[artinfo] Fridericianum presents: A New Fascism?

[e-flux]

Symposium: "A New Fascism?"
December 17, 2016, 10:30am-7pm

Fridericianum
Friedrichsplatz 18
34117 Kassel
Germany

<http://www.fridericianum.org>www.fridericianum.org

In conjunction with the exhibition Two A.M. by 
Loretta Fahrenholz, the Fridericianum is hosting 
a symposium devoted to an exposition of new forms 
of fascism. In her novel entitled Nach 
Mitternacht (After Midnight, 1937), Irmgard Keun 
describes everyday life in Nazi Germany in the 
late 1930s under the dominant influences of fear, 
government control, and despotism. In her current 
exhibition at the Fridericianum, artist Loretta 
Fahrenholz calls attention to similar 
contemporary phenomena. Based loosely on Keun's 
exile novel, her Two A.M. is a socio-fiction film 
in which she presents frightening analogies to 
present-day surveillance, capitalism and 
re-emerging fascism.

One of the essential characteristics of 
representatives of the new Right, from the 
Hungarian Prime Minister to Marine Le Pen, is 
that they all regard themselves as democrats. And 
when we listen to them, they seem to become more 
democratic every day. Without blushing, the AfD 
compares itself to the Third Reich resistance 
group known as the "Weiße Rose." And the French 
Front National proudly points out that it was the 
only party in France whose members voted in a 
democratic referendum on the European 
constitution. All of the established parties in 
France had refused to take part in such a 
referendum for fear that the European 
constitution would ultimately be rejected.

Thus the obscurity of European institutions can 
surely be cited as one of the reasons for the 
emergence of new right-wing movements in all 
European countries. And the increasing popularity 
of the new right-wing and nationalist parties can 
also be attributed at least in part to the 
movements of migrants and refugees, which are 
certain to continue unabated in the foreseeable 
future. We must agree with Zeev Sternhell, who 
insists that the fascist mentality that emerged 
in the early 20th century never really 
disappeared. Fascist currents have always existed 
in more or less visible form, and they are now 
reappearing in a new guise. Fascism has 
reinvented itself, as Alain Badiou pointed out 
ten years ago. It has assumed new forms which 
must be analyzed. And the old theories regarding 
fascism are no longer adequate for that purpose.

10:30am-1pm
Susanne Pfeffer
Introduction
Franco "Bifo" Berardi
"A Short History of the Humiliation: National 
Workerism and the Showdown of Two Centuries of 
Colonialism"
Wilhelm Heitmeyer
"Group-Focused Enmity, Social Disintegration and 
Right-Wing Populism in a Process of Escalation"

2-4pm
Chantal Mouffe
"The Populist Moment"
G. M. Tamás
"Fascism Without Fascism"

4:30-7pm
Didier Eribon
"What's Next? Reflections on the Categories of Political Theory"
Panel discussion
Moderated by Gernot Kamecke