature are now online. The anthology is expanded on a rolling basis and is hosted on the Hypotheses platform: https://artsautonomy.hypotheses.org/
Aristophanes: The Clouds (Νεφέλαι)
Translated by Ian Johnston
Edited by Pierre-Héli Monot
Available here.
Make it stand out
March 20, 2024
Conference — Sorbonne
Pierre-Héli Monot will be giving a paper at the Sorbonne on March 20, 2024. The paper discusses the American Indian Movement and its understanding of resistance. A programme is forthcoming.
Image: Unknown author, “Photograph of American Indian Protest in Seattle, Washington”, National Archives at College Park - Archives II
March 11, 2024
Conference — Censorship
Pierre-Héli Monot will take part in a round table at the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften on March 11. The round table focuses on the contradictions of censorship in democratic societies. A programme is available here.
Image: A scene from the BBC One documentary Da Vinci: The Lost Treasure. Genitals censored by NTV television of Turkey. Aired on October 20, 2012.
March 7, 2024
Conference — Le Mot Juste
Pierre-Héli Monot will be giving a paper at the the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI) Essen, Germany, on March 7. The paper discusses polemical tropes against the backdrop of the emergence of “tact”, “politeness”, and social grace during the Enlightenment. A programme is available here.
Image: Louis-Michel van Loo, “Portrait of Denis Diderot”, 1767, Musée du Louvre
January 30, 2024
Guest Lecture: Breanne Fahs
As part of our research group's lecture series, we will be hosting Breanne Fahs (Arizona State University) on Tuesday, January 30 and would like to invite you all to join. The event is co-organized by our ERC project "The Arts of Autonomy" and the DFG project "The Upsurge of the Manifesto" (TU Dresden).
Breanne Fahs is a feminist literary scholar who has published extensively on the genre of the feminist manifesto. In her talk, she will discuss the impact of manifestos and provocative political literature on the public and their general relevance for political protest. Breanne Fahs' talk, entitled "Radical Provocations: Scum, Feminism, and Reading Publics", will take place as an online event and will be hosted via Zoom from 17:00 (c.t.) to 19:00. For registration and more information, please contact: d.bebnowski@lmu.de
January 5, 2024
Conference, Philadelphia
Pierre-Héli Monot will be giving a paper at the Annual Meeting of the Modern Language Association in Philadelphia on January 5. The paper discusses the affordances of print culture, the virtues of anonymity, and literary circulation among combat troops. A programme is available here.
January 10, 2024
Guest Lecture: Martin Puchner (Harvard)
We are happy to host Martin Puchner (Harvard University) for a guest lecture on Wednesday, January 10 from 16:00-18:00 at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Political manifestos, which emerged in the 19th century, and art manifestos, which emerged in the early 20th century, have been important tools for activism. So why are recent protest movements shying away from this genre? And what happens when groups and individuals nevertheless issue manifestos today? We look forward to discussing such questions and more. For registration and more information, please contact: Sakina.Groeppmaier@lmu.de
We hope to see you there!
November 14, 2023
Project Presentation, Tübingen
David Bebnowski will be speaking about his current work at the University of Tübingen on November 14. David will present the foundational ideas that structure his book project „Feministischer Druck: Druckerzeugnisse, Gegenöffentlichkeiten, Mobilisierung in Deutschland und den USA (1848-2000)" in the Examenskolloquium Zeitgeschichte hosted by Prof. Dr. Sonja Levsen.
October 16, 2023
New Publication – The Riot Grrrl Manifesto
A further installment of The Arts of Autonomy: A Living Anthology of Polemical Literature is now online. The anthology is expanded on a rolling basis and is hosted on the Hypotheses platform: https://artsautonomy.hypotheses.org/
The Riot Grrrl Manifesto
A Commented Edition a Facsimile of the Original Manifesto and Contextual Sources
Edited by David Bebnowski and Gregory Jones-Katz
Download here.
September 11, 2023
New Publication – Recoding the Proletariat
David Bebnowski recently published a new essay entitled "Die Umkodierung des Proletariats: Druckerzeugnisse im Kampf der NSDAP um die Arbeiterschaft" (engl. "Recoding the Proletariat: NSDAP Pamphlets in the Fight to Win over the Working Class"). By analyzing selected pamphlets (“Druckerzeugnisse”) from the election campaigns for the decisive German elections in the early 1930s, the article depicts efforts of the German fascist party NSDAP to target working class voters and win their support. Bebnowski shows that the NSDAP reminded workers of the revolutionary ideals of the labor movement. In this way, the party was able to depict the social democratic SPD and the communist KPD as traitors to the cause of revolutionary labor and set itself apart as a political alternative to established politics. Although the NSDAP was not able to win over a majority of working-class voters, it made significant gains that contributed to the Nazi seizure of power. The essay has been published in the book Kleinformate im Umbruch: Mobile Medien für Widerstand und Kooperation (1918–1933) (engl. Short Formats in Upheaval: Mobile Media for Resistance and Cooperation [1918-1933]) (eds. Caroline Adler, Maddalena Casarini, and Daphne Weber, Berlin: De Gruyter 2023). The book features a host of contributions from different authors that shed light on the crisis of the Weimar Republic through the lens of short formats. All articles are available open access.
