Andreas Pettenkofer gives a working paper on 'Structures of indifference. Some first results of a case study on ‘middle class’ life in Delhi'

The purpose of the paper is to give a brief outline of the project that I started within the German-Indian ICAS project on ‘Metamorphoses of the Political’, and to present some first results, which at this stage are just hypotheses. The paper is mostly based on 13 life-history interviews that I did during two brief stays in Delhi, at the Institute of Economic Growth (March 2016, March 2017), while working on a still ongoing theory project. The interviews are only very superficially anonymized, so this is not for circulating. Since the project is just beginning, I would be interested in all kinds of critical suggestions. For the purpose of interdisciplinary accessibility, questions of sociological theory have been mostly put into the footnotes; nevertheless, of course, I would be very interested in critical suggestions concerning that part of the project. And obviously, I would be very interested in practical suggestions concerning access to the field

Ute Tellmann presents a working paper on 'Beyond Performativity – New Materialism and Money’s Futures'

In this paper, I argue that the performativitiy-thesis as it is used in the social study of finance has not capitalized to a full extend on the promise of “new materialism” since it does not fully leave behind what has been critiqued as the representational gaze. The symptom for this incomplete overcoming is the danger of reducing finance to questions of knowledge without an adequate understanding of the ‘monetary matter’ they study. The materialism that it addresses is that of the world of the “formula” and where it thrives; but it has difficulties reaching beyond “seeing like” the financial markets or “economics” it studies. This paper seeks to demonstrate that the capacities for analysis and critique of money and finance would be greatly enhanced if we link the approach of performativity to a broader ontology of money and the economic that I would like to call material temporality. Putting it upfront, I seek to develop an understanding of money and matter in terms of overlapping, divergent and yet connected material temporalities with their own durations. Within such “ontology” it becomes possible to understand the performative effects of “calculative devices” in a broader way. I will show that a “new materialism” of money can be garnered from a combined reading of the economist John Maynard Keynes and the philosopher Henri Bergson.

Emiliano Rubens Urciuoli gives a working paper on 'A Presentation of the Project: Citifying Jesus: Early Christians’ Religious Communication in Greco-Roman Cityspaces (50-313 CE)'

The paper consists in a presentation of the monographic research project summarized above. The first part concentrates on the state of art of the research on ‘urban Christians’ by pinning down the main difficulties with its general interpretive framework – the defective paradigm I call ‘Mainstream Urban Narrative’. The second part describes the project by focusing on its core notions and methodological tools. A provisional list of possible chapters is included.

Ute Daniel is going to present a working paper on 'Betreutes Wählen. Wahlrechtsdebatten im deutschen Kaiserreich am Beispiel des Großherzogtums Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach (Anfang 20. Jahrhundert)'- 'Assisted Voting. Suffrage Debates in the German Empire with the example of the Grand Duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach (beginning of the 20th century)'

The historiography of democracy mostly tends to focus on movements and endeavours the aims of which were to foster democratic developments and political participation. These topics are extremely important. But they do not help to understand why democratic constitutions were established or universal franchise was introduced (or why both was rejected). So my project asks why monarchs and governments, parliaments and parties in the course of the 19th and early 20th century extended the franchise (or why they refused to extend it). The underlying hypothesis is, that universal suffrage – the core of democracy as we understand it today – was brought about neither by pro-democratic movements nor by governing classes convinced of the inevitability of democratic developments before 1914, but by the First World War.

Jasmin Kutzner presents a working paper on 'Tradition and Ritualism as Indicators of Jewish Self-Perception'

The paper deals with the question of conditions for individually construction of a national-Jewish felt art music. An autobiographic inside into the important stages of life of the composers Joachim Stutschewsky and Arnold Schoenberg manifests the Neue Juedische Schule as a movement with open and fluent boundaries. The art-musical inclusion of tradition and ritualism rather go beyond the frame of the association as a part of individually (Jewish) self-placement.

Aditya Malik gives a working paper on 'Hammira: Inception of a History'

The paper has two parts each representing truncated, though I hope interconnected, versions of longer chapters and themes that I plan to explore in a book I am writing for De Gruyter. In the first part of the paper I discuss the historical and literary context(s) of the Hammira-Mahakvya and its main protagonist, Hammira, with a view to showing that contrary to Indian nationalist historiographies of the second half of the 20th century, the texts under consideration do not represent a conflict between Hindus and Muslims but rather rivalries and friendships between scattered ethnicities and clans competing for political control in northern India between the 11th-16th centuries. Moreover, I aim to show that the social category of the Rajput (‘prince’, ‘warrior’ etc.) that crystallizes in the 15th-16th centuries transcends both ethnic and religious compartmentalization by signifying attributes, qualities and ethical values that once internalized by an individual could be expressed through heroic action regardless of caste or religious affiliation (i.e., by both Hindus and Muslims). The second part is more conceptual in nature springing from the fact that the Hammira-Mahakavya originates in a dream presented to the author of the text by the dead hero whose life and deeds lie at the center of the ‘great poem’ (Sanskrit: mahakavya). The question that arises here is whether history with its fundamental concern with empirical evidence, facts and what is considered ‘real’ can originate in the subjective, inner world of dreams or what is considered ‘unreal/imaginary’. Is the ‘unreal’ or imaginative fabric
equally or more important here than the ‘real’, empirical structure? While history concerns itself with the past, it is also obvious that not all statements about the past are considered to be history. It is only when the past is presented to us – ‘constructed’ one could say – in a particular manner that it becomes ‘history.’ Not every statement or perspective of the past therefore qualifies as history. But how exactly does history get constructed, particularly in the Indian/South Asian context? What does it mean to think about the past? Where is this thinking about the past located? Moreover, what does thinking and, in particular, imagination mean in the Indic context? Can history begin in a dream?

Jürgen Straub presents a working paper on 'The Past of an Illusion. Sigmund Freud’s Criticism of Religion'

The paper presents a compilation of three fragments of a book chapter dedicated to Freud’s psychoanalytic criticism of religion. In the first part, the most important sources (like Freud’s “The Future of an Illusion”, “Totem and Taboo. Resemblances between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics” or “Moses and Monotheism”) are listed and related to Freud’s practical and political aim to criticize, deconstruct and destruct religious beliefs and the faith in God. In the second fragment I describe Freud’s pre-psychoanalytic stance against religion which is rooted in his scientific beliefs and (partially naïve) devotion to science. Freud’s rationalism (paradoxically) remains strong in his psychoanalytic theory and particularly in his critique of religion. The most important arguments and concepts are remembered (e.g. infant illusion, compulsive neurosis). The essential elements of Freud’s criticism of religion and faith are illustratively described in the third part. There, I very sketchily refer to a kind of ‘case study’ (a telling conversation between Freud and an US-American medical doctor who tries to convert the atheist Freud to a true believer’s faith in God).

All in all the presented reconstruction of some main features of Freud’s approach to religion leads into a detailed criticism of Freud’s aversion to religious beliefs and faith. This critical analysis and the resulting counter-arguments are not part of the working paper. I want to present them in the first ten minutes of the colloquium very briefly.