- www.wiso.uni-hamburg.de/krasmann
Susanne Krasmann
University of Hamburg, Department of Social Sciences, Faculty Member
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Architecture exceeds the distinction between the cultural and the natural. It is an artefact that deploys its own force, and thus points us to our relatedness. In the gesture of a thought experiment, the article introduces architecture as... more
Architecture exceeds the distinction between the cultural and the natural. It is an artefact that deploys its own force, and thus points us to our relatedness. In the gesture of a thought experiment, the article introduces architecture as a fellow being into the Anthropocene debate, one that helps us reconsider our human situation. Using the example of the public reactions to the Notre-Dame de Paris fire in 2019, it explores how architecture itself appears as a cultural force. It affects the life and the togetherness of people; it encourages us to conceive of society in material terms as a multiplicity that involves our senses and sensitivity; and it reminds us of how creative and destructive forces are interwoven.
Research Interests:
»Exposure« bezeichnet das Moment des Ausgesetzt-Seins oder Sich-Aussetzens-ob gegenüber der Gewalt eines Naturereignisses, eines Terroranschlags oder dem wer-tenden Blick der Anderen. Wenn Verletzlichkeit eine Grundbedingung des Lebens... more
»Exposure« bezeichnet das Moment des Ausgesetzt-Seins oder Sich-Aussetzens-ob gegenüber der Gewalt eines Naturereignisses, eines Terroranschlags oder dem wer-tenden Blick der Anderen. Wenn Verletzlichkeit eine Grundbedingung des Lebens ist, dann fragt das Konzept der »Exposure« danach, wie sich diese Verletzlichkeit in kon-kreten Situationen und Begegnungen zeigt, wie sie spürbar, fassbar und artikulierbar wird-und nicht zuletzt: wie sie produktiv gewendet werden kann.
Research Interests:
The image of big data and algorithms in society is obviously ambivalent. On the one hand, algorithms are seen as a tool of empowerment that allows us, for example, to render society transparent and thus governable, to the extent that the... more
The image of big data and algorithms in society is obviously ambivalent. On the one hand, algorithms are seen as a tool of empowerment that allows us, for example, to render society transparent and thus governable, to the extent that the social sciences might even become obsolete. On the other hand, algorithms seem to assume a mysterious agency in the black box of the computer so that their operations are invisible and inscrutable to us: artificial intelligence is seen as something that one day will have the power to dominate us. Beyond these two extreme positions that both overestimate and underestimate how algorithms might change our way of seeing things and being in the world, the present article introduces a third perspective. Algorithms, it holds, indeed follow their own “style of reasoning” and thus create new realities. At the same time, however, they “reduce reality”, as they lack access to the world of human sense making. Algorithms have no secrets, but deploy a “logic of the surface”. As they paint a behaviorist picture of human modes of existence, algorithms and big data might change our self-understanding. Engaging in epistemological questions will help us to capture the ontological implications of algorithmic reasoning.
Research Interests:
The emergence of “situational awareness” as a response to the perception of a new terrorism in European cities marks a significant shift in the conceptualization of security. Focusing on a recently introduced German Federal Police program... more
The emergence of “situational awareness” as a response to the perception of a new terrorism in European cities marks a significant shift in the conceptualization of security. Focusing on a recently introduced German Federal Police program that trains ordinary officers in their capability to handle “complex life threatening situations of police operation” the article explores how situational awareness introduces a warrior logic into policing and urban subjectivity and modifies our understanding of security at large. It points us to the limitations of preparedness and concretizes the hitherto elusive call to resilience. Three analytical dimensions – space-time, sensing and connectivity – will be developed to render the situation thinkable for empirical research as well as to grasp security as a “live” mode of government.