Wahlplakate zur Reichstagswahl 1932, Georg Pahl, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en>, via Wikimedia Commons
July 12, 2023
Guest Lecture – Ivan Stacy, Beijing Normal University
We are happy to to host Ivan Stacy for a guest lecture entitled "Of Big and Small Characters: Reflections on Pamphlets and Posters in Contemporary Chinese Fiction". The title of this talk refers to the interplay between what are known as "big character posters" and the physically smaller writing in political pamphlets, both of which enable forms of expression that can lie on a spectrum between support of authority and dissent. This talk argues that this ambivalence with regard to the efficacy of pamphlets and posters in terms of achieving their goals, such as those issued during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), is evident in contemporary Chinese fiction, such as writings by Yu Hua, Mo Yan, Su Tong, Yan Lianke and Sheng Keyi, that looks back on periods of ideological ferment.
June 23, 2023
New Publication: „Mit Druckerzeugnissen Druck erzeugen”
David Bebnowski has published a new essay entitled "Mit Druckerzeugnissen Druck erzeugen ‒ Flugschriften als Quellen für die Intellectual History der Neuen Linken als Konfliktgeschichte." The piece uses the double meaning of the word "Druck," which in German signifies "print" and "pressure"; this doubleness is also reflected in other languages (such as "press" and "pressure" in English). David exercises this non-hierachical dual meaning of "Druck" to subsume different genres of pamphletary literature under the term "Druckerzeugnisse." This conceptual umbrella, it is argued, includes pieces of literature that express the standpoints of actors involved in political conflicts. Thus, examining "Druckerzeugnisse" provides an opportunity to study the articulation of political conflict and can contribute to an understanding of intellectual history as a history of conflict. David demonstrates his thesis on pamphlets from the German New Left ranging from the 1950s to the 1970s, while the narrative he presents challenges existing views of a rise and fall of a leftist project and the often-connected diagnosis of the Long Sixties. The essay is published in the most recent volume of the "Internationales Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur."
Image: Ludwig Binder, Studentenrevolte 1967/68, West-Berlin; veröffentlicht vom Haus der Geschichte, Von Stiftung Haus der Geschichte - 2001_03_0275.0011, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43392914
June 19, 2023
Fulbright American Studies Award 2023 goes to Dr. David Bebnowski
We are happy to announce that Dr. David Bebnowski has received the Fulbright American Studies Award 2023 (10.000€) to advance his studies on feminist pamphleteering in the United States and Germany and for his general academic achievements. While a Fulbright fellow, David will also serve as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University in August 2023 and in February 2024. At the Schlesinger Library, he will do archival work for his book project "Feminist Pressure." We congratulate David on this accomplishment and are grateful to the Fulbright Foundation and the German Association for American Studies (GAAS) for selecting him as the recipient of this prestigious award.
June 6, 2023
Guest Lecture – The Agency of Short Forms
We are happy to welcome Dr. Florian Fuchs (Freie Universität Berlin) for a guest lecture on “The Agency of Short Forms: On Topical Speech”. Florian Fuchs recently published Civic Storytelling: The Rise of Short Forms and the Agency of Literature with Zone Books. The guest lecture will take place on Tuesday, June 6 and is open to the public.
May 20, 2023
Conference Paper: Why Write?
Pierre-Héli Monot will be giving a paper on May 23 at the American Studies Research Colloquium at Goethe-Universität Frankfurt. His talk presents some of the main research models of the research project “The Arts of Autonomy”. A program is available here.
May 10, 2023
New Publications: A Living Anthology of Polemical Literature
Two further installments of The Arts of Autonomy: A Living Anthology of Polemical Literature are now online. The anthology is expanded on a rolling basis and is hosted on the Hypotheses platform: https://artsautonomy.hypotheses.org/
Volume 8:
The Book of Mozi: Chapter 39. ‘Against the Confucians’ (Fei Ru Xia).
A Commented Edition with Contextual Sources
Edited by Pierre-Héli Monot.
Dowload here.
