DATE: 5-7 O GEOFFROY DE LAGASNERIE is a French philosopher

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
“ONE HUNDRED YEARS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD:
FAILURES, LEGACIES, AND FUTURES OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION”
DATE: 5-7 OCTOBER 2017
VENUES: UNIVERSITY OF ST. GALLEN; LITERATURHAUS ZÜRICH; PALACE,
ST. GALLEN
KEYNOTE-SPEAKERS
GEOFFROY DE LAGASNERIE is a French philosopher and sociologist, currently serving as a
Professor of Philosophy and Human Sciences at the École nationale supérieure d’arts in CergyPontoise, France. His work largely pertains to social and political philosophy, epistemology
and critical theory, as well as the sociology of cultural and intellectual life. Highly critical of the
higher education system in France, as shown in his books Logique de la création. Sur l'Université,
la vie intellectuelle et les conditions de l'innovation (2011) and La dernière leçon de Michel Foucault. Sur le
néolibéralisme, la théorie et la politique (2012), he was made over-night well-known through his The
Art of the Revolt: Snowden, Assange, Manning (2015) and is regarded as one the most important
new critical voices of the French intellectual milieu. His latest publications (Manifesto for an Intellectual and Political
Counteroffensive – with Edouard Louis, 2015; Juger, 2016) bear witness of his attempts to reenact older or invent new
terms for a leftist intellectual reengagement in public debate through attacking the legitimization being offered to rightwing agendas in public discourse.
CHRISTOPH MENKE is a German philosopher and Professor of Practical Philosophy (with a special
focus on legal philosophy and political philosophy) in the Cluster of Excellence Normative Orders at
the Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. His philosophy focuses on topics of political
and legal philosophy (democracy and equality, history and concept of subjective rights, human
rights), theories of subjectivity (abilities and action, spirit and inner nature), ethics (success and
failure, theories of the tragic) and aesthetics (aesthetics of modernity, tragedy and theater). Particular
attention is given to the figure of subjective rights, which characterize the form of the government
of modern societies. Some of his numerous books include The Sovereignty of Art. Aesthetic Negativity in
Adorno and Derrida (1988), Tragödie im Sittlichen. Gerechtigkeit und Freiheit nach Hegel (1996), Reflections of Equality (2000),
Tragic Play: Irony and Theater from Sophocles to Beckett (2005), Force: A Fundamental Concept of Aesthetic Anthropology (2008),
Kreation und Depression. Freiheit im gegenwärtigen Kapitalismus (2011 – with Juliane Rebentisch), Die Kraft der Kunst (2013),
Kritik der Rechte (2015) etc.
JEAN-LUC NANCY is Professor Emeritus at the University of Strasbourg and holder of the
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Chair at The European Graduate School (EGS), in SaasFee, Switzerland. Co-founder (with Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe) of the legendary Centre de
Recherche philosophique sur le politique in 1980, that has proven a pivotal point for the European
political thought of ongoing significant resonance, Jean-Luc Nancy is one of the most
prolific and surely one of the most important philosophers of our times. He does not
hesitate to engage himself time and again with the most important philosophical questions and his philosophy is being
brightly received all over the world and across a very wide range of disciplines. His works include such mile-stones as
the The Speculative Remark: One of Hegel's Bons Mots (1973), The Literary Absolute: The Theory of Literature in German
Romanticism (with Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe – 1978), Les Fins de l'homme à partir du travail de Jacques Derrida (with Philippe
Lacoue-Labarthe – 1981), Rejouer le politique (with Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe – 1981), The Inoperative Community (1983),
The Experience of Freedom (1988), La comparution (with Jean-Christophe Bailly – 1991), Corpus (1992), The Birth to Presence
(1993), The Sense of the World (1993), Being Singular Plural (1996), The Gravity of Thought (1997), The Creation of the World or
Globalization (2002), Noli me tangere (2003), Dis-Enclosure: The Deconstruction of Christianity (2005), What's These Worlds
Coming To? (2011 – with Aurélien Barrau), Que faire? (2016) etc.
