I visited Oodi, Helsinki’s new central library, shortly after it was opened to the public in December 2018. The building has been praised for both its architectural innovativeness and for the way in which it redefines the whole notion of a public library. The ‘Ode’ is a threestory construction made of wood, steel and glass that cost 98 million euros to build, furnish and equip. It hosts computer workstations, meeting rooms, recording studios, a cinema, a kitchen, a gaming room, 3D-printers, CDs and, yes, some books too. Walking around, I could see how the library’s various services corresponded with the interests of different visitors, including those who were there just to while away the time in the spacious interiors. Among this last group of visitors was a small gathering of Romani people who were there to seek shelter from the biting cold outside. Bonnie Honig’s Public Things is about the ability of projects like Oodi to bring together a multitude of actors with different needs and desires, but without reducing them into one. For those familiar with Honig’s work, this short book resembles her previous major publications in at least three ways. First, and quite obviously, the book deals with democracy and politics. But rather than pursue further the expressly agonistic themes of politics that have been central in her work from Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics (1993) to Antigone, Interrupted (2013), here Honig is more concerned about the prerequisites of democracy in contemporary times. More specifically, the book is about the objects and spaces that make democracy possible, but that are under constant threat in what we can, perhaps, shorthand as neoliberalism. Think of, say, a public library. Not necessarily as a building, a service or a collection, but rather as something marking the ‘publicness’ of spaces and fora that democracy requires. Second, as in most of her books, Honig delivers her own arguments mainly by engaging with a number of other authors and texts. These include familiar names such as Hannah Arendt, but some more unexpected conspirators as well. Honig has always managed to weave her more unexpected characters into the mix with delightful ease, and in Minkkinen, Panu. 2019. “Bonnie Honig, Public Things. Democracy in Disrepair. Thinking Out Loud: The Sydney Lectures in Philosophy and Society. Fordham University Press, 2017. 154 pages. ISBN-13: 9780823276400.” Redescriptions: Political Thought, Conceptual History and Feminist Theory 22(1): 68–70. DOI: https://doi.org/10.33134/rds.307 REDESCRIPTIONS
{"title":"Bonnie Honig, Public Things. Democracy in Disrepair. Thinking Out Loud: The Sydney Lectures in Philosophy and Society. Fordham University Press, 2017. 154 pages. ISBN-13: 9780823276400","authors":"P. Minkkinen","doi":"10.33134/rds.307","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33134/rds.307","url":null,"abstract":"I visited Oodi, Helsinki’s new central library, shortly after it was opened to the public in December 2018. The building has been praised for both its architectural innovativeness and for the way in which it redefines the whole notion of a public library. The ‘Ode’ is a threestory construction made of wood, steel and glass that cost 98 million euros to build, furnish and equip. It hosts computer workstations, meeting rooms, recording studios, a cinema, a kitchen, a gaming room, 3D-printers, CDs and, yes, some books too. Walking around, I could see how the library’s various services corresponded with the interests of different visitors, including those who were there just to while away the time in the spacious interiors. Among this last group of visitors was a small gathering of Romani people who were there to seek shelter from the biting cold outside. Bonnie Honig’s Public Things is about the ability of projects like Oodi to bring together a multitude of actors with different needs and desires, but without reducing them into one. For those familiar with Honig’s work, this short book resembles her previous major publications in at least three ways. First, and quite obviously, the book deals with democracy and politics. But rather than pursue further the expressly agonistic themes of politics that have been central in her work from Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics (1993) to Antigone, Interrupted (2013), here Honig is more concerned about the prerequisites of democracy in contemporary times. More specifically, the book is about the objects and spaces that make democracy possible, but that are under constant threat in what we can, perhaps, shorthand as neoliberalism. Think of, say, a public library. Not necessarily as a building, a service or a collection, but rather as something marking the ‘publicness’ of spaces and fora that democracy requires. Second, as in most of her books, Honig delivers her own arguments mainly by engaging with a number of other authors and texts. These include familiar names such as Hannah Arendt, but some more unexpected conspirators as well. Honig has always managed to weave her more unexpected characters into the mix with delightful ease, and in Minkkinen, Panu. 2019. “Bonnie Honig, Public Things. Democracy in Disrepair. Thinking Out Loud: The Sydney Lectures in Philosophy and Society. Fordham University Press, 2017. 154 pages. ISBN-13: 9780823276400.” Redescriptions: Political Thought, Conceptual History and Feminist Theory 22(1): 68–70. DOI: https://doi.org/10.33134/rds.307 REDESCRIPTIONS","PeriodicalId":33650,"journal":{"name":"Redescriptions","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44213767","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Parliamentary “Theatre”, Dignity and the Public Side of Parliaments","authors":"H. te Velde","doi":"10.33134/rds.313","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33134/rds.313","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":33650,"journal":{"name":"Redescriptions","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69505479","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The newly launched book series on European Conceptual History, published by Berghahn Books, is the latest initiative in the ongoing attempt to renew conceptual history as an academic field. “This series”, so the web page states, “focuses on the notable values and terminology that have developed throughout European history, exploring key concepts such as parliamentarianism, democracy, civilization, and liberalism to illuminate a vocabulary that has helped to shape the modern world.” Three