Volume 9:
The Ostend Manifesto
A Commented Edition Including Contextual Sources and a Facsimile of Buchanan, Mason, and Soulé’s Original Pamphlet
Edited by Gregory Jones-Katz
Download here.
March 31, 2023
Conference, Sorbonne – Universality and its Aesthetic Forms
Pierre-Héli Monot will be speaking about his current work at the Sorbonne on March 31. The conference centers on the “crises of the universal” that have washed over entire segments of the philosophical tradition. Pierre-Héli Monot will contend that universality has, if anything, lost some of its aspirational value: the universalisation of access to universal rights, i.e. the universalisation of conditions of access to universality itself, was once an undisputed horizon of emancipation, and should remain so. A programme is available here.
Image: Star cluster Westerlund 2 in the Milky Way galaxy. Source: NASA.
Febrary 22, 2023
Conference, Chicago – Political Hypocrisy: Surrealism and the Aesthetics of Moral Rectitude
Pierre-Héli Monot will be giving a paper at the 2023 Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association in Chicago on March 18. The paper deals with the ethical transgressions of one of the great polemical movements in 20th-century literature. A program is available here.
Credit: Eudyptula minor (blue penguin) and six-pack yoke, January 1997. Auckland Museum, CCBY.
February 22, 2023
New Publications: A Living Anthology of Polemical Literature
Two further installments of The Arts of Autonomy: A Living Anthology of Polemical Literature are now online. The anthology is expanded on a rolling basis and is hosted on the Hypotheses platform: https://artsautonomy.hypotheses.org/
Volume 6:
Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale: What We Want Now!, What We Believe: The Black Panther Party Ten-Point Platform and Program
A Commented Edition Including a Facismile of the Black Panther’s Original Pamphlet and Contextual Sources
Edited by Gregory Jones-Katz
Direct download here.
Volume 7:
Collective: The Trail of Broken Treaties 20-Point Position Paper: An Indian Manifesto
A Commented Edition with Contextual Sources
Edited by Pierre-Héli Monot
Direct download here.
December 19, 2022
New Publications: A Living Anthology of Polemical Literature
The next three installments of The Arts of Autonomy: A Living Anthology of Polemical Literature are now online. In this series of publications, we provide basic editions of polemical texts. Massively polemical texts inherently pose specific risks to scholarly work, not only because they may be subjected to censorship, but also because they may pose liminal-case problems to methodology and are often poorly edited. We provide quotable editions of historically important texts, including an introduction and contextual sources.
The anthology is expanded on a rolling basis and is hosted on the Hypotheses platform: https://artsautonomy.hypotheses.org/
Volume 3:
Collective: A Feminist Server Manifesto 0.01
A Commented Edition with Contextual Sources
Edited by Pierre-Héli Monot
Direct download here.
Volume 4:
Thomas Paine, The American Crisis (No. I). A Commented Edition
Edited by Gregory Jones-Katz
Direct download here.
Volume 5:
Collective: The Manifesto of the 121: Declaration on the Right to Insubordination in the War in Algeria. A Commented Bilingual Edition Including a Facsimile Copy
Edited by David Bebnowski
Direct download here.
December 18, 2022
Conference – Politischer Druck/Political Pressure
David Bebnowski will be giving a paper on his project "Politischer Druck. ‚Druckerzeugnisse' und feministische Gegenöffentlichkeit in den USA und Deutschland 1848 bis heute" at the Research Colloquium on Cultural History led by Prof. Dr. Philipp Felsch at the Humboldt University of Berlin on December 21.
Credit: Souvenir card listing 68 women and 32 men who signed the Declaration of Sentiments in 1848, 1 May 1908. Source: Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons, Link: https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbcmil.scrp4006701/
November 28, 2022
Conference – Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Pierre-Héli Monot und David Bebnowski sprechen am 28. November an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin über die Poesie und Politik des Pamphlets. Die Veranstaltung richtet sich an die breite akademische Öffentlichkeit. Mehr Informationen zum Kolleg Kleine Formen sind hier erhältlich.
Pierre-Héli Monot und David Bebnowski will be giving a paper on the poetry and politics of the pamphlet at the Humboldt University of Berlin on November 28. The event is open to the academic public. More information on the research training group Kleine Formen is available here.
November 1, 2022
Conference – University of Lausanne
Pierre-Héli Monot will be giving a paper on the Civil Rights Movement and the GI underground press at the University of Lausanne on November 9. The conference is organized by Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet and Ana Gomes Correia. A program is available here.