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What can contemporary satire tell us about the desire for truth and the political as well as the mechanisms of sense-making in a "post-truth" era? In this introduction to the special issue on the "desire for truth and the politi-cal" we... more
What can contemporary satire tell us about the desire for truth and the political as well as the mechanisms of sense-making in a "post-truth" era? In this introduction to the special issue on the "desire for truth and the politi-cal" we sketch a number of features of an emerging and fragile regime of truth. We argue that the crumbling certainty over truth's role in democratic politics has brought about the rise of a range of agencies, devices, and ethics that aim to restore the power of truth in different ways. While fact checking, moralizing, or calls to reason mark such a desire for truth in standard political communication, we explore political satire as a more vivid approach to the relationship between truth and the political, one that works by mobilizing a range of affective and imaginative registers. Focusing on segments of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah that satirize President Trump, we see the damaged truth-democracy-arrangement unpacked in its funniest, most outrageous, and serious articulation. Christine Hentschel is Professor of Criminology in the Department of Social Sciences at Hamburg University. Her current interests are right-wing populism and ideologies of the "new right", sociology of in/security, cities and space as well as affective and postcolonial methodologies. E-Mail: christine.hentschel-2@uni-hamburg.de Susanne Krasmann is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Social Sciences at Hamburg University. Her research interests are in the areas of Law and its Knowledge; Sociology of Security; Vulnerability and Political Theory; Secrecy and the Force of Truth. E-Mail: susanne.krasmann@uni-hamburg.de
Research Interests:
Post-truth regimes are disconcerting to the extent that they confuse the distinction between true and false and thus obfuscate and obstruct political debate. And they dismantle the secret, by imitating its habit: they constantly make... more
Post-truth regimes are disconcerting to the extent that they confuse the distinction between true and false and thus obfuscate and obstruct political debate. And they dismantle the secret, by imitating its habit: they constantly make claims while leaving us to guess what exactly the true content is – or whether there is any content at all. In an imagined world without secrets, there would be no curiosity or confidentiality, no sincerity or trust, and no political possibility of thinking otherwise. Analysis of the logic of secrecy, the article argues, helps us to revisit the established confidence in our culture in the force of truth, and to confront a challenge post-truth regimes pose: that to establish truth involves affective force. Contrary to the common belief that truth – and secrecy – is something to be revealed, a Foucauldian reading suggests that to mobilize truth requires both truthfulness and a moment of creation. Truth relies on the secret but will always only emerge on the surface.
Research Interests:
When Guenther Jakobs introduced the concept of “enemy criminal law” (Feindstrafrecht), or enemy penology, into the legal debate, this was due to a concern with the increasingly anticipatory nature of criminalization in German legislation... more
When Guenther Jakobs introduced the concept of “enemy criminal law” (Feindstrafrecht), or enemy penology, into the legal debate, this was due to a concern with the increasingly anticipatory nature of criminalization in German legislation in the last decades of the 20th century. Against the backdrop of a series of terror attacks in the West and the ensuing debates on how to deal with the dangers and threats of the new millennium, Jakobs’s theory gained new momentum in Germany’s public discourse and beyond. As it seems, the author himself turned the concept into a device for political intervention, declaring the notion of the enemy as indispensable for dealing with certain extreme crimes and notorious offenders, not only to prevent future crime and avert harm from society but also, and most notably, to preserve the established “citizen criminal law” (Bürgerstrafrecht): the enemy is the one to be isolated and excluded from the system. Enemy criminal law may be a peculiar legal concept. The logic of enemy penology, however, leads us to some more fundamental insights into the conundrums of liberal political thinking and attendant legal conceptions. It requires us to think about the enemy as a liminal figure that points to the preconditions and the paradoxes of our legal system. The history of criminology attests to the discipline’s struggle with penal law’s inherent limitations. And if we live today in times where exception and rule, internal security and external security, and military and police concerns increasingly overlap and intermingle in the face of ever new threats, the notion of enemy penology helps us to critically reflect on the mechanisms that drive these transformations.
Research Interests:
One of the most exciting features in Foucault's work is his analytics of power in terms of forms of visibility. It allows for a reflection on the conditions of seeing and thinking, thus triggering a seemingly paradoxical move: locating... more
One of the most exciting features in Foucault's work is his analytics of power in terms of forms of visibility. It allows for a reflection on the conditions of seeing and thinking, thus triggering a seemingly paradoxical move: locating the limits of our perspectives entails simultaneously transgressing these limits. In a way, we decipher our own blind spot. Approaching Discipline and Punish through this perspective brings us to identify the digital subject as a characteristic figure of our time. In contrast to its disciplinarian counterpart, it appears to be an active, though not necessarily political subject. The notion of visual citizenship will help us to go a step further and figure out what it could mean to challenge today's surveillant gaze.
