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SWPS University - Main page

Politics of Justice

Text, Image, and Practice

About the conference Register

The conference is addressed to:

anyone interested in the topic of the conference

Language of the event: English and German

Lectures delivered in German will not be translated into English, and those given in English will not be translated into German.

Crisis and Justice 2023

About the conference

We are pleased to announce an upcoming conference that will explore the profound intersections of justice and crisis. Walter Benjamin's body of work has been consistently concerned with the concept of justice, which figures prominently in his reflections on categories such as law, violence, myth, and more. This conference aims to analyze Benjamin's multifaceted understanding of justice and its interplay with various other theoretical constructs. In the context of recurring global crises, the conference will explore how Benjamin's insights on justice remain relevant and essential for addressing contemporary challenges.

The idea of justice has been a fundamental concept in Walter Benjamin's thought since October 1916, when he wrote his "Notes on a Work on the Category of Justice." This concept is central not only to his essay "Toward a Critique of Violence," but also to his key essays on Karl Kraus, Franz Kafka, and Nikolai Lesskov. Justice is a unifying theme that runs through most of Benjamin's intellectual work, whether explicitly articulated or subtly implied. Such pursuits range from his investigations of Goethe's essays and his reflections on Trauerspiel, to the vast scope of the Arcades Project. Justice can be perceived as the driving force behind Benjamin's work, which is set against the recurrent element of mythical oppression. The work itself can be seen as an experimental field that explores various forms of understanding, contextualizing, and practicing justice. Benjamin's definition of a translator's task, objectives of literary criticism, proper methodology of historical study, the role of critical art, critical thinking, and philosophy are all located within this field of experimentation.

It should be noted that Benjamin developed his concept of justice in the context of a deep experiential and political crisis of modernity, which he sought to diagnose and analyze in his work. Today, as each new crisis becomes instantly global and overwhelming, the kind of response Benjamin demanded and sought, a reaction that is not merely corrective but truly responsible, committed, and engaged, seems more necessary and relevant than ever since his untimely death.

Justice as a central dimension of Benjamin's work is therefore the focus of our conference. We welcome all attempts at a systematic analysis of Benjamin's understandings and reconfigurations of the idea of justice concerning his reflections on such key categories as crisis, critique, law, violence, myth, guilt/debt, life, dialectics, utopia, messianism, sovereignty, state of exception, revolution, poverty, aura, trace, name, allegory, image, medium, constellation, translation, montage, gesture, body, space, time, history, memory, experience, narrative, quotation, and so on. However, we also encourage participants to engage with the possible productive tensions between Benjamin's and other thinkers' explorations of justice, as well as to explore the potential applications of Benjamin's thought in various fields of the humanities, political and artistic activity in general, with particular attention to the three key dimensions of textuality, visuality, and practice.

In other words, we would like to create a space for a fruitful discussion between Benjamin's understanding of justice and other theoretical approaches, as well as an in-depth analysis of the ways in which his insights and methods can function outside the scope of his oeuvre – all in response to contemporary crises.

Registration

Participation in the conference is free of charge.

Conference Sections

The conference is divided into thematic sections that encompass a wide range of Benjamin's interests and contributions:

  1. Law, Justice, Politics: This section delves into the intricate relationship between justice and politics in Benjamin's work, exploring his critique of law, state, and capitalism.
  2. Justice in Language and Linguistic Practice: Focusing on Benjamin's exploration of language and justice, this section probes his intricate interplay between words and justice.
  3. Justice in/of Images in Visual and Performative Arts: Analyzing Benjamin's emphasis on images as carriers of history, memory, and justice, this section bridges the gap between visual arts and Benjamin's philosophy.
  4. Bodily and Spatial Practices of Justice: This section explores how justice is experienced in the corporeal and spatial realms, as well as the interplay between body, space, and justice in Benjamin's work.
  5. History, Memory, and Justice: Delving into the relationship between historical narratives, memory, and justice, this section uncovers how Benjamin's concepts can shed light on contemporary struggles.
  6. Justice and Visions of Community: Examining Benjamin's vision of community and its relationship with justice, this section addresses how his ideas can shape modern conceptions of collective well-being.
  7. Justice and Crisis: Focusing on how Benjamin's ideas respond to crises, this section explores his reflections on crisis, critique, and justice in times of upheaval.

Program

Download the conference program here  

Download a full description of the lectures here  

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    Social Activity

    Facing the catastrophe of the past: a walk along the traces of the Warsaw Ghetto.

