We ask, is it possible to think the potential genocide – historically, politically, critically – without turning the event itself into a figure of thought? Can we conceive of thinking as active, interventionist and intricately connected to the very material reality it thinks, rather than as merely contemplative? Is there a philosophy before/after Palestine, in the protracted temporality of Palestinian political non-subjectivization? Given the way in which every second is being recorded, documented, and shared, often instantly and by the victims themselves, what can art do or how can it do differently?

Yasmeen Daher:

is a feminist activist and writer with a PhD in philosophy from the University of Montreal, specializing in ethics and political philosophy. She is currently co-director and editorial director of Febrayer, a Berlin-based network for independent Arab media organizations.

Sami Khatib:

is a research associate at the Orient-Institut Beirut and a founding member of the Beirut Institute for Critical Analysis and Research (BICAR). He co-edited Critique: The Stakes of Form (2020) and authored Teleology without End: Walter Benjamin's Dislocation of the Messianic (2013).

Basma al-Sharif:

is a Palestinian artist and filmmaker exploring cyclical political histories and conflicts. She has exhibited at MoMA, the Whitney Biennial, and the New Museum. Based in Berlin and represented by Galerie Imane Farés in Paris.

Securitisation is a process by which issues of public concern are transformed into matters of security. It leads to the emergence of securitised social spaces which are marked by a complex entanglement of individual experiences, discourse and public policy. Based on preliminary insights from an ongoing qualitative study the lecture explores recent dynamics of (in)security and securitisation in/of academic institutions and everyday campus life and discusses their relevance in the horizon of broader societal transformations.

Teresa Koloma Beck:

researches globalisation and everyday life under conditions of violent conflict and crisis, with an interest in the present of the colonial and imperial past. She is a professor of sociology at Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg.

Katrin M. Kämpf:

researches in the field of history of sexuality and feminist Science & Technology Studies with a particular interest in technosecurity cultures and queerfeminist technologies of care. She is an assistant professor for Queer Studies at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne.

Art can open up a space in which traumas become accessible as zones of indeterminacy and radical unavailability. The fact that the art and culture scene in particular is currently under pressure from state surveillance and political interference may be due to this. At a moment when answers seem urgent and clear demarcations necessary, art in its logic of refusing brevity and explainability is seemingly difficult to endure. The haste to disinvite artists and question funding commitments seems to follow the script of a memory culture that is based on supposed unambiguities and ultimately (re)produces exclusions: Under the premise of the German raison d'état, which centers on unconditional support for Israel's policies, Jewish life is to be protected by partly repressive measures (see resolution draft), which, among other things, often lead to Palestinian life and Palestinian narratives not being perceived.

We associate the question of the art of memory with the wish to discuss remembrance beyond hegemonic scripts. What can art achieve in times of deep grief and how can it be a medium for a practice that does not isolate us from each other in trauma, but rather connects us in grief?

Marianne Hirsch:

Columbia University, writes about the transmission of memories of violence across generations, combining feminist theory with memory studies in global perspective.

Çiğdem Inan:

is an interdisciplinary sociologist with a teaching and research focus on affect theory, queer-feminist and decolonial philosophies and racism studies. Inan is also a publisher at the publishing collective b_books (Berlin) and editor of the publication series re fuse.

Katrin Köppert:

is an art and media scholar and currently Assistant Professor of Art History/Popular Cultures at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig. Together with Simon Strick, she is currently head of the research project on “Digital Blackface. Racialized affect patterns of the digital” She is a spokesperson for the Alliance for Critical Scholarship in Solidarity.

Jumana Manna:

is a visual artist and filmmaker who grew up in Jerusalem and lives in Berlin. Her work explores how power is articulated, focusing on the body, land and materiality in relation to colonial heritage and the history of place. Her work addresses the tension between the modernist traditions of categorization and preservation and the recalcitrance of decay, life and its regeneration.

Michael Rothberg:

is the 1939 Society Samuel Goetz Chair in Holocaust Studies and Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of The Implicated Subject: Beyond Victims and Perpetrators, Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization(published in German by Metropol Verlag), and Traumatic Realism: The Demands of Holocaust Representation.With Yasemin Yildiz, he is completing Memory Citizenship: Migrant Archives of Holocaust Remembrance for Fordham University Press. He is currently a Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.

Marc Siegel:

In cooperation with the DFG Research Network Gender, Media and Affect and the lecture series Postcolonial Critique, Decolonial Perspectives

While the war in Israel, Palestine, and now Lebanon is costing more and more lives, a fierce dispute is taking place in Germany over the authority of interpretation and about war narratives in relation to the Middle East conflict. Racism, antisemitism, and dehumanisation determine the debate about which victims are mourned and whose deaths are justified, denied or even celebrated.