Research Interests:
Governing security means acting under conditions of uncertainty, that is, operating at the boundary of the knowable, as security is about dangers and threats that by definition have not yet materialized. Security in this sense relies on... more
Governing security means acting under conditions of uncertainty, that is, operating at the boundary of the knowable, as security is about dangers and threats that by definition have not yet materialized. Security in this sense relies on imagination, which renders the future accessible. Furthermore, security concerns the undesired and is therefore intertwined with emotions and affects. It is about dangers and threats that should not materialize. Drawing on the example of Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court decision on deploying military forces within national boundaries in the name of security, the article examines the relationship of the law to the sensible, to moments of anticipation and imagination, and to emotions and affect that exceed language. Taking on the form of fictive realities, these moments come to affect and shape the law, they are inscribed into the law as security matters. Since this happens rather implicitly, these processes tend to remain unrecognized by legal theory. However, fictive realities are an important ingredient of law’s reality.
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In der politischen Philosophie Jacques Rancières (2002) markiert das Unvernehmen (la mésentente) das Andere der Ordnung. Der im Deutschen außergewöhnliche Begriff, der wörtlich so viel wie gestörtes Einvernehmen bedeutet, bezieht sich... more
In der politischen Philosophie Jacques Rancières (2002) markiert das Unvernehmen (la mésentente) das Andere der Ordnung. Der im Deutschen außergewöhnliche Begriff, der wörtlich so viel wie gestörtes Einvernehmen bedeutet, bezieht sich nicht lediglich auf die Artikulation von Protest oder ein Nicht-Einverständnis mit der herrschenden Ordnung. Er bezeichnet die Unterbrechung, Störung und Verschiebung der vom „Konsens“ getragenen „polizeilichen Ordnung“. Die Verschiebung dieser Ordnung tritt in dem Moment ein, in dem sich ein neues politisches Subjekt ins symbolische Register einschreibt. Für Rancière verweist der Begriff des Unvernehmens auf den Kern des Politischen. Das Politische organisiert sich um die Frage der Anerkennung, genauer der Teilhabe eines Subjekts, das bisher aus der polizeilichen Ordnung und damit auch von sozialer und politischer Partizipation ausgeschlossen war. Doch inwiefern markiert das Unvernehmen das Andere der Ordnung?
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When addressing the law, sociology must assure itself of its subject. It transpires, however, that law tends to elude sociological analysis and, above all, is always inspired by something other than itself. The notion of the “force of... more
When addressing the law, sociology must assure itself of its subject. It transpires, however, that law tends to elude sociological analysis and, above all, is always inspired by something other than itself. The notion of the “force of law” epitomizes a figure of thought capable of capturing two different moments: of a force that is somehow external to the law, but which sets it in motion and brings it into force, and something that is inherent within the law and also constitutive of law. Forces that are initially non-linguistically are indeed capable of writing the law. The article explores the methodical and theoretical implications of a notion of law that proves perhaps to be more fragile, instable and yet more powerful than commonly thought.
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Ein Glossar der Gegenwart, 2. Teil Vorbemerkung der Herausgeber: In Heft 112004 haben wir einige Artikel aus dem Glossar der Gegenwart", das als Buch im Spätsommer 2004 erscheinen wird,* vorab im Leviathan vorgestellt. Wir... more
Ein Glossar der Gegenwart, 2. Teil Vorbemerkung der Herausgeber: In Heft 112004 haben wir einige Artikel aus dem Glossar der Gegenwart", das als Buch im Spätsommer 2004 erscheinen wird,* vorab im Leviathan vorgestellt. Wir setzen die Präsentation des Projektes mit drei ...
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Das so genannte Feindstrafrecht ist die singuläre Erfindung eines deutschen Strafrechtsprofessors. Liest man es aber in Foucaultscher Perspektive als ein Pro-gramm, so erschließt sich, wie es sich als Lösungsstrategie für aktuelle... more
Das so genannte Feindstrafrecht ist die singuläre Erfindung eines deutschen Strafrechtsprofessors. Liest man es aber in Foucaultscher Perspektive als ein Pro-gramm, so erschließt sich, wie es sich als Lösungsstrategie für aktuelle Sicher-heitsprobleme zu ...