  2. Welcome

    Andrzej Rychard, Director of the IFiS PAN; Marcin Jacoby, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities in Warsaw, SWPS University; Agnieszka Pantuchowicz, Vice-Director of the Institute of Humanities, SWPS University

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    Keynote Lecture

    Sigrid Weigel: "Benjamin’s Discussion of Law and Justice between Athens and Jerusalem."

  4. Break

     

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    Keynote Lecture

    Susan Buck-Morss: "Doing Justice to the Past."

  6. Reception

     

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    Parallel Sessions

    Bodily and Spatial Practices of Justice (chairs: Agata Bielik-Robson & Marta Olesik). Room N308.

    • Agata Bielik-Robson: "Nihilism as Material Justice: Benjamin’s Theology of Entropy."
    • Antoni Zając: "Innervated Pessimism and the Infrastructure of Justice."
    • Francisco Naishtat: Redemption Through Immersion – "On the Natural History and Justice in Benjamin’s Micrological Theology."

     

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    History, Memory and Justice (chairs: Andrzej Leder & Magdalena Gawin). Room N309.

    • Andrzej Gniazdowski: "Phenomenology and Angelology of History: Husserl and Benjamin about “what we call progress."
    • Andrzej Leder: "Who is the Angel gazing at? Some Lacanian Remarks."
    • Anna Wąsowicz: Between Practical Past and Embodied Art: the Case of Walter Benjamin."

     

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    Justice and Visions of Community (chairs: Alexandra Richter & Sebastian Truskolaski). Room N318.

    • Carolin Duttlinger: "Beyond Individual Authorship: Benjamin’s Journalism as Intervention and Engagement."
    • Jaime Cuenca: "An Adress with Three Audiences, and with None."

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    • Sabine Schiller-Lerg: "Zensur – zwischen Kontrolle und Unterdrückung: Walter Benjamins Deutung eines Machtinstruments."

     

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    Justice in/of Images and Visual Arts (chairs: Katarzyna Bojarska & Maria Teresa Costa). Room N312.

    • Paweł Mościcki: "What Color Is Justice?"

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    • Clemens-Carl Härle: "Gerechtigkeit gegenüber der Farbe?"
    • Katrin Weleda: "Drei Minuten des Leidens. Gedanken und Gesichte eines Geköpften."

     

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    Justice in Language and Linguistic Practice (chairs: Ilit Ferber & Monika Tokarzewska). Room N311.

    • Dennis Johannssen: "Language Justice and the Critique of Linguistic Violence."
    • Noboyuki Kakigi: "Translation as Action for Justice of Languages: An Inquiry into the Practical Meaning of Walter Benjamin’s Theory of Translation."
    • Caroline Sauter: "Translation and Justice: Benjamin and Derrida."

     

  2. Break

     

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    Parallel Sessions

    Bodily and Spatial Practices of Justice (chairs: Agata Bielik-Robson & Marta Olesik). Room N308.

    • Burak Üzümkesici: "Bodies at a Standstill: The Political Promise of a Gesture and Its Reproducibility."
    • Brendan Moran: "Veil, Justice, and the Body in Benjamin and Luste Boulbina."
    • Michal Pospiszyl: "Walter Benjamin in the Shtetl."

     

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    History, Memory and Justice (chairs: Andrzej Leder & Magdalena Gawin). Room N309.

    • Jeon Gyuchan: "Redemption of Justice Through Memory."
    • Magdalena Gawin: "Benjamin Against Fascism – A Critical Analysis of Memory."

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    • Johannes Otto Riedner: "Benjamin, Bloch, Kracauer, Scholem."

     

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    Justice and Visions of Community (chairs: Alexandra Richter & Sebastian Truskolaski). Room N318.

    • Sophia Buck: "Walter Benjamin’s ‘Outsiders': Against ‘Optische Täuschungen’ of National communities and their literary histories."

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    • Markus Hennig: "Die Gemeinschaft zwischen Mythos und Gerechtigkeit."
    • Thomas Lindenberg: "Ästhetische Erziehung zur Bildung einer gerechten Gemeinschaft."
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    Justice in/of Images and Visual Arts (chairs: Katarzyna Bojarska & Maria Teresa Costa). Room N312.

    • Beatriz Sánchez Santidrián: "Visual justice in the Artistic Practices of History. Unearthed Libraries and the Recovery of Dissident Memory."
    • Tomasz Szerszeń: "Read from the Ashes: to Do Justice."
    • Katarzyna Bojarska: "History Behind/Before the Image and the Image of History Behind Us."

     

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    Justice in Language and Linguistic Practice (chairs: Ilit Ferber & Monika Tokarzewska). Room N311.

