Current:

Seminar
Sjoerd van Tuinen
The Politics of Resentment
23, 25, 26.03.2021
12h–14h30, 15h30–18h

Online

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How is it possible that people vote against their economic self-interest? What motivates a suicide bomber? Why do people throw themselves in the arms of authoritarian leaders like lemmings into the abyss? Neo-reactionary tendencies in political culture, such as nationalism, populism, fundamentalism, and large-scale conspiracy theories, together with the culture of naming, blaming, shaming and claiming, challenge us to reconsider the anti-social affect of ressentiment: a toxic brew of hatred, frustration, humiliation, and indignation, conditioned by passivity. We will explore the theoretical genealogy of this essentially polemic concept, interpret the shifting political stakes that are expressed in it, and evaluate the consistency and coherence with which it is currently put to use in public and academic discourse on social struggle.

Sjoerd van Tuinen is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam and co-founder of the Erasmus Institute for Public Knowledge. After his PhD (Ghent 2009) on Leibniz and Deleuze, he has had visiting affiliations with universities in London, Berlin, Vienna, New York and Princeton. Rooted in continental philosophy, his interests are in metaphysics, aesthetics, social and political theory, and the history of philosophy. Sjoerd’s work consists of commentary on classical and contemporary philosophers and multimedia engagements across the arts and humanities. He specialises in ecophilosophy, posthumanism, and critical theories of art, affect, debt, history, and care. Following his first monograph, Sloterdijk: Ein Profil (UTB/Fink Verlag, 2006), he has edited over twenty books and special issues, including Deleuze and The Fold: A Cri­tical Reader (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), Deleuze and the Passions (New York: Punctum Books, 2016), Speculative Art Histories (Edinburgh University Press, 2017), The Pole­mics of Ressentiment: Variations on Nietzsche (Bloomsbury, 2018), and a series of theory books with V2_, Institute for Unstable Media (Rotterdam/NAi Publishers).

Registration is free, but limited. Please send an email with a short CV to admin@maumaus.org by 14.03.2021. Confirmation of registration will be sent by email. The seminar will be in English.