Kriminalität ist keine objektive Kategorie, sie beschreibt kein Verbrechen, sondern ist das Resultat erfolgreicher und machtvoller Zuschreibungsprozesse, so lautete das Credo der kritischen Kriminologie. Kriminalität ist keine... more
Kriminalität ist keine objektive Kategorie, sie beschreibt kein Verbrechen, sondern ist das Resultat erfolgreicher und machtvoller Zuschreibungsprozesse, so lautete das Credo der kritischen Kriminologie. Kriminalität ist keine Eigenschaft von bestimmten Verhal-tensweisen und ...
Die Nutzung Geographischer Informationssysteme (GIS) erschließt neue Formen und Felder des Policings. Denn die Kartierung ganz unterschiedlicher, digital produzierter Daten - von der Flächenplanung bis hin zu Konsumgewohnheiten -... more
Die Nutzung Geographischer Informationssysteme (GIS) erschließt neue Formen und Felder des Policings. Denn die Kartierung ganz unterschiedlicher, digital produzierter Daten - von der Flächenplanung bis hin zu Konsumgewohnheiten - ermöglicht es, neben strafrechtlich relevanten auch soziodemographische Informationen räumlich zu lokalisieren. GIS erlauben überdies einen schnelleren Zugriff als klassische Formen der Datensammlung wie etwa Kriminalstatistiken, und sie erzeugen dabei, in der spezifisch räumlich-visuellen Aufbereitung, eine eigene Evidenz. Während die Nutzung solcher Systeme in Ländern wie den USA oder Großbritannien bereits weit fortgeschritten ist, ist die Lage in Deutschland bislang eher unklar gewesen. Auf der Grundlage einer Befragung der Polizeibehörden in allen deutschen Großstädten nimmt der vorliegende Beitrag eine Bestandsaufnahme vor. Die Nutzung von Geodaten in den Bundesländern, so das Ergebnis, ist im Ausbau und Prozess einer Standardisierung begriffen. Neue Formen eines pre-crime-Policings bleiben unterdessen, vorläufig noch, eine Vision.
Schlüsselwörter: Geographische Informationssysteme, Raum/Verräumlichung, Policing, Pre-Crime
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) render new forms and realms of intervention amenable to the police. Mapping varieties of digitally produced data - ranging from local development planning to habits of consumption - allows for localizing both information on crime and social demographics. Moreover, compared to, for example, rather traditional forms of data gathering like crime statistics, GIS facilitate faster access and, due to their particular spatial-visual preparation, create their own forms of evidence. Whereas these systems are quite common in countries like the US or Great Britain, information on the situation in Germany so far was rather vague. On the basis of a survey of the police authorities of all major cities, the article conducts a review of the current situation. Accordingly, the use of geodata is currently being expanded and standardized. However, new forms of pre-crime policing for the moment continue to be a vision.
Schlüsselwörter: Geographische Informationssysteme, Raum/Verräumlichung, Policing, Pre-Crime
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) render new forms and realms of intervention amenable to the police. Mapping varieties of digitally produced data - ranging from local development planning to habits of consumption - allows for localizing both information on crime and social demographics. Moreover, compared to, for example, rather traditional forms of data gathering like crime statistics, GIS facilitate faster access and, due to their particular spatial-visual preparation, create their own forms of evidence. Whereas these systems are quite common in countries like the US or Great Britain, information on the situation in Germany so far was rather vague. On the basis of a survey of the police authorities of all major cities, the article conducts a review of the current situation. Accordingly, the use of geodata is currently being expanded and standardized. However, new forms of pre-crime policing for the moment continue to be a vision.
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Diskussionen uber eine Relativierung des Folterverbots bzw. uber die so genannte Rettungsfolter, wie sie im Zusammenhang mit dem »Krieg gegen den Terror«, aber auch mit dem Frankfurter »Fall Daschner« gefuhrt wurden und werden, sind... more
Diskussionen uber eine Relativierung des Folterverbots bzw. uber die so genannte Rettungsfolter, wie sie im Zusammenhang mit dem »Krieg gegen den Terror«, aber auch mit dem Frankfurter »Fall Daschner« gefuhrt wurden und werden, sind Ausdruck einer politischen Rationalitat. Sie verorten sich in einer Praventionsorientierung, die – so eine hier vertretene These – nicht nur an Bedeutung gewonnen hat, sondern auch neue Formen annimmt. Der Beitrag zeigt, inwiefern die Diskussionen unterschiedliche Vorstellungen von Rechtsstaatlichkeit artikulieren und rechtsstaatliche Praktiken im Namen der Sicherheit zugleich verandern konnen.