DONATELLA DELLA PORTA is a political scientist and currently Professor of Political Science
and director of the Institute of Human and Social Sciences of the Scuola Normale Superiore
(SNS), Florence, Italy. She has conducted major research projects for which she has been
awarded numerous prestigious prices, as well as honorary doctorates. The main topics of her
research are social movements, political violence, terrorism, corruption, police and public order
policies. In the recent years she has worked relentlessly to promote changes concerning the
future of the European Union, the role and future of social movements, last but not least the
necessity of mass movements in order to foster horizontal structures in democratic structuration processes. Her vast
list of publications includes such titles as Lo scambio occulto. Casi di corruzione politica in Italia (1992), Social Movements,
Political Violence and the State (1995), I partiti politici (2001), I new global (2003), Globalization from Below (with Massimiliano
Andretta, Lorenzo Mosca and Herbert Reiter – 2006), The Policing of Transnational Protest (with Abby Peterson and
Herbert Reiter – 2006), Le ragioni del no. Le campagne contro la Tav in Val di Susa e il Ponte sullo Stretto (with Gianni Piazza
– 2008), Approaches and Methodologies in the Social Sciences. A Pluralist Perspective, (with Michael Keating – 2008), Another
Europe (2009), Social Movements in Times of Austerity (2015), Can Democracy Be Saved? Participation, Deliberation and Social
Movements (2013), etc.
SYLVIA SASSE is currently Professor of Literature at the Department for Slavic Studies of the
University of Zürich. Her research interests encompass such fields as aesthetics of remembrance,
poetics of the space, history, theory and practice of performance arts in Soviet Union and modern
day Russia, aesthetics and literature theory of Balkan studies etc. Moreover, she has curated a
number of exhibitions on geopoetics, communist autobiographies, literature, aesthetics and the law,
immaterial communication, aesthetics of reminiscence, etc. in Zürich, Berlin, Bremen etc. Her in
more than one languages translated publications include Kollektivkörper. Kunst und Politik von
Verbindung (with Stefanie Wenner – 2002), Texte in Aktion. Sprech- und Sprachakte im Moskauer
Konzeptualismus (2003), Wortsünden. Beichten und Gestehen in der russischen Literatur (2009), Geopoetiken. Geographische Entwürfe
in den mittel- und osteuropäischen Literaturen (with Magdalena Marszałek – 2010), Michail Bachtin. Zur Einführung (2010),
Gerichtstheater. Drei sowjetische Agitgerichte (with Gianna Frölicher – 2015), Ästhetische Reaktionen. Wirkungsästhetiken in der
russischen Moderne (forthcoming), Kommunismus autobiographisch (with Anne Krier and Tatjana Hofmann – forthcoming)
etc.
KARL SCHLÖGEL is a German historian and journalist, Professor Emeritus of Eastern European
History at the European University Viadrina, Frankfurt an der Oder, Germany. His work focuses on
the history of Russian modernity and Stalinism, Russian diaspora and dissident movement, the history
of Eastern European cities, as well as on theoretical problems of historical narration. For his path
breaking research as committed journalist, theorist and translator he has received innumerous prizes
such as the European Essay-Prize Charles Veillon (1990), the Anna-Krüger-Prize of the
Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (1999), the Nikolai-Anziferow-Prize, St. Petersburg (2002), the
Bundesverdienstkreuz am Bande (2005) and most recently the Prize of the Historisches Kolleg
München (2016). Contrary to many representatives of his discipline, Karl Schlögel's themes are derived from a lifehistorical experience rather than from a logic of research. His way of (un-)doing History is being characterized by a
skepsis towards supra-individual ideas and ideologies and in favor of an analysis of forms of pre-political material and
everyday cultural life. The following publications – translated in various languages – are indicative of the width and
perspective of his always actual historiographic approach: Partei kaputt: Das Scheitern der KPD und die Krise der Linken
(1980), Moskau lesen (1984), Go East oder die zweite Entdeckung des Ostens (1995), Petersburg: Das Laboratorium der Moderne
1909-1921 (2002), Die Mitte liegt ostwärts: Europa im Übergang (2002), Planet der Nomaden (2006), Terror und Traum: Moskau
1937 (2008), Grenzland Europa. Unterwegs auf einem neuen Kontinent (2013), Archäologie des Kommunismus oder Russland im 20.
Jahrhundert. Ein Bild neu zusammensetzen (2014), Entscheidung in Kiew. Ukrainische Lektionen (2015).

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