Critical European Studies Workshop 2017

University of Frankfurt

23./24. June 2017

This is the fourth edition of a successful series of workshops put together by European scholars, students and activists with the support of CPERN, the Arbeitskreis kritische Europaforschung (AkE/AkG), transform! and the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung.

This year the CES workshop continues to challenge inconsistencies and blind spots that permeate European Studies and push the boundaries of the critical in the analyses of the area’s problematic. The themes discussed will include the political crisis of the EU and authoritarian modes of politics, the uprise of the new right, questions of climate, and problems of resistance and strategy in production and reproduction as well as in politics and on the streets.

The workshop provides a forum for scholars and activists to meet and discuss critical theoretical and empirical perspectives on the configuration of European capitalism, the EU and political resistance. Previous editions were held at the University of Greenwich in London 2016,at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona (2015), and at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (2014).

In order to foster a constructive debate the workshop will avoid the 'usual' conference structure with individual paper presentations and foregrounds collective discussions instead. We will proceed on the basis of thematic block sessions, with each tabling a core text that all participants will have read beforehand. Each of the sessions in the workshop starts with a brief introduction, and 6 participants (to be announced) discussing and enhancing the perspectives developed in that session’s core text from the angle of their own research/activism. This is followed by a mumble where all participants share their ideas in small groups, after which the floor is opened for a plenary discussion.

Programme

Friday 23th June

12h30-13h: Round of Introduction

13-15h Session 1: Crisis of the state: state of emergency and authoritarian modes of politics in the EU

Coretext: Oberndorfer, Lukas 2015: From new constitutionalism to authoritarian constitutionalism. Economic Governance and the state of European Democracy, in: Jäger, Johannes/Springler, Elisabeth (eds.): Asymmetric Crisis in Europe and Possible Futures. Critical political economy and postKeynesian perspectives, London New York, 186-207

Commentators: Sonja Buckel, Daniela Caterina, Ian Bruff, Yuliya Yurchenko

15-15h30 Break

15h30-17h30 Session 2: The uprise of the new right in Europe

Coretext: Kumral, Sefika 2015: Hegemonic transition, war and opportuinities for fascist militarism, in: Saull, Richard et.al. (eds.): The Longue Durée of the Far-Right, London New York, 64-84

Commentators: Daniel Mullis, Daniel Keil, Alice Blum, Tamas Gerocs, Priska Daphi

17h30-18h Break

18h-20h Shifts in (transnational) fractions of capital and ‘deep state’ (Roundtable-Discussion) with

Daniel Chavez, Manuela Boatca, Thomas Sablowski, Yuliya Yurchenko

20h: Dinner at own costs

Saturday June 24

10h-12h Session 3: Climate – the invisible obvious: from denying the problem to inadequate solutions based on agnotology

Coretext: Moore, Jason W. 2014. The End of Cheap Nature. Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying about “The” Environment and Love the Crisis of Capitalism

Commentators: Ulrich Brand, Stephanie Hürtgen, Manuela Boatca, Alexis Passadakis

12h-13h Break

13h-15h Session 4: Resistance and strategy 1: in production and reproduction

Coretext: Bruff, Ian/Wöhl, Stefanie 2016: Constitutionalizing Austerity, Disciplining the Household. Masculine Norms of Competitiveness and the Crisis of Social Reproduction in the Eurozone, in: Aida Hozić and Jacqui True (eds) (2016) Scandalous Economics: Gender and the Politics of Financial Crises. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 92-108

Commentators: Daniela Tepe-Belfrage, Laura Horn, Christoph Sorg, Laura Schnieder, Felix Hauf

15h-15h30 Break

15h30-17h30 Session 5: Resistance and strategy 2: in politics and on the streets

Coretext: Cristina Flesher Fominaya (2017) European anti-austerity and pro-democracy protests in the wake of the global financial crisis, Social Movement Studies, 16:1,1-20

Commentators: Nikolai Huke, Andreas Bieler, Tibor Meszmann, Karel Yon, Anne Reiff, Agnes Gagyi

17h30-18h Closing

Location:

Goethe-Universität

Max-Horkheimer-Straße 4

Seminarhaus

60323 Frankfurt

The CES organizing team (Agnes Gagyi, Christakis Georgiou, Daniel Keil, Tino Petzold, and Yuliya Yurchenko) hopes to see many of you there!