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Susanne Krasmann and Michael Volkmer , Michel Foucaults “Geschichte der Gouvernementalität” in den Sozialwissenschaften. Internationale Beiträge , ISBN: 978-3899424881 Patricia Purtschert, Katrin Meyer and Yves Winter , Gouvernementalität und Sicherheit: Zeitdiagnostische Beiträge im Anschluss an...more
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Research Interests: History, Cultural History, Political Theory, Violence, Governmentality, and 15 moreSecurity, Political Science, Kulturgeschichte, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century, Geschichte, Legitimation, Gouvernementalität, Politikwissenschaft, National State, Staat, Sicherheit, Sozialtheorie, Gewalt, and Politische Theorie
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Research Interests: Art()
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Susanne Krasmann and Michael Volkmer , Michel Foucaults “Geschichte der Gouvernementalität” in den Sozialwissenschaften. Internationale Beiträge , ISBN: 978-3899424881 Patricia Purtschert, Katrin Meyer and Yves Winter , Gouvernementalität und Sicherheit: Zeitdiagnostische Beiträge im Anschluss an Fomore
Research Interests: Art()
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Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality defines a complex of heterogeneous practices directed at the conduct of collective bodies and individuals, including their selfconduct. It has resonated strongly in the social sciences, proving... more
Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality defines a complex of heterogeneous practices directed at the conduct of collective bodies and individuals, including their selfconduct. It has resonated strongly in the social sciences, proving very powerful in the analysis of neoliberal forms of government. Although research on governmentality has been carried out since the 1990s,1 Foucault’s lecture series Sécurité, territoire, population and Naissance de la biopolitique held at the Collège de France in 1977/78 and 1978/79, in which he developed his concept and genealogy of governmentality, have only recently been published in their entirety. The strong German interest in Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality is not least marked by the simultaneous publication of the lectures in French and in German translation in 2004 (the English translation appeared in print 2007/20082). With only archival documents and tape recordings to refer to, Thomas Lemke laid the ground for the German r...
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Research Interests: Gewalt()
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Governing security means acting under conditions of uncertainty, that is, operating at the boundary of the knowable, as security is about dangers and threats that by definition have not yet materialized. Security in this sense relies on... more
Governing security means acting under conditions of uncertainty, that is, operating at the boundary of the knowable, as security is about dangers and threats that by definition have not yet materialized. Security in this sense relies on imagination, which renders the future accessible. Furthermore, security concerns the undesired and is therefore intertwined with emotions and affects. It is about dangers and threats that should not materialize. Drawing on the example of Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court decision on deploying military forces within national boundaries in the name of security, the article examines the relationship of the law to the sensible, to moments of anticipation and imagination, and to emotions and affect that exceed language. Taking on the form of fictive realities, these moments come to affect and shape the law, they are inscribed into the law as security matters. Since this happens rather implicitly, these processes tend to remain unrecognized by legal t...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
What can contemporary satire tell us about the desire for truth and the political as well as the mechanisms of sense-making in a “post-truth” era? In this introduction to the special issue on the “desire for truth and the political” we... more
What can contemporary satire tell us about the desire for truth and the political as well as the mechanisms of sense-making in a “post-truth” era? In this introduction to the special issue on the “desire for truth and the political” we sketch a number of features of an emerging and fragile regime of truth. We argue that the crumbling certainty over truth’s role in democratic politics has brought about the rise of a range of agencies, devices, and ethics that aim to restore the power of truth in different ways. While fact checking, moralizing, or calls to reason mark such a desire for truth in standard political communication, we explore political satire as a more vivid approach to the relationship between truth and the political, one that works by mobilizing a range of affective and imaginative registers. Focusing on segments of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah that satirize President Trump, we see the damaged truth-democracy-arrangement unpacked in its funniest, most outrageous, and...
