Researcher Theory
01.01.07 – 31.12.08
How does Althusser’s famous image of the policeman hailing passers-by on the street speak to us today? The aim of this project is to re-examine the philosophical and political implications of Althusser’s concept of interpellation, of the ‘hailing’ of individuals as ideological subjects. Against some of the dominant interpretations that seek to define this concept in terms of a positive function, in terms of its constitutive role for a social or a political ontology, I would like to place an emphasis on the negative, critical dimensions present in Althusser’s concept. For it seems to me hardly accidental that Althusser would choose two particular examples in order to construct the conceptual ‘theatre’ of interpellation: the example of the legal contract and the example of the prayer, examples which immediately relate us to the critical endeavours of young Marx, consisting as it did of a twin critique of religion and the legal-political institutions. By engaging in this ‘heretical’ detour through early Marx, I would like to investigate the critical content of Althusser’s concept in a twofold manner: first, in terms of a critique of liberalism, or a critique of the modern juridical-political models of universality. How can a society which formally proclaims the ideals of ‘equality’ and ‘liberty’ perpetuate the domination and exploitation of some by others? But secondly, and more generally, in terms of a critique of philosophy, in line with the Marxian proposal of the ‘overcoming of philosophy’: what are the reasons behind Althusser’s insistence that the philosophical category of the subject is “a mere extrapolation of the legal political ideology”? What is the relation that philosophy maintains with legal-political institutions, and fundamentally, with the State? Or, to put it another way: is an encounter between philosophy and politics possible outside of the State form?
Starting February 2008, Ozren Pupovac and Bruno Besana (researchers Theory) will organize a monthly collective seminar, called Versus laboratory, which will try to examine how philosophy is able to renew and shape its most inner matter – concepts and categories – via the intervention of non-philosophical material. More precisely, they will try to see how concepts are invented, defined and redefined, not in points of agreement about the meaning of words, but in points of irreducible conflict. To this end, they will analyze four abstract philosophical notions – singularity, duality, multiplicity, universality – in those points in which contemporary philosophy has shaped and reshaped their definitions by struggling with and by capturing breaks and conflicts in the fields of political, artistic, psychoanalytic and scientific thought and practice.
The seminar will be accompanied by two international conferences, held in the spring and autumn, called More than a lot – is it something beyond the thought of being as multiplicity? (on the possibility of redefining the idea of being in the point of intersection between philosophy and non-philosophy) and Politics and thought (on the possibility of the relationship between philosophy and politics as two irreducible forms of thought).
Zagreb, HR.
PhD Department of Sociology, The Open University, Milton Keynes, GB.
MA Culture and Society. Central European University, Warsaw, PL.
BA Sociology. University of Zagreb, Zagreb, HR.
Research consultant for the Department of Politics and International Studies. The Open University, Milton Keynes, GB.
Editor of Prelom, Journal for images and politics. Belgrade, CS.
Coordinator of the research project “Politics and thought”.
Researcher on the project “History and historical sociology of socialism: The history of present time”.
Aesthetical singularity. Literature, art and art history. (1 April). With Armen Avanessian, Bruno Besana. In: Versus laboratory. Maastricht, NL: Jan van Eyck Academie.
A singular kick in the philosopher’s ass. (4 March). In: Versus laboratory. With Bruno Besana. Maastricht, NL: Jan van Eyck Academie.
The singular. (5 February). In: Versus laboratory. With Bruno Besana. Maastricht, NL: Jan van Eyck Academie.
Nothing took place but the place: Djindjic's Yugoslavia. In: Borec, Spring.
Prelom in prelomi preloma. With Slobodan Karamanic. Interview. In: Agregat, 8/9.
Project Yugoslavia. The dialectics of the revolution. Special edition in English. In: Prelom, 8/9.
Springtime for hegemony. Laclau and Mouffe. With Janez Jansa. Special edition in English. In: Prelom, 8/9.
Na marginama Evrope: Intervju sa Rastkom Mocnikom [On the margins of Europe: Interview with Rastkom Mocnikom]. With Slobodan Karamanic. In: Prelom, 6/7.
The unconscious of democracy. Ideological hegemony and nationalism in post-socialist Croatia. In: Domains. The journal for the international centre for ethnic studies, 1(1).
Jedanaest teza o politici (translation of Jacques Rancière, Onze theses sur la politique). In: Prelom, 6/7. Belgrade, YU.
Komunizam kao odvajanje (translation of Alberto Toscano, Communism as separation). In: Prelom, 6/7. Belgrade, YU.
The phantom of liberty. Psychoanalysis as a philosophy of freedom? (12 May). With Bruno Besana, Lorenzo Chiesa, Mladen Dolar, Christopher Gemerchak, Russell Grigg, Dominiek Hoens, Sigi Jöttkandt, Marc De Kesel, Ed Pluth. Maastricht, NL: Jan van Eyck Academie.
Machiavelli, Negri, Althusser: Encounters and detours. (5 April). Canterbury, GB: University of Kent.
Dissensual relations are points of thought. With Bruno Besana. In: Opening week 2008. (7 – 11 January). Maastricht, NL: Jan van Eyck Academie.
Nothing took place but the place. Djindjic’s Yugoslavia. (October). In: Uneventment of History. Ljubljana, SI.
Althusser and the theatre of interpellation. Politics, law and philosophy. In: Opening week 2007. (8 – 12 January). Maastricht, NL: Jan van Eyck Academie.
Culture and racism. Zagreb, HR: University of Zagreb.
Springtime for hegemony. Laclau in theory and practice. (10 November). London, GB: Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Middlesex University.
Project Yugoslavia. The singular and the plural. In: Towards a cosmopolitan marxism. Historical materialism annual conference 2005. (4 – 6 November). London, GB: University of London.
Aporias of the political bond. Antifascist struggle and Yugoslavness. Ljubljana, SI: Institute for Philosophy. Slovenian Academy of Sciences.
The arbitrariness of the signifier? The construction of peoplehood in the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia. Hull, GB: University of Hull.
The unconscious of democracy. In: Citizenship seminar. Milton Keynes, GB: Department of Politics and International Studies. The Open University.
The break-up of Yugoslavia & Battle of Algiers. (Production of AV and textual materials). Milton Keynes, GB: The Open University.