Online Conference | February 24-26, 2022
Pamphlets are everywhere. In recent years, the polemical texts of the #MeToo movement, of Black Lives Matter, of anticapitalist movements, of Brexit, of anti-abortion coalitions, or of digital secessionists have demonstrably affected the normative fabric of Western societies. Pamphletary literature and the responses it elicits are at the core of social history and are drivers of revolutionary events. From disenfranchised groups defending their existence to transnational coalitions advocating for systemic change, pamphlets are both a preeminent medium of political transformation and a massively popular genre of literature.
How does the pamphlet, both in its traditional and digital forms, shape and frame the objectives of contentious politics? What pamphletary impulses lead to political action, and what political actions crystalize as normative change? The international bilingual conference “Activist Writing —The Pamphlet in Practice, History, Media, and the Public Sphere” addresses these questions from an interdisciplinary perspective.
Keynote speakers:
Sigrid Weigel (February 24)
Robert Pfaller (February 24)
Eva von Redecker (February 25)
Philipp Staab (February 25)
Grace Blakeley (February 25)
Amber A’Lee Frost (February 25)
Registration:
The conference will be hosted online. For registration, please visit www.artsautonomy.net/conference. If you are only registering for a keynote, please email us at activistwriting2022@lmu.de.
Download the Conference Flyer
Program
Thursday, February 24
12:30
Opening with Greeting Address
Prof. Dr. Heike Paul Director of the Bavarian American Academy, Chair of American Studies at the Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen
Prof. Dr. Pierre-Héli Monot Principal Investigator of the Project “The Arts of Autonomy”, Professor of Transnational American Studies, Political Theory, Aesthetics and Public Humanities at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
13:00–14:15
Keynote: Flugblatt, Pamphlet und Karikatur im Struktur- und Medienwandel der Öffentlichkeit
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Sigrid Weigel, Former Director of the Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung Berlin and Chair of the Geisteswissenschaftliche Zentren Berlin, Prof. em. at the Institut für Philosophie, Literatur-, Wissenschafts- und Technikgeschichte der Technischen Universität Berlin
14:30–15:45
Panel 1: Claiming the Public Sphere – Pamphleteering on the Way to Modernity
Wiebke Voigt (TU Dresden) Activist Writing in the Name of God: Reformation Pamphlets and the Emergence of the Public Sphere during the Early Reformation Period
Dr. Christoph Streb (LMU München) Enter the Author: Ultra-Personal Polemical Writing in Late 18th-Century Pamphlets and its Ambivalent Democratic Function
16:00–17:30
Panel 2: Politics in the 1920s – Agitation and Action in Italian Fascism and the German Communist Party
Dr. Manlio Della Marca (LMU München) “Ideas Going into Action”: Ezra Pound and Trans-media Pamphleteering in Fascist Italy
Daphne Weber (HU Berlin) The Means of Agitation: Pamphleteering as Production of Small Forms Organizing Crowds and Cadre in 1920s’ German KPD Agitprop Publications
17:30–18:30 Break
18:30–20:00
Keynote: Erobern oder Verzichten? Politisches Fordern im Neoliberalismus
Prof. Dr. Robert Pfaller Professor for Philosophy and Cultural Studies at the University of Art and Design Linz and at the Technische Universität Wien
Friday, February 25
10:00–11:30
Keynote (Lecture and Discussion): Revolution für das Leben
Dr. Eva von Redecker Marie-Skłodowska-Curie-Fellow at the University of Verona, Centre for Politics and Theories of Sexuality (PoliTeSse)
11:45–13:00
Panel 3: Agents of Change: Practices of the Pamphlet
Prof. Dr. Juliane Prade-Weiss (LMU München), Prof. Dr. Dominik Markl (Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome), Dr. Vladimir Petrović (Institute for Contemporary History, Belgrade) Appeals to Historical Authority Justifying Mass Violence in Pamphlets
Sakina Shakil Gröppmaier (LMU München, Project Member, “The Arts of Autonomy”) From Text to Event … to Text: Pamphletary Appeals for Sovereignty in the Digital Public Sphere
13:00 –14:00 Break
14:00 –15:30
Keynote (Discussion): Between Financialization and Digitalization: Transformations of the Public in Hyper-Modern Capitalism
Prof. Dr. Philipp Staab Professor for Sociology of the Future of Work at Humboldt-Universität Berlin
Grace Blakeley Economist, Commentator, Author, and Activist (“Stolen. How to Save the World from Financialisation” 2019, “The Corona Crash. How the Pandemic will Change Capitalism” 2020)
15:45 –17:00
Panel 4: Pamphlets and Factuality: Information and Disinformation in Public Discourse
Dr. Nils C. Kumkar (Universität Bremen) Outsmarting Reality: Alternative Facts as the Opportunistic Lubricant of Public Discourse
Dr. David Bebnowski (LMU München, Project Member, “The Arts of Autonomy”) Voicing Reality: The Pamphlet as a Medium of Partisan Truths
17:30 –18:30 Break
18:00 – 20:00
Keynote (Lecture and Discussion): Dirtbag
Amber A’Lee Frost Co-Host of the Podcast “Chapo Trap House”, Author, Activist (“Dirtbag” forthcoming)
Saturday, February 26
10:00 –11:15
Panel 5: Pamphletary Practice in Manifestos
Prof. Dr. Carsten Junker (TU Dresden) The Manifesto as Form: Queering the Subject of Polemical Writing?
Stefanie Kremmel (Universität Wien) Translation as Pamphletary Practice: Insight into the Translation History of the Communist Manifesto
11:30–12:45
Panel 6: Re-Forming and Re-Cycling Pamphlets by African American Pamphleteers
Prof. Dr. Dustin Breitenwischer (Universität Hamburg) Frederick Douglass and the Pamphlet as Re/Form
PD. Dr. Florian Sedlmaier (FU Berlin) Ida B. Wells Barnett’s Pamphlets: Re-Cycling, Media Monitoring, and Racial Leadership
13:15 –14:00
Concluding Discussion
Organizers:
This conference is organized by the members of the ERC research project “The Arts of Autonomy: Pamphleteering, Popular Philology, and the Public Sphere” at the
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 852205).
Prof. Dr. Pierre-Héli Monot, Dr. David Bebnowski, Sakina Shakil Gröppmaier