Research Interests:
Architecture exceeds the distinction between the cultural and the natural. It is an artifact that deploys its own force, and thus points us to our relatedness.By way of a thought experiment, the article introduces architecture as a fellow... more
Architecture exceeds the distinction between the cultural and the natural. It is an artifact that deploys its own force, and thus points us to our relatedness.By way of a thought experiment, the article introduces architecture as a fellow being into the Anthropocene debate, one that helps us reconsider our human situation. Using the example of the public reactions to the Notre-Dame de Paris fire in 2019, it explores how architecture itself appears as a cultural force. It affects the life and the togetherness of people; it encourages us to conceive of society in material terms as a multiplicity that involves our senses and sensitivity; and it reminds us of how creative and destructive forces are interwoven.
Research Interests:
»Exposure« bezeichnet das Moment des Ausgesetzt-Seins oder Sich-Aussetzens-ob gegenüber der Gewalt eines Naturereignisses, eines Terroranschlags oder dem wer-tenden Blick der Anderen. Wenn Verletzlichkeit eine Grundbedingung des Lebens... more
»Exposure« bezeichnet das Moment des Ausgesetzt-Seins oder Sich-Aussetzens-ob gegenüber der Gewalt eines Naturereignisses, eines Terroranschlags oder dem wer-tenden Blick der Anderen. Wenn Verletzlichkeit eine Grundbedingung des Lebens ist, dann fragt das Konzept der »Exposure« danach, wie sich diese Verletzlichkeit in kon-kreten Situationen und Begegnungen zeigt, wie sie spürbar, fassbar und artikulierbar wird-und nicht zuletzt: wie sie produktiv gewendet werden kann.
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ABSTRACT The image of big data and algorithms in society is obviously ambivalent. On the one hand, algorithms are seen as a tool of empowerment that allows us, for example, to render society transparent and thus governable, to the extent... more
ABSTRACT The image of big data and algorithms in society is obviously ambivalent. On the one hand, algorithms are seen as a tool of empowerment that allows us, for example, to render society transparent and thus governable, to the extent that the social sciences might even become obsolete. On the other hand, algorithms seem to assume a mysterious agency in the black box of the computer so that their operations are invisible and inscrutable to us: artificial intelligence is seen as something that one day will have the power to dominate us. Beyond these two extreme positions that both overestimate and underestimate how algorithms might change our way of seeing things and being in the world, the present article introduces a third perspective. Algorithms, it holds, indeed follow their own ‘style of reasoning’ and thus create new realities. At the same time, however, they ‘reduce reality’, as they lack access to the world of human sense making. Algorithms have no secrets but deploy a ‘logic of the surface’. As they paint a behaviorist picture of human modes of existence, algorithms and big data might change our self-understanding. Engaging in epistemological questions will help us to capture the ontological implications of algorithmic reasoning.
Research Interests:
In inquiring about the social acceptance of the digital fingerprint during our research, we discovered the crucial role the fictive plays in our interviewees’ experiencing and assessment of control and security technology. Social... more
In inquiring about the social acceptance of the digital fingerprint during our research, we discovered the crucial role the fictive plays in our interviewees’ experiencing and assessment of control and security technology. Social acceptance is thus a heterogeneous phenomenon, not only because it depends on the situational features of dealing with the technology, but also, notably, because facts and fiction intermingle, sometimes indistinctly, within the discourses on surveillance and security. Mistrust in the technology tends to feed on fictive imageries, while at the same time resting on an unwavering belief in the objectivity of fingerprint data, presumably a clearly decipherable and reliable form of forensic proof. Against this backdrop, the article seeks to investigate the fictive’s critical role in countering security technologies.
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ABSTRACT Post-truth regimes are disconcerting to the extent that they confuse the distinction between true and false and thus obfuscate and obstruct political debate. And they dismantle the secret by imitating its habit: they constantly... more
ABSTRACT Post-truth regimes are disconcerting to the extent that they confuse the distinction between true and false and thus obfuscate and obstruct political debate. And they dismantle the secret by imitating its habit: they constantly make claims while leaving us to guess what exactly the true content is – or whether there is any content at all. In an imagined world without secrets, there would be no curiosity or confidentiality, no sincerity or trust, and no political possibility of thinking otherwise. Analysis of the logic of secrecy, the article argues, helps us to revisit the established confidence in our culture in the force of truth, and to confront a challenge post-truth regimes pose: that to establish truth involves affective force. Contrary to the common belief that truth – and secrecy – is something to be revealed, a Foucauldian reading suggests that to mobilize truth requires both truthfulness and a moment of creation. Truth relies on the secret but will always only emerge on the surface.
