In reaction to recent migrant and refugee movements, Europe is marked by a discourse of crisis. If this discourse has demonstrated anything it is that not only the institutions of the EU but the very idea of Europe itself is in crisis. Europe’s failure to adequately respond to these movements seems to reveal a latently catastrophic rationality inherent to the very concept of the nation-state. In this panel discussion we want to probe this crisis from a theoretical perspective and discuss its political implications by asking: What follows from this crisis for the European project, the paradoxes of international law, the role of the nation-state, and the resurgence of nationalism? And how does the emergence of new political practices and subjectivities in the context of the migrant and refugee movement – now understood as a political event – challenge our established understandings of human rights, democracy, citizenship, populism, Left politics, and the political more broadly?
A Roundtable Discussion with:
Cinzia Arruzza, Department of Philosophy, The New School
Chiara Bottici, Department of Philosophy, The New School
Robin Celikates, Department of Philosophy, University of Amsterdam / Columbia University
Andreas Kalyvas, Department of Politics, The New School
Daniel Loick, Department of Philosophy, University of Frankfurt / The New School
Moderator:
Rahel Jaeggi, Department of Philosophy, Humboldt University Berlin / The New School