    • Ludmila Fuks: "Quote without inverted commas. Montage for justice of things."
    • Elliott J. Niblock: "Vergegnung: The Mis-Meeting Between Martin Buber and Walter Benjamin."
    • Yu-jin Chang: "Justice is No Myth: An Interpretation of the Antithetical Synonyms in Benjamin’s Works."

     

  5. Lunch

     

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    Parallel Sessions

    Bodily and Spatial Practices of Justice (chairs: Agata Bielik-Robson & Marta Olesik). Room N308.

    • Łukasz Moll: "Walter Benjamin as the Chiffonier of the Common."
    • Néliio Conceição: "Presence of Mind and its Practices Between Body and History."

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    • Judith Kasper: "Benjamins Lumpensammler und Ruth, die Ährenleserin."

     

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    History, Memory and Justice (chairs: Andrzej Leder & Magdalena Gawin). Room N309.

    • Matthias Roick: "How to do Justice to the Past? Intellectual History, Non-Linear Narratives, and the Quest for Early Modernity."
    • Santhia Velasco Kittlaus: "Where Do We Stand When We Stand Up for Justice? A Comparison of the Historian’s Position in Walter Benjamin and Michel-Rolph Trouillot."
    • Urszula Zbrzeźniak: Philosopy as a Practice of Justice."

     

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    Justice and Visions of Community (chairs: Alexandra Richter & Sebastian Truskolaski). Room N318.

    • Ori Rotlevy: "Educative Violence and Just Communities?"
    • Ewa Majewska: "Procedures of Justice – Towards Historical Dimensions of Weak Solidarity."
    • Turkuaz Benlioglu: "Towards an Improperly Human Community? Walter Benjamin on Solitude and Community."
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    Justice in/of Images and Visual Arts (chairs: Katarzyna Bojarska & Maria Teresa Costa). Room N312.

    • Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesisu: "Caricature as Mass Art and Art History as Social Justice."
    • Christian Ferencz-Flatz: "The Most Real Gaze into the Heart of Things: Doing Justice to History via Advertisements."

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    • Daniel Gönitzer: "Benjamins Gerechtigkeit des Humors, oder: Die Ungerechtigkeit, dass 'die Schmetterlinge im Zoo keinen Käfig haben'."

     

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    Justice in Language and Linguistic Practice (chairs: Ilit Ferber & Monika Tokarzewska). Room N311.

    • Agata Kobylska: "Den Dingen Gerechtigkeit widerfahren lassen. Benjamins Spätstil in der Berliner Kindheit um Neunzehnhundert."
    • Astrid Seeger: "Sprache an der Schwelle zur Gerechtigkeit – Originaltext zwischen Verfremdung und Entfaltung in Walter Benjamin’s Übersetzungspraxis."
    • Monika Tokarzewska: " Der Humor als ‘angewandte Gerechtigkeit’. Humor und Erneuerung des (sprachlichen) Weltbezugs bei Walter Benjamin."
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    Social Activity

    Warsaw City Museum: The Opening of the Exhibition "Childhood and Crisis" and the Special Panel on the Exhibition (Katarzyna Bojarska, Wiktoria Bieżuńska, Marta Rakoczy, Zofia Rojek)

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    Parallel Sessions

    Bodily and Spatial Practices of Justice (chairs: Agata Bielik-Robson & Marta Olesik). Room N308.

    • Jakub Momro: "Embodiment and Justice: Nominalism and Language Utopia in the Work of Walter Bennjamin and Theodor. W. Adorno."
    • Jakub Gorecki: "Idiosyncrasy as the Highest Critical Organ: Karl Kraus and Bodily Justice"
    • Federica Muré: Justice as a ‘Technique of Nearness’: A Close Reading of Benjamin’s Anecdote-Theory."

       

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      History, Memory and Justice (chairs: Andrzej Leder & Magdalena Gawin). Room N309.

    • David Galashvili: "Progress and Catastrophe in the Modern World."

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    • Evelyn Schuler Zea: "Die Aufgabe der Gerechtigkeit."
    • Karol Sauerland: "Die Rolle des Begriffs der Gerechtigkeit für die Beurteilung von antitotalitären Bewegungen."

     

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    Law, Justice and Politics (chairs: Hannah Franzki & Tom Vandeputte). Room N312.

    • Tom Vandeputte: "Justice at Point Zero: Benjamin’s Early Critique of Law."
    • Tamara Tagliacozzo: "Messianism and Happiness: A Possible Reference to Kant in Benjamin’s Theological-Political Fragment"

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    • Klaus Mladek: "Gerechtigkeit ist die ethische Seite des Kampfes."
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    Justice in/of Images and Visual Arts (chairs: Katarzyna Bojarska & Maria Teresa Costa). Room N311.