Research Interests:
When Guenther Jakobs introduced the concept of “enemy criminal law” (Feindstrafrecht), or enemy penology, into the legal debate, this was due to a concern with the increasingly anticipatory nature of criminalization in German legislation... more
When Guenther Jakobs introduced the concept of “enemy criminal law” (Feindstrafrecht), or enemy penology, into the legal debate, this was due to a concern with the increasingly anticipatory nature of criminalization in German legislation in the last decades of the 20th century. Against the backdrop of a series of terror attacks in the West and the ensuing debates on how to deal with the dangers and threats of the new millennium, Jakobs’s theory gained new momentum in Germany’s public discourse and beyond. As it seems, the author himself turned the concept into a device for political intervention, declaring the notion of the enemy as indispensable for dealing with certain extreme crimes and notorious offenders, not only to prevent future crime and avert harm from society but also, and most notably, to preserve the established “citizen criminal law” (Bürgerstrafrecht): the enemy is the one to be isolated and excluded from the system. Enemy criminal law may be a peculiar legal concept....
One of the most exciting features in Foucault’s work is his analytics of power in terms of forms of visibility. It allows for a reflection on the conditions of seeing and thinking, thus triggering a seemingly paradoxical move: locating... more
One of the most exciting features in Foucault’s work is his analytics of power in terms of forms of visibility. It allows for a reflection on the conditions of seeing and thinking, thus triggering a seemingly paradoxical move: locating the limits of our perspectives entails simultaneously transgressing these limits. In a way, we decipher our own blind spot. Approaching Discipline and Punish through this perspective brings us to identify the digital subject as a characteristic figure of our time. In contrast to its disciplinarian counterpart, it appears to be an active, though not necessarily political subject. The notion of visual citizenship will help us to go a step further and figure out what it could mean to challenge today’s surveilling gaze.
Research Interests:
In der politischen Philosophie Jacques Rancières (2002) markiert das Unvernehmen (la mésentente) das Andere der Ordnung. Der im Deutschen außergewöhnliche Begriff, der wörtlich so viel wie gestörtes Einvernehmen bedeutet, bezieht sich... more
In der politischen Philosophie Jacques Rancières (2002) markiert das Unvernehmen (la mésentente) das Andere der Ordnung. Der im Deutschen außergewöhnliche Begriff, der wörtlich so viel wie gestörtes Einvernehmen bedeutet, bezieht sich nicht lediglich auf die Artikulation von Protest oder ein Nicht-Einverständnis mit der herrschenden Ordnung. Er bezeichnet die Unterbrechung, Störung und Verschiebung der vom „Konsens“ getragenen „polizeilichen Ordnung“. Die Verschiebung dieser Ordnung tritt in dem Moment ein, in dem sich ein neues politisches Subjekt ins symbolische Register einschreibt. Für Rancière verweist der Begriff des Unvernehmens auf den Kern des Politischen. Das Politische organisiert sich um die Frage der Anerkennung, genauer der Teilhabe eines Subjekts, das bisher aus der polizeilichen Ordnung und damit auch von sozialer und politischer Partizipation ausgeschlossen war. Doch inwiefern markiert das Unvernehmen das Andere der Ordnung?
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Contrary to the prevailing debate on the governance of security with its focus on emergency and exception, a Foucauldian perspective enables us to capture how law transforms in a rather gradual and unnoticed manner. As a practice, law... more
Contrary to the prevailing debate on the governance of security with its focus on emergency and exception, a Foucauldian perspective enables us to capture how law transforms in a rather gradual and unnoticed manner. As a practice, law constitutes itself through knowledge. Relying upon knowledge, it is notoriously susceptible to security matters. This will be illustrated by analysing the rationality of pre-emptive action that is facilitated by automated surveillance technologies. Taking a recent torture debate as an extreme example elucidates that a conception of law as practice also serves as a tool of critique and articulating dissent.