Image: “Clip This and Save Your Life” from Up Against the Bulkhead, June 1971. Source: https://content.wisconsinhistory.org/digital/collection/p15932coll8
October 18, 2022
Publication: Why Political Pamphlets Still Matter
Sakina Shakil Gröppmaier has written an essay for Public Seminar exploring the use of pamphlets in political discourse. Focusing on the political language of Brexiteers, she argues that the presence of pamphletary qualities have established new norms for political communication – communication that is affective, and that seeks to generate (re)action. The essay can be read here.
Image: LSE Digital Library -- The Brexit Collection
September 19, 2022
Conference: Leibniz-Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam
David Bebnowski will be presenting a paper at the upcoming conference "Political Economy for Everybody? Popularizing and Moralizing the Economy in Political Conflicts" organized by Stefanie Middendorf and Rüdiger Graf at the Leibniz-ZZF Potsdam. David Bebnowski's paper is entitled "German Populism: The AfD as a Result of a Popularized Economy". The conference will take place from 22-23 September. More information is available here.
September 13, 2022
Publication: “Writing in Privacy to Mass Publics: The Pamphleteer as an Activist Writer”
David Bebnowski has published a new essay entitled “Writing in Privacy to Mass Publics: The Pamphleteer as an Activist Writer.” The essay argues that pamphleteering confronts us with a specific dialectic between the private and the public. Even though pamphlets are directed at mass publics, pamphleteers often refer to their inner self, thus exposing seemingly private beliefs to a large audience. This essay analyzes three seminal pamphlets in different media environments that have essentially turned their authors into pamphleteers, such as Martin Luther with his 95 Theses and footballer Mesut Özil with the resignation from the German national football team he published on Twitter. This essay is part of the first issue of the Privacy Studies Journal (PSJ), published by the Centre for Privacy Studies at the University of Copenhagen. The journal is edited by Mette Birkedal Bruun and Natália da Silva Perez. The Centre for Privacy Studies offers creative conceptual insights into privacy from different scholarly angles and opens up new discussions on the relationship between private and public.
Picture: “The Heuristic Zones of Private and Public”, Bruun, Mette Birkedal. “Towards an Approach to Early Modern Privacy: The Retirement of the Great Condé,” Early Modern Privacy: Sources and Approaches, ed. Green, Nørgaard and Bruun, 12–60. Leiden: Brill, 2021. (Creative Commons 4.0)
August 31, 2022
Publication: “Nationalismus und radikale Arbeiterorganisation”
David Bebnowski has published a new essay entitled “Nationalismus und radikale Arbeiterorganisation: Ein ‘pamphletary event’ um die IWW im Jahr 1918”. From a historical perspective, the essay focuses on conflicts surrounding the radical syndicalist union Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) at the end of World War I, as the union was tried under federal law due to its opposition to an engagement of the U.S. in the war. David argues that these conflicts surrounding the IWW must be analyzed through the lens of nationalism as a major force in U.S. politics. Using the conceptual framework of the pamphletary event that is central to the project, the essay discusses two pamphlets that took opposing stances in arguing either in favor of, or and against the IWW. Gaining empirical insights from the conceptual framework of the pamphletary event, this essay demonstrates that historical inquiry into pamphlets offers fresh views on historical events. This essay is published both online and as part of the forthcoming issue of the German journal Arbeit – Bewegung - Geschichte (ABG) that centers on labor history. Aside from David’s essay, the main focus of the issue lies on antifascism and offers various takes on the historiography of a movement that is often perceived to be controversial. David’s essay is accessible here.
Picture: “Grand picnic and re-union of all the radicals of the city of Chicago” (1918), Industrial Workers of the World, Political Posters, Labadie Collection, University of Michigan.
August 31, 2022
New Publications: Émile Zola and Mesut Özil
The first two installments of The Arts of Autonomy: A Living Anthology of Polemical Literature, edited by Pierre-Héli Monot, are now online. In this series of publications, we provide basic editions of polemical texts. Massively polemical texts inherently pose specific risks to scholarly work, not only because they may be subjected to censorship, but also because they may pose liminal-case problems to methodology and are often poorly edited. We provide quotable editions of historically important texts, including an introduction and contextual sources.
The anthology is expanded on a rolling basis and is hosted on the Hypotheses platform:
https://artsautonomy.hypotheses.org/
Volume 1:
Émile Zola, J’Accuse…! A Commented Bilingual Edition, Including Contextual Sources and a Facsimile Copy of Émile Zola’s Manuscript
Edited by Pierre-Héli Monot
Direct download here.
Volume 2:
Mesut Özil: I/III, II/III, III/III. Declaration on His Resignation from the German National Football Team, Twitter, July 22, 2018
Edited by David Bebnowski
Direct download here.