volumes have appeared to date: Parliament and Parliamentarism, European Regions and Boundaries, and Basic and Applied Research. A volume on Democracy in Modern Europe is forthcoming. Conceptual History in the European Space is meant as the lead volume to this series. It is edited by three well-known scholars in the field – Willibald Steinmetz, Michael Freeden and Javier Fernández Sebastián – and contains ten chapters (plus an introduction and a conclusion) authored by specialist conceptual historians. The aim of the volume is to represent some of the most important theoretical, methodological and thematic contributions to the field in what the introductory chapter, authored by Steinmetz and Freeden, labels the “post-Koselleckian era” (which seems to be the period from around 2000 onwards). The essays are not divided into thematic sections, but address a range of different issues, including temporal, spatial, rhetorical, ideological and linguistic dimensions of conceptual history. Some of the included texts are derived from research projects and publications that have already become classic contributions to conceptual history. Jörn Leonhard’s discussions of the possibilities and pitfalls of the comparative dimension of conceptual history draw on his famous study of the meanings and transfers of the concepts of “liberal” and “liberalisms” into various European languages in the eighteenth century. Helge Jordheim’s elaboration of Koselleck’s theories of historical times as encapsulated in the catchword “synchronicity of the non-synchronous” into a more detailed framework to ana-
{"title":"Conceptual History in the Post-Koselleckian Era","authors":"N. Olsen","doi":"10.7227/R.21.2.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/R.21.2.6","url":null,"abstract":"The newly launched book series on European Conceptual History, published by Berghahn Books, is the latest initiative in the ongoing attempt to renew conceptual history as an academic field. “This series”, so the web page states, “focuses on the notable values and terminology that have developed throughout European history, exploring key concepts such as parliamentarianism, democracy, civilization, and liberalism to illuminate a vocabulary that has helped to shape the modern world.” Three volumes have appeared to date: Parliament and Parliamentarism, European Regions and Boundaries, and Basic and Applied Research. A volume on Democracy in Modern Europe is forthcoming. Conceptual History in the European Space is meant as the lead volume to this series. It is edited by three well-known scholars in the field – Willibald Steinmetz, Michael Freeden and Javier Fernández Sebastián – and contains ten chapters (plus an introduction and a conclusion) authored by specialist conceptual historians. The aim of the volume is to represent some of the most important theoretical, methodological and thematic contributions to the field in what the introductory chapter, authored by Steinmetz and Freeden, labels the “post-Koselleckian era” (which seems to be the period from around 2000 onwards). The essays are not divided into thematic sections, but address a range of different issues, including temporal, spatial, rhetorical, ideological and linguistic dimensions of conceptual history. Some of the included texts are derived from research projects and publications that have already become classic contributions to conceptual history. Jörn Leonhard’s discussions of the possibilities and pitfalls of the comparative dimension of conceptual history draw on his famous study of the meanings and transfers of the concepts of “liberal” and “liberalisms” into various European languages in the eighteenth century. Helge Jordheim’s elaboration of Koselleck’s theories of historical times as encapsulated in the catchword “synchronicity of the non-synchronous” into a more detailed framework to ana-","PeriodicalId":33650,"journal":{"name":"Redescriptions","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43212225","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper focuses on the link between bodies and public space, proposing a reflection on embodied subjectivities and embodied practices of performing in public space. It takes into account bodies as political means and sites of resistance, revolt, reinvention, and creation, following an embodied and feminist approach. This paper aims to underline the fact that bodies are political and that an embodied approach to public space is fundamental in order to re-think contemporary democracies. It will show how the embodied and feminist approach can provide essential tools to undo the modern idea of an absolute individual subject that lies at the heart of the neoliberal vision, pinpointing dependency, relationship, and vulnerability as defining attributes of being human. This approach has been giving life to new visions of politics, such as those we have seen embodied in a number of protests and political practices of dissent marking the latest years, here investigated in their political potential for a reshaping of the democratic public space.
{"title":"Relational, Political, Exposed: A Reflection on Embodied Subjectivities\u0000 and Public Space","authors":"F. Castelli","doi":"10.7227/r.21.2.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/r.21.2.5","url":null,"abstract":"This paper focuses on the link between bodies and public space, proposing a reflection on embodied subjectivities and embodied practices of performing in public space. It takes into account bodies as political means and sites of resistance, revolt, reinvention, and creation, following an embodied and feminist approach. This paper aims to underline the fact that bodies are political and that an embodied approach to public space is fundamental in order to re-think contemporary democracies. It will show how the embodied and feminist approach can provide essential tools to undo the modern idea of an absolute individual subject that lies at the heart of the neoliberal vision, pinpointing dependency, relationship, and vulnerability as defining attributes of being human. This approach has been giving life to new visions of politics, such as those we have seen embodied in a number of protests and political practices of dissent marking the latest years, here investigated in their political potential for a reshaping of the democratic public space.","PeriodicalId":33650,"journal":{"name":"Redescriptions","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47566585","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}