One of the tracks available for study at the Centre for Modern Thought. For others, please see our Study page.
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Comparative Imperial HistoryRepublicanism and imperialism, as essential pathways into the study of the real political in our age, lack a third term, neither republican nor imperial, without which no understanding of political process could ever approach fruition: populism. If our research line on Republicanism seeks to study the traces of anti-substantialist and non-subjectivist political thought throughout history, that is, to develop the possibility of a thought of the political that does not have to found itself on secularized theological elements, a complementary research line on Populism looks at the substantialist and subjectivist phenomena that determine every understanding of politics as a politics of hegemony, that is, a politics based on a paternal order of domination. A first workshop on Populism is contemplated, in consortium with another British institution, for May or June 2009.
New Paths in Political PhilosophyIf a description of the real political is at issue, then our gamble is in favour of a notion of reality that remains attuned to subaltern experience. Our fifth project will be ongoing and will last for as long as the Political Thought track at the Aberdeen Centre for Modern Thought lasts: New Paths in Political Philosophy will track contemporary analytic and theoretical developments. A first workshop, to be held at State University of New York at Buffalo in March 2008, will concentrate on the thought of Giuseppe Duso, Roberto Esposito, Carlo Galli, and Jose Luis Villacanas. The contributions of conceptual history to investigate the demise of the modern categories of the political, the contemporary rise of biopower, and a genealogy of nomic orders will be the main foci of this workshop. A second workshop will be held at Aberdeen in 2009.
Populism |
Psychoanalysis and DemocracyPsychoanalysis and Democracy seeks to test the hypothesis that psychoanalysis may have become, today, the only extant form of theoretical and non-disciplinary discourse that could allow for a radical engagement with republican democracy. To that extent we are interested in an understanding of psychonalysis consistent with our critique of hegemony, but also with a critique of every form of enlightened despotism.
RepublicanismThe development of European republicanism is parallel to the development of European imperialism. Accordingly, any attempt at thinking republicanism will be moot without the simultaneous study of imperial history at a comparative level. What is at stake is not merely the comparative analysis of imperial strategies through ancient and modern history, but rather the very possibility of a geopolitical methodology for the study of the present. The purpose is not to ascertain the best possible form of empire—rather to find in the failure of empire the negative projection of a non-sovereign, anti-imperial form of the political. The Centre for Modern Thought has already established a consortium with the Instituto de Pensamiento Politico Saavedra Fajardo in Spain for the development of a research line (and the workshops and conferences essential to its success) on Comparative Imperial Histories. The first CIH workshop will take place at Aberdeen in June 2008.
The Marrano Sources of Spinoza's Political PhilosophyAgainst the un-historical substantialization of Spinozian thought we will aim to understand the basis of Spinozian republicanism through a genealogical reconstruction of his Hispano-Portuguese sources and the creation of an archive of marrano thought. The notion expressed by an obscure Castilian thinker of the 15th century, namely, that the possibility of a political community resides in the creation of a space of separation and not of unity between citizens, will become central to our endeavours. This will be undertaken collectively, not just at the Aberdeen Centre for Modern Thought (a Reading Group on Spinoza’s Theologico-Political Treatise is already active, with a view to organizing a Spinoza conference for 2009/2010), but also through the creation of an international research network of scholars. The first meeting for the collective will take place at the University of Murcia, in Spain, in May 2008. |