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Although initially perceived as illegal and illegitimate, targeted killing has gained legal approval and greater acceptance as a tactic in the US fight against terrorism. Rather than being accomplished extra-legally or gradually... more
Although initially perceived as illegal and illegitimate, targeted killing has gained legal approval and greater acceptance as a tactic in the US fight against terrorism. Rather than being accomplished extra-legally or gradually normalized as an exception to the rule, as critics proclaim, targeted killing becomes inscribed into a law that was, and is, prepared to accept it as a practice. Conceiving of law as a practice renders the mutually constitutive relationship between targeted killing and the law visible. As a practice, law is indissoluble from the forms of knowledge both that enact it and that its enactment invokes. Targeted killing could assert itself as a security dispositif that displaces and relocates political notions underlying and defining international law.
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1. From Foucault's Lectures at the College de France to Studies of Governmentality: An Introduction Ulrich Brockling, Susanne Krasmann and Thomas Lemke 2. Relocating the Modern State: Governmentality and the History of Political Ideas... more
1. From Foucault's Lectures at the College de France to Studies of Governmentality: An Introduction Ulrich Brockling, Susanne Krasmann and Thomas Lemke 2. Relocating the Modern State: Governmentality and the History of Political Ideas Martin Saar 3. Constituting Another Foucault Effect: Foucault on States and Statecraft Bob Jessop 4. Governmentalization of the State: Rousseau's Contribution to the Modern History of Governmentality Friedrich Balke 5. Government Unlimited: The Security Dispositif of Illiberal Governmentality Sven Opitz 6. The Right of Government: Torture and the Rule of Law Susanne Krasmann 7. Foucault and Frontiers: Notes on the Birth of the Humanitarian Border William Walters 8. Beyond Foucault: From Biopolitics to the Government of Life Thomas Lemke 9. Coming Back to Life: An Anthropological Reassessment of Biopolitics and Governmentality Didier Fassin 10. The Birth of Lifestyle Politics: The Biopolitical Management of Lifestyle Diseases in the United States and Denmark Lars Thorup Larsen 11. Biology, Citizenship and the Government of Biomedicine: Exploring the Concept of Biological Citizenship Peter Wehling 12. Human Economy, Human Capital: A Critique of Biopolitical Economy Ulrich Brockling 13. Decentring the Economy: Governmentality Studies and Beyond? Urs Staheli 14. Economy beyond Governmentality: The Limits of Conduct Ute Tellmann 15. Constructing the Socialized Self: Mobilization and Control in the "Active Society" Stephan Lessenich
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Ich staune darüber, dass Benjamin schon vor achtzig Jahren das Staunen kritisierte, welches Menschen dem Faschismus entgegenbrachten und das sich heute wiederholt: Ich staune über das Ansteigen der Zahl antisemitisch und rassistisch... more
Ich staune darüber, dass Benjamin schon vor achtzig Jahren das Staunen kritisierte, welches Menschen dem Faschismus entgegenbrachten und das sich heute wiederholt: Ich staune über das Ansteigen der Zahl antisemitisch und rassistisch motivierter Übergriffe. Das Staunen, das sich auf den Faschismus richtet, entblößt nach Benjamin nicht den Faschismus, sondern eine »Vorstellung von Geschichte« (Benjamin 1980: 697), die ›Fortschritt‹ als normal und Faschismus als zu bestaunende Regression setzt: Es legt die Vorannahmen der staunenden Person über die Welt offen, auf Grundlage derer zwischen Normalzustand und Aus-nahme unterschieden wird. Die Entblößung, die ich angesichts Benjamins Gedanken zum Staunen spüre, richtet sich auf mein eigenes Staunen, aber auch auf den Begriff des Staunens selbst. Diese Erfahrung ist Ausgangspunkt dieses Textes, der sich dem Staunen dort widmet, wo es sich mit dem Potential überschneidet, offenzulegen, bloßzustellen, zu enthüllen – und somit Elemente von Gew...
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... DISKUSSION. Täter und Zeichen. Wie man dem Elften September einen Sinn verleiht. Autores:Susanne Krasmann, Henning Schmidt-Semisch; Localización: Kriminologisches Journal, ISSN 0341-1966, Vol. 34, Nº 2, 2002 , págs. 150-154. Fundación... more
... DISKUSSION. Täter und Zeichen. Wie man dem Elften September einen Sinn verleiht. Autores:Susanne Krasmann, Henning Schmidt-Semisch; Localización: Kriminologisches Journal, ISSN 0341-1966, Vol. 34, Nº 2, 2002 , págs. 150-154. Fundación Dialnet. ...