July 20, 2022
Guest Lecture, “The Pamphletary and the Public”
Sakina Shakil Gröppmaier will give a lecture on the role of pamphletary claims in dialogical processes between political actors and engaged publics on July 20th at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. The presentation is part of the American Studies Research Colloquium organized by Prof. Dr. Heike Paul. Please see here for more information.
June 2, 2022
Workshop: Popular Philology
Our research group has organized a workshop at the upcoming DGfA meeting at the University of Tübingen. The workshop revolves around the notion of “popular philology”, that is, the cognitive and critical dispositions broadly shared among non-professional publics. We are honored to host several distinguished guests; a complete programme is available here.
May 30, 2022
Video Keynotes: Activist Writing
Our keynote talks at our conference "Activist Writing” are now available online.
May 11, 2022
Presentation: Territoriality, Democracy, and Deliberative Engagement
Sakina Shakil Gröppmaier will give a presentation on the rhetorical trajectory of contemporary territorialist movements in Western democratic systems and their reception amongst engaged publics on May 16th at 18:00 at the History Department of the Amerika-Institut at LMU Munich. The presentation is part of a series featuring postgraduate scholars whose work falls in the scope of transatlantic and American studies. Please contact Prof. Dr. Michael Hochgeschwender and Prof. Dr. Ursula Prutsch for more information.
May 9, 2022
Conference: Flyover Fictions
David Bebnowski will be presenting a paper at the upcoming conference "Flyover Fictions", which is organized by the Department of American Studies at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. The event will take place from 27-28 May 2022 at the Claudiana Palais in Innsbruck. David's paper is titled "Libertarianism as Flyover Fiction: Populist Core Dynamics in Libertarian Pamphlets". For more information, please visit the conference website.
April 21, 2022
Publication – Kill Lists: Ideas of Order in the Pamphlet
Pierre-Héli Monot has published a short article on the blog of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities Essen (Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut Essen). The article discusses list-making in the pamphletary tradition and its social uses. While Émile Zola’s “J’accuse…!”, published in 1898, turned away from the grandiose abstractions of the Third Republic (“freedom”, “liberté“, “justice”, “rational debate”, etc.) and named names instead, Theodore Kaczynski imitated the formal aspects of philological commentary – its orderly lists, its footnotes, its fastidiousness. Both uses of list-making remain prevalent modes of address in the contemporary public sphere. Find the article here.
Credit: Shoes with fake soles worn by Theodore Kaczynski to mislead investigators, Credits: U.S. Marshals.
March 22, 2022
Publication – Power, Polemic, and the Right to Home: Race and the Reterritorialization of Post-Katrina New Orleans
Sakina Shakil Gröppmaier has published an essay on the role of polemic in catastrophe-driven discourse and crisis-driven real-world action. Her essay focuses on post-Katrina New Orleans, arguing that the loss of home on a collective, exigent scale incurred by Hurricane Katrina resulted in racialized efforts to reterritorialize the city, and that the polemical turn in post-Katrina discourses effectively hinted at the onset of such efforts. The essay is part of the collection Perspectives on Homelessness (Winter Verlag, 2022), edited by Anna Flügge and Giorgia Tommasi, which explores "homelessness both as a literal state of being unsheltered and as the modern and contemporary condition of being and/or feeling estranged from society."
January 12, 2022
Conference Program “Activist Writing” Now Online – February 24-26, 2022
The pamphlet is the ultimate contentious format: It is deeply political, it always conveys protest, and it always appeals to the public at large. In short, the pamphlet is a prime example of activist writing. Our conference will focus on the role and evolution of the pamphlet and the uses of polemical styles in political activism.
This conference is an online event and is open to the public.
We kindly ask our guests to register here. Links to the conference will be sent to your email.
A program of the conference is available here.
We have invited several keynote speakers:
Sigrid Weigel (February 24)
Robert Pfaller (February 24)
Eva von Redecker (February 25)
Philipp Staab (February 25)
Grace Blakeley (February 25)
Amber A’Lee Frost (February 25)
We look forward to seeing you soon!
January 11, 2022
Conference: Labor and Capital in U.S. History
David Bebnowski will be presenting a paper at the upcoming annual meeting of the historians of the German Association for American Studies (DGfA) on “Labor and Capital in U.S. History”, which is jointly organized by the DGfA, the Obama Institute at the University of Mainz, and the IEG Mainz. The event will take place online from 11-12 February 2022. David’s paper is titled “Conflicting Transnationalisms and the Fate of Labor: The IWW Between Internationalism and Nationalism”. For more information, please visit the conference website.
