| Kurzkommentar |
The economy is irrefutably social. The division of labor, the distribution of social wealth, the modes of production and exchange are defining features of every society. What is more, economic practices depend on social and political institutions as well as cultural understandings without which the interactions of economic agents would become unstable or fail altogether. In other words, what we call “the economy” boils down to human activity and, as such, is subject to historical change. However, the precise relationship between economic practices and the other forms of social, political, and cultural agency is rather difficult to conceptualize. The economy seems to presuppose social dispositions (as the analyses of Max Weber and Louis Althusser suggest) as well as the social reproduction of human life and labor power (as feminist theorists have insisted). And – as the neoliberal era has amply shown – economic logics are capable of transforming and “colonizing” (Habermas) other social spheres, such as education and health care, science and art, and are embedded in historically entrenched relations of domination, dispossession, and extraction on a global scale (as postcolonial critics have argued). Weak versions of economic determinism could point to the dependence of all other social spheres on resources provided by the economy exemplified by the dependence on the economy’s dominant medium: money.
Conversely, the dependence of economic practices on social, political, and cultural background conditions, as well as on functioning ecosystems and sustainable access to natural resources, implies the possibility of dissonance, and thus conflict, between divergent social rationalities. Contrary to social theories that conceptualize the economy as a particular social system with definite boundaries and a specific rationality, the complex interactions and interdependencies of social spheres suggest the need for a wider, more social concept of the economy. Economy and society permeate each other and form a compound of socio-economic practices – a form of life. Such a wide concept of the economy revives core claims of classical Critical Theory. Social critique must address the material foundations of society, i.e. the ways in which society reproduces itself. The International Critical Theory Summer School 2024 aims at the renewal of such an overarching concept of society without which social critique is in danger of deteriorating into mere moral appeals.
To apply for participation, graduate students and junior scholars are invited to submit a précis of their take on core issues in the debate on social transformation and a CV (each document 1 page max.). The précis should show which particular background knowledge and systematic positions the applicants would contribute to our joint discussions. Please submit your application in a single PDF document and make sure that the title of your precis summarizes its content.
Deadline for applications (HU students): April 12, 2024
via the form at https://criticaltheoryinberlin.de/summer_school/international-summer-school-in-critical-theory-2024-social-critique-and-economics/
Please check our FAQs there for further information.
Instructors:
Lisa Herzog (University Groningen)
Rahel Jaeggi (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
Ingrid Robeyns (University Utrecht)
Kolja Möller (Technical University Dresden)
and
Robin Celikates (Freie Universität Berlin)
Christian Schmidt (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin)
Organizers: Rahel Jaeggi, Robin Celikates, Christian Schmidt, Zveta Pauly (Centre for Social Critique Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) and Alice Crary (The New School for Social Research)
For updates and information see also:
http://criticaltheoryinberlin.de/summer-school/ |
