“Absolute idealism must be couched in irony in order to be taken
seriously,” argued Andrew Algin, who edits the infamous US-based neo-Nazi
website ‘The Daily Stormer’. Yet if the alt-right has ‘weaponized’ irony in
order to build commitment to white supremacy, they are not alone. Today
irony is deployed prominently by a range of political actors, ranging from
environmental activists, to competing factions of Unionists and Republicans
in Northern Ireland, to Indian labour activists. We are inviting
applications to take part in a 2-day workshop to be held in the second half
of 2020 at the London School of Economics. The workshop aims to build on
work within anthropology and political philosophy that considers irony as a
mode of interpretation and as a subjective disposition towards the world,
to consider the ways in which ironic stances can generate or underwrite
action, sincerity and commitment – particularly in the context of new
political and anti-political formations across the world.
To what extent is irony used to shift what is sayable, thinkable,
acceptable or even necessary for different actors? How is it that irony is
capable of problematizing, reworking, and renegotiating ideals, ideologies,
and the meaning of the political itself? What even is ‘irony’ when working
within this space that simultaneously incorporates politics and
anti-politics? And what is it about the multiple, interlinking crises of
the current political moment - austerity, climate change, automation, the
disillusionment with liberal democracy and rise of autocracies - that seems
to lead to the emergence of ironic commitments in certain contexts, but not
others.
Workshop participants will come from a range of disciplinary backgrounds,
career stages and nationalities. We are in the process of applying to the
Wenner Gren workshop fund in order to support participants’ costs. To
apply, please send an abstract of no more than 500 words to
[log in to unmask] and [log in to unmask] by November 1st.
------------------
Susannah Crockford
Post-Doctoral Researcher
NARMESH
<http://www.narmesh.ugent.be/about.html>Department of Literary Studies
Universiteit Gent
Belgium
New Article: "Becoming a Being of Pure Consciousness: Fasting and New Age
Spirituality <https://nr.ucpress.edu/content/23/1/38>", *Nova Religio*
23:1, August 2019: 38-59
New Chapter: "Digging Holes, Posting Signs, Loading Guns: Constructing Home
in Grand Canyon, Arizona", in Home: Ethnographic Encounters
<https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/home-9781350115965/>. Bloomsbury, 2019.
Blogs: LSE US Centre
<https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/?s=susannah+crockford>, Counterpoint
Navigating Knowledge
<https://www.counterpointknowledge.org/?s=susannah+crockford>
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