January 3, 2022
Talk: “Towards a Theory of the Pamphletary”
Sakina Shakil Gröppmaier will give a brief talk on the functions of pamphletary literature in contemporary territorialist movements as well as an overview of her project at its current stage. The hybrid event will take place in Room 201 at Amerika-Institut at LMU Munich, on Thursday January 27th at 18:15. Registration is required – please contact Anna Flügge at anna.fluegge@lmu.de for more information.
*Please note that there is a 2G requirement for entry
November 19, 2021
Literature and Sociology: Describing Inequality
Pierre-Héli Monot will give a paper on the figure of the proletariat in recent polemical academic texts on November 19 at the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut in Essen, Germany. The event, which gathers sociologists, literary theorists, and historians, will focus on inequality at the intersection of literary and sociological disciplinary practices. A program of the event is available here.
November 13, 2021
Workshop: The Power of Lists
Pierre-Héli Monot will give a paper on “lists” in the pamphletary tradition on November 13 at the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut in Essen, Germany. The workshop is organized by Julika Griem and Il-Tschung Lim and deals with list-making in literature. Pamphlets are both a typical and a heterodox example of literary list-making, as the lists present in Zola’s “J’accuse…!” or BLM tracts gather disparate political claims, yet tend to serve striclty instrumental and clearly defined purposes. A program of the workshop is available here.
Illustration: Martin Luther’s Disputatio pro declaratione virtutis indulgentiarum of 1517. Staatsbibliothek Berlin.
November 4, 2021
Workshop: Infection and Injustice: Narrative Responses to Pandemics
Pierre-Héli Monot will give a paper on “Virality” as a metaphor in both public health discourse and spreadable "(“viral”) texts on Saturday, November 6. The symposium is organized by the University Medical Center at the Georg-August-University Göttingen. Monot’s paper criticizes the concept of “infodemic”. The term was coined in 2003 by David Rothkopf during the SARS crisis in a column for the Washington Post: “SARS is the story of not one epidemic but two, and the second epidemic, the one that has largely escaped the headlines, has implications that are far greater than the disease itself.” Infodemics are a cocktail of “a few facts, mixed with fear, speculation and rumor, amplified and relayed swiftly worldwide by modern information technologies.” Yet, elaborate sign systems are part of evolution: it is difficult to establish a clear distinction between properly biological phenomena and semiotic ones or communicational ones. We could hence describe terms such as “viral information” or “infodemic” as tautologies.
Illustration: woodcut from the Middle Ages showing a rabid dog, author unknown, source here.
October 28, 2021
New Book: “Kämpfe mit Marx”
David Bebnowski has published his new book “Kämpfe mit Marx. Neue Linke und akademischer Marxismus in den Zeitschriften Das Argument und PROKLA, 1959-1976“ (Struggling with Marx. The New Left and Academic Marxism in the Journals Das Argument and PROKLA, 1959-1976). The book is based on David’s dissertation in contemporary history which he completed before joining the project.
In Western-European countries and the US, a “New Left” emerged during the 1950s, long before the seminal year of 1968. Young academics and intellectuals began their attempt at a renewal of leftist thought in newly founded theory journals which soon became organizational cores. The New Left found a common ground, shared theoretical convictions, and fused into an imagined community. Marxist ideas, in particular, were rediscovered and reinterpreted.
The New Left “struggled” with Marx in both senses of the term: it struggled against the “bourgeois” public, but it also struggled internally in increasingly opposing factions. David uses the two theory journals “Das Argument” and “PROKLA”, both based in West Berlin, as seismographs in order to get to the bottom of the history of the New Left and academic Marxism. He makes clear that “1968” has as much been a time for new beginnings as it has been the locus of the political schisms that have marked the outlines of the Left until today.
More information about the book: https://www.wallstein-verlag.de/9783835350311-kaempfe-mit-marx.html
November 20, 2021
Conference: Écrivains Polémistes et Essais Polémiques dans la Littérature Mondiale – Université Bordeaux Montaigne
Pierre-Héli Monot will give a brief paper on Theodore Kaczynski’s Industrial Society and its Future at the Université de Bordeaux Montaigne on November 22. The conference is particularly interesting because it is one of the few academic events in recent years that deal with polemical literature and the pamphletary tradition. A program of the event is available here.
August 15, 2021
Workshop - Krise und Kleinformat. Von der Institutionskritik zur politischen Mobilisierung (1918-1933)
David Bebnowski will be presenting a paper at the upcoming conference “Krise und Kleinformat. Von der Institutionskritik zur politischen Mobilisierung (1918-1933) [Crisis and Small Forms. From the Critique of Institutions to Political Mobilization (1918-1933)]” organized by the DFG-Graduiertenkolleg 2190 “Literatur- und Wissensgeschichte kleiner Formen [Literary and Epistemic History of Small Forms]” at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. David Bebnowski’s paper is entitled “Die Umcodierung des Proletariats – Kleine Formen im nationalsozialistischen Kampf um die Arbeiterschaft [Re-Coding of the Proletariat – Small Forms in the Nazi‘s Struggle to Win Over Workers]”. More information is available here.