In this social climate, what can solidarity with the people affected look like?

We want to initiate a process in which we can open up common political spaces with radical empathy and develop our tolerance to ambiguity for different perspectives.

The Palestinians and Jews for Peace initiative:

consists of Palestinian, Jewish, Israeli, and other emancipatory friends who are committed to a differentiated dialogue and compassionate, respectful interaction with one another in Germany. Their aim is to show that there are infinitely more than just two sides, that all people are learners, and that the struggle against fascism, racism, and antisemitism must always also be fought with oneself.

We invite Ariella Aïsha Azoulay to talk with us about her new book The Jewelers of the Ummah. A Potential History of the Jewish Muslim World. Azoulay writes about the disruption of Jewish-Muslim life in the SWANA region (Southwest Asia and North Africa).

In the first meeting of the two-part event, we discuss a chapter of the book that each participant has read beforehand. At the beginning, we decide how we want to talk to each other, i.e. we give ourselves rules for communicating with each other in a conflict-laden discursive field.

In the second meeting, Ariella Aïsha Azoulay will talk to us about her book project via Zoom.

We are organising this conversation as part of the event series Against the Authoritarian Drift because we want to counter the repressive narrrowing down of discourse in German-language contexts, and we want to learn from criticism that does not reproduce binary models of thought.

Ariella Aïsha Azoulay:

is a theorist of photography, a film essayist, a curator, and a Professor of Modern Culture and Media and Comparative Literature at Brown University in the USA.

Securitisation is a process by which issues of public concern are transformed into matters of security. It leads to the emergence of securitised social spaces which are marked by a complex entanglement of individual experiences, discourse and public policy. Based on preliminary insights from an ongoing qualitative study the lecture explores recent dynamics of (in)security and securitisation in/of academic institutions and everyday campus life and discusses their relevance in the horizon of broader societal transformations.

Teresa Koloma Beck:

researches globalisation and everyday life under conditions of violent conflict and crisis, with an interest in the present of the colonial and imperial past. She is a professor of sociology at Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg.

Katrin M. Kämpf:

researches in the field of history of sexuality and feminist Science & Technology Studies with a particular interest in technosecurity cultures and queerfeminist technologies of care. She is an assistant professor for Queer Studies at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne.

Art can open up a space in which traumas become accessible as zones of indeterminacy and radical unavailability. The fact that the art and culture scene in particular is currently under pressure from state surveillance and political interference may be due to this. At a moment when answers seem urgent and clear demarcations necessary, art in its logic of refusing brevity and explainability is seemingly difficult to endure. The haste to disinvite artists and question funding commitments seems to follow the script of a memory culture that is based on supposed unambiguities and ultimately (re)produces exclusions: Under the premise of the German raison d'état, which centers on unconditional support for Israel's policies, Jewish life is to be protected by partly repressive measures (see resolution draft), which, among other things, often lead to Palestinian life and Palestinian narratives not being perceived.

We associate the question of the art of memory with the wish to discuss remembrance beyond hegemonic scripts. What can art achieve in times of deep grief and how can it be a medium for a practice that does not isolate us from each other in trauma, but rather connects us in grief?

Marianne Hirsch:

Columbia University, writes about the transmission of memories of violence across generations, combining feminist theory with memory studies in global perspective.

Çiğdem Inan:

is an interdisciplinary sociologist with a teaching and research focus on affect theory, queer-feminist and decolonial philosophies and racism studies. Inan is also a publisher at the publishing collective b_books (Berlin) and editor of the publication series re fuse.

Katrin Köppert:

is an art and media scholar and currently Assistant Professor of Art History/Popular Cultures at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig. Together with Simon Strick, she is currently head of the research project on “Digital Blackface. Racialized affect patterns of the digital” She is a spokesperson for the Alliance for Critical Scholarship in Solidarity.

Jumana Manna:

is a visual artist and filmmaker who grew up in Jerusalem and lives in Berlin. Her work explores how power is articulated, focusing on the body, land and materiality in relation to colonial heritage and the history of place. Her work addresses the tension between the modernist traditions of categorization and preservation and the recalcitrance of decay, life and its regeneration.

Michael Rothberg:

is the 1939 Society Samuel Goetz Chair in Holocaust Studies and Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of The Implicated Subject: Beyond Victims and Perpetrators, Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization(published in German by Metropol Verlag), and Traumatic Realism: The Demands of Holocaust Representation.With Yasemin Yildiz, he is completing Memory Citizenship: Migrant Archives of Holocaust Remembrance for Fordham University Press. He is currently a Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.

Marc Siegel:

In cooperation with the DFG Research Network Gender, Media and Affect and the lecture series Postcolonial Critique, Decolonial Perspectives