    • Rita Velloso: "From Moscow to Berlin: the Urban ‘Thought-Images’ and the Tasks of Criticism."
    • Jeremy Rafuse: "Walter Benjamin and the Visual and Performance Arts."
    • Vladimir Rizow: "Reading Images: Walter Benjamin and Louis Althusser in Conversation."

     

  3. Break

     

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    Parallel Sessions

    Bodily and Spatial Practices of Justice (chairs: Agata Bielik-Robson & Marta Olesik). Room N308.

    • Karolina Jesień: "The Adventures of Benjamin’s Body: On the Politics of Leib and Körper from the ‘Outiline of the Psychophysical Problem’ to the Arcades Project."
    • Szymon Wróbel: "Walter Benjamin’s Attempt at Revision of the Order of Kant’s Transcendental Cartography."

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    • Andreas Köpfer & Robert Schneider-Reisinger: "Raum- und Körperentwürfe bei Walter Benjamin und Siegfried Kracauer und deren Relevanz für die Critical Disability Studies."

     

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    History, Memory and Justice (chairs: Andrzej Leder & Magdalena Gawin). Room N309.

    • Manuela Sampaio de Mattos: "Testimonial Clinics in Brazil – a Benjaminian reading."

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    • Sarah Ralfs: "Zur Überlieferung der Steine. Benjamins Vision für eine gerechtere Gemeinschaft nach der Hoffnungslosigkeit."
    • Ulrich Mathias Gerr: "Last der Geschichte – Entstellung und Gerechtigkeit im Kontext des ‘Bucklicht Männlein’."

     

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    Law, Justice and Politics (chairs: Hannah Franzki & Tom Vandeputte). Room N312.

    • Everet Smith: "Concerning the Law in Walter Benjamin’s Critique of Violence."
    • Vinsent Nollet: "‘The Critique of Violence is the Philosophy of Its History’: History, Theology and Politics in Walter Benjamin’s Early Historical-Philosophical Writings."
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    Justice and Crisis (chairs: Mikołaj Ratajczak & Christian Ferencz-Flatz). Room N311.

    • Filip Brzeźniak: "Enslaved Forebears” or ‘the Emancipated Heirs’ – Walter Benjamin’s Politics of Inheritance and (In)transmissibility as Crisis."
    • Anna Migliorini: "A Leap and a Bow between Krise (und Kritik) and the Real State of Exception."
    • Mikołaj Ratajczak: "Doing the Crisis Justice: Benjamin’s Conceptual Politics in Theorizing Crisis."

     

  6. Lunch

     

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    Parallel Sessions

    Law, Justice and Politics (chairs: Hannah Franzki & Tom Vandeputte). Room N312.

    • Hannah Franzki: "Foundational Violence and Dialectical Images: Thinking with Walter Benjamin about the Politics of Time in War Crime Trials."

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    • Thomas Regehly: "Die Gerechtigkeit und das Rettende."

     

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    Justice and Crisis (chairs: Mikołaj Ratajczak & Christian Ferencz-Flatz). Room N311.

    • Brian Britt: "Crisis, Critique, and the Rightous Storyteller."
    • Julia Dybczyńska: "The Myth of the Atom."

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    • Caroline Adler: "…ehemals gesicherte Begriffe von Gerechtigkeit. Drei Bücher [des Heute]” und die Krisis der europäischen Intelligenz."

     

  8. Break

     

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    Keynote Lecture - UPDATED!

    Eli Friedlander: "Language, Just Language"

  10. General Meeting of the International Walter Benjamin Society

     

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    Social Activity

    Kibbutz Grochów – guided walk

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    Special Panel

    "Violence, Law and Justice: discussing the practices of justice in contemporary Poland"

  3. Closing Remarks and Farewell

     

Organizer

  • SWPS logo
  • Institute of Philosophy and Sociology logo
  • International Walter Benjamin Society

Partners

The conference is co-sponsored by the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation.

  • Muzeum Warszawy logo
  • The Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation; logo
  • Fundacja witryna logo

Organizing committee

  • Katarzyna Bojarska (SWPS University)

  • Adam Lipszyc (IFiS PAN)

  • Marta Olesik (ISP PAN)

  • Mikołaj Ratajczak (IFiS PAN)

  • Mateusz Skrzeczkowski (SWPS University)

Location

  • SWPS University, Chodakowska 19/31, Warsaw

  • Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IFiS PAN), Nowy Świat 72, Warsaw