August 12, 2021
Conference: Doing the Global Intellectual History of Social Movements
David Bebnowski will be presenting a paper at the upcoming conference “Doing the Global Intellectual History of Social Movements” jointly organized by the Freie Universität and the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. David Bebnowski’s paper is entitled “Reproduction in Renewal: The Global Imaginary Intellectual History of the European New Left”. More information is available here.
June 1, 2021
Guest Lecture – Kathy Newman
We are happy to host Kathy M. Newman (Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh) for a guest lecture on "Connecting Labor Films to Labor Archives in the US and Beyond”. This guest lecture takes place online on June 30 at 18:15. For registration, please contact d.bebnowski@lmu.de
April 25, 2021
Workshop – Peaks Krafft
We have organized a workshop with Dr. Peaks Krafft (University of the Arts London) entitled “Three Components of My Critical Technical Practice: Personal Responsibility, Pluralist Epistemology, And Collective Action.” Responding to how power relations are organized, embedded, and perpetuated in information technologies, Dr. Krafft will explore ways such power relations can be re-organized and challenged through critical, creative, and activist practice.
Dr. Peaks Krafft (they/them) are Senior Lecturer and MA Internet Equalities Course Leader at the UAL Creative Computing Institute. They undertake critically-oriented computer science research, academic organising, and community organising, especially recently on four issues in higher education and tech: social impacts of technology; personal and institutional accountability; anti-racism in organisations, and conflicts of interest from tech funding. Dr. Krafft’s work is animated by an interest in who and what is missing when we talk about or are involved in data science and computing. How do we move beyond the terms equality, diversity and inclusion, to build counter-power to the modes of oppression in society that are replicated within tech? For many who are marginalised, the status quo remains a central barrier to being present and progressing in the fields of computer science and data science. They are equally occupied with how work is organised in tech and higher education, as with doing work in these sectors.
The workshop will be held via Zoom on Wednesday May 5th, from 16:15 – 17:45 CET. Dr. Krafft will give a c. 30 minute talk, which will be followed by a Q&A session and discussion. The workshop will be held in English. To register, please send an email to: sakina.groeppmaier@lmu.de
April 22, 2021
Introducing "A Blog"
We are introducing a new series on our website: "A Blog" provides insights into our our work and presents topics and questions to the broader public. The content will consist of shorter pieces in which we allow ourselves to be somewhat experimental. We aim to combine scholarly insights, topical comments on current events, and easy accessability for anyone interested in our research.
A Blog starts with a piece by David Bebnowski, in which he reflects on the aptly titled song "Pamphleteer" by the band The Weakerthans. Following the song structure and its lyrics, David asks who pamphleteers are, what pamphleteers do, and how their role and activity reflect changes in the public sphere and the media.
Picture: Live performance by The Weakerthans, kall_e from Ottawa, Creative Commons
April 15, 2021
Recent Publication – Maximalist Expectations in an Age of Anti-Populism
Pierre-Héli Monot has recently published a short essay on “populism” as a political signifier. This essay argues that the conceptual framing of the term does not account for its social uses and that it hence lacks consistency as a descriptor. In order to contain and criticize the regressive political phenomena that have marred democratic societies in recent years, scholarly discourse should develop a better conceptual apparatus and avoid the inadvertent conflation of progressive and regressive movements. Instead, scholarly discourse should pay attention to the vast body of polemical, high-circulation literature that has influenced public debates in recent years, as it provides essential signposts for a clearer theorization of politically regressive phenomena in democratic societies. This essay was published in an issue of American Studies edited by Cedric Essi, Heike Paul, and Boris Vormann. The entire issue is worth reading, as it provides a great overview of positions on the current state of liberal democracies, including contributions from Linda Trinh Võ, Saskia Sassen, Donald Pease, Richard Sennett, and Siri Hustvedt, among many others.
April 9, 2021
American Comparative Literature Association – Annual Meeting, Montréal
Pierre-Héli Monot will give a paper on April 10 at the upcoming American Comparative Literature Association Annual Meeting 2021. The conference was originally planned to take place on-site at the Palais des Congrès in Montréal. Pierre-Héli Monot’s paper, which discusses the polemical literature that circulates during protest movements in Western societies, will present some of the methodological insights that have emerged during the first phase of the project The Arts of Autonomy. A conference schedule is available here.
