LFU:online

Reflection of diverse philosophical discourses on the question of "the" border, ranging from Carl Schmitt via Étienne Balibar to Wendy Brown; critique of powerful historical narratives (the rule of law; cartography, sovereignty etc.), which are still dominating the discussion of border regimes; discussion of alternative approaches in consideration of a plurality of microscopic and macroscopic border mechanisms (such as biometric procedures, drones, satellite information systems etc.).

The almost fixed idea that borders are running linear between diverse states and that they can consequently be mapped by cartographic means, is still dominating a plurality of philosophical discourses, and occasionally it puts even forth quite strange blossoms. Peter Sloterdijk (2016, 21), for example, has accused the "postmodernized society" - in a famous-infamous article for the Cicero - of "dreaming itself into a state beyond border protection. This [postmodernized] society exists in a surreal mode of border oblivion. It enjoys its existence in a culture of thin-walled containers. Where once were thick-walled borders, there are now narrow membranes, which are overrun." Other than such reactionary statements are suggesting, this seminar is making an effort to propose a differentiated critique of the border, which is not reinforcing a one-dimensional theorem of state sovereignty, but that is rather capable of dealing with the complexity of transnational governmentality and the changing of borders.

Reading proseminar; short presentations followed by discussions.  

Written.

Balibar, Étienne. "What is a Border?" Politics and the Other Scene. London/New York: Verso, 2002, pp. 75-86.

Brown, Wendy. Walled States, Waning Sovereignty. New York: Zone Books, 2010.

Khosravi, Shahram. "Illegal" Traveller. An Auto-Ethnography of Borders. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

Mezzadra, Sandro and Brett Neilson. Border as Method, Or, the Multiplication of Labor. Durham/London: Duke University Press, 2013.

Schmitt, Carl. Der Nomos der Erde im Völkerrecht des Jus Publicum Europaeum. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2010.

None.