March 1, 2021
New Team Member – David Bebnowski
We are happy to welcome our postdoc David Bebnowski to the ERC research project “The Arts of Autonomy.” David Bebnowski studied social sciences at the University of Goettingen and the University of California, San Diego. He obtained his PhD in contemporary history at the University of Potsdam in 2020. In his research, David Bebnowski focuses on political generations, right-wing extremism and populism, Labour history, intellectual history and the New Left. His monographs include Generation und Geltung (2012) and Die Alternative für Deutschland (2015). His forthcoming book Kämpfe mit Marx is based on his dissertation and will be published in autumn 2021.
February 10, 2021
Workshop – François Cusset
Sakina Shakil Gröppmaier, Sandra Schmidt and Pierre-Héli Monot have organized a workshop with François Cusset (Paris Nanterre) entitled “Violence: Systems, Circulation, and Resistance.” This online event is open to the public and will take place on February 10, 2020. For registration, please contact Sandra Schmidt at: sandra.schmidt@lmu.de.
January 21, 2020
Conference: American Politics Group of the UK Political Studies Association
Sakina Shakil Gröppmaier was pleased to be a speaker at the 47th Annual Conference of the American Politics Group of the UK Political Studies Association, which was hosted by the University of Kent and took place from January 21st-23rd, 2021. She presented a paper entitled “Polemics and the Politics of Rebuilding: Race and the Reterritorialization of New Orleans” which examined the power of polemics and the power asymmetries they can expose to a broader public. She is currently working on the publication version of this paper.
January 9, 2021
Publication – “Can Machines Be Free? Outlines of an Artifical Autonomy”
Pierre-Héli Monot has recently published an essay on competing conceptions of autonomy in the philosophical tradition. The main focus is on the disagreement between philosophical constructions of autonomy in the Enlightenment (Kant and Rousseau) and the ongoing autonomization of machines, institutional processes, military weapons, and deliberative processes in the public sphere. This essay, entitled “Can Machines Be Free? Outlines of an Artifical Autonomy,” discusses the differentialist arguments proposed by Rousseau and Kant in order to stabilize distinctions between humans and machines. Since the early automata of the Enlightenment, mechanical imitations of humans have not sought to reproduce their cognitive dispositions (“artificial intelligence”): machines have sought to reproduce the way humans conceive of freedom (“artificial autonomy”). Luddite, liberal, anticapitalist, anarchist, or socialist fights for “freedom” and against machines and their owners are consequently fights in the name of a “freedom” that machines and their owners have coproduced.
November 5, 2020
Workshop – "Structural Injustices"
Sandra Schmidt will participate in the 8th SWIP Workshop on "Structural Injustices" at the University of Potsdam. She will present a paper entitled "Persönliche Autonomie zwischen Fake News, Algorithmen und Echo Kammern" ("Personal Autonomy Between Fake News, Algorithms, and Echo Chambers").
November 3, 2020
Panel: “A View from Abroad: Young Scholars’ Panel on Election Night 2020”
Amidst the tension, chaos, and anticipation of the 59th U.S. presidential election, Sakina Shakil Gröppmaier was part of a panel of young scholars discussing issues connected to U.S. democracy as well as the German-U.S. transatlantic relationship. Entitled “A View from Abroad: Young Scholars’ Panel on Election Night 2020” and hosted by the Bavarian American Academy and the Amerikahaus München, the panel brought different perspectives on issues such as Trumpism, racism and police brutality, the Covid-19 pandemic, rising unemployment, and the impact of the Trump presidency on domestic governance, foreign relations, and cultural production. The panel can be viewed here.
September 1, 2020
New Team Member – Sakina Shakil Gröppmaier
We are happy to welcome Sakina Shakil Gröppmaier to the team at The Arts of Autonomy. As a doctoral student, her research will focus on the various modes and interweaving of text and public discourse connected to contemporary territorialist movements in the public sphere. Sakina has taught courses in North American studies at the Amerika-Institut at LMU and given talks at the University of Lausanne, the Gustav Stresemann Institute in Niedersachsen, the German-American Institute in Nürnberg, and elsewhere. Sakina received her Master’s degree in American Studies from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and her Honors Bachelor of Arts in English and History from the University of Toronto.
April 1, 2020
New Team Member – Sandra Schmidt
We are happy to welcome our doctoral student Sandra Schmidt to the ERC research project “The Arts of Autonomy.” Sandra Schmidt studied International Politics and Philosophy at the University of Western Australia in Perth and at the Humboldt-University of Berlin. In “The Arts of Autonomy”, she will work on contemporary concepts of freedom and autonomy, feminist philosophy and theories of justice.