Papers by Nida Alahmad
Constellations, 2007
... The deal was coordinated through an agreement between Akram Shaheen, acting on directions fro... more ... The deal was coordinated through an agreement between Akram Shaheen, acting on directions from his brother Khaled, and al-Nejm. ... Hazem Beblawi, The Rentier State in the Arab World, in Giacomo Luciani, ed., The Arab State (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990 ...
See article at: http://www.merip.org/mer/mer257/war-multiple-fronts
Or as PDF here
Blog entries by Nida Alahmad
Performing a State, 2017
The Städelsches Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt was the host for a two-day symposium on the Value of C... more The Städelsches Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt was the host for a two-day symposium on the Value of Critique, wherein a collection of leading sociologists and social and cultural theorists met to discuss the meaning, value, and possibility of critique in our contemporary world. At a time when intellectual and political projects that carried universalist normativities seeking to improve the human condition have become something of the past, how does one engage with the current human condition in a critical manner that has some productive (and desirable) value?
This concern with the state of critique at a time when normative and political utopias are no longer considered to be relevant, is also a concern for Performing the State project and is at the core of Endre Dányi’s most recent research on melancholy politics. The questions that preoccupy him are centred around the ways in which politics-in-practice can be studied at a time when liberal democracy is being hijacked and /or claimed to be outdated by some of the most powerful players in international politics. More specifically, he asks: How might researcher-citizens deal with complex political challenges, such as the recent refugee crisis in Europe, which raise not only ideological but also political theoretical dilemmas vis-a-vis the modern state? How can they relate to such ambiguous public problems as drug use, which seem to defy national attempts to govern through legislation? And how might they even begin to conceptualise the concurrent practice of differing modes of the political, as is being called for by many indigenous groups? Do these and similar moments indicate the end of democratic politics as we know it?
What follows is a shortened version of the conversation we had about these and related questions after the Values of Critique symposium.
Conference Presentations by Nida Alahmad
Deciding the methodological parameters of any social scientific research project has significant ... more Deciding the methodological parameters of any social scientific research project has significant and far-reaching consequences. The methodological orientation of practicing social scientists is crucial for the work they do because it structures the way in which the research is conducted. One of the more significant and influential recent developments in philosophy globally — and in the theoretical branches of various social scientific disciplines in particular — is the recent rise to prominence of pragmatism.
Formerly little-known among scholars in continental Europe, pragmatism has now established a strong foothold there within various disciplinary and institutional formations, as represented by some of the leading intellectuals of our time. Figures such as Jurgen Habermas, Pierre Bourdieu, Bruno Latour, Axel Honneth and Luc Boltanski all rely significantly on pragmatism to underpin their work. Indeed, Boltanski has been credited with inaugurating a new “pragmatic school of French sociology”. Various research networks have also sprouted up, including the Nordic Pragmatism Network, Associazione Pragma, alongside burgeoning journals such as Pragmatism Today and the European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy. By participating in this
course, students will access a vital toolkit of concepts that will prove invaluable as they confront the methodological problems each researcher faces.
More particularly, this course will:
● Develop participants’ familiarity with the basic concepts of pragmatism.
● Provide a robust outline of the history and present of pragmatism as a philosophy of human action and social science.
● Draw out the consequences of pragmatism for the methodology of the social sciences and in particular for Conflict and Development Studies.
● Show how pragmatism influences major contemporary theoretical and social scientific programs and their fundamental concepts, such as: power, growth, agency, knowledge and domination.
● Think through the consequences of a pragmatic approach to how we see the purpose of social science in a democratic society.
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Papers by Nida Alahmad
Blog entries by Nida Alahmad
This concern with the state of critique at a time when normative and political utopias are no longer considered to be relevant, is also a concern for Performing the State project and is at the core of Endre Dányi’s most recent research on melancholy politics. The questions that preoccupy him are centred around the ways in which politics-in-practice can be studied at a time when liberal democracy is being hijacked and /or claimed to be outdated by some of the most powerful players in international politics. More specifically, he asks: How might researcher-citizens deal with complex political challenges, such as the recent refugee crisis in Europe, which raise not only ideological but also political theoretical dilemmas vis-a-vis the modern state? How can they relate to such ambiguous public problems as drug use, which seem to defy national attempts to govern through legislation? And how might they even begin to conceptualise the concurrent practice of differing modes of the political, as is being called for by many indigenous groups? Do these and similar moments indicate the end of democratic politics as we know it?
What follows is a shortened version of the conversation we had about these and related questions after the Values of Critique symposium.
Conference Presentations by Nida Alahmad
Formerly little-known among scholars in continental Europe, pragmatism has now established a strong foothold there within various disciplinary and institutional formations, as represented by some of the leading intellectuals of our time. Figures such as Jurgen Habermas, Pierre Bourdieu, Bruno Latour, Axel Honneth and Luc Boltanski all rely significantly on pragmatism to underpin their work. Indeed, Boltanski has been credited with inaugurating a new “pragmatic school of French sociology”. Various research networks have also sprouted up, including the Nordic Pragmatism Network, Associazione Pragma, alongside burgeoning journals such as Pragmatism Today and the European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy. By participating in this
course, students will access a vital toolkit of concepts that will prove invaluable as they confront the methodological problems each researcher faces.
More particularly, this course will:
● Develop participants’ familiarity with the basic concepts of pragmatism.
● Provide a robust outline of the history and present of pragmatism as a philosophy of human action and social science.
● Draw out the consequences of pragmatism for the methodology of the social sciences and in particular for Conflict and Development Studies.
● Show how pragmatism influences major contemporary theoretical and social scientific programs and their fundamental concepts, such as: power, growth, agency, knowledge and domination.
● Think through the consequences of a pragmatic approach to how we see the purpose of social science in a democratic society.
This concern with the state of critique at a time when normative and political utopias are no longer considered to be relevant, is also a concern for Performing the State project and is at the core of Endre Dányi’s most recent research on melancholy politics. The questions that preoccupy him are centred around the ways in which politics-in-practice can be studied at a time when liberal democracy is being hijacked and /or claimed to be outdated by some of the most powerful players in international politics. More specifically, he asks: How might researcher-citizens deal with complex political challenges, such as the recent refugee crisis in Europe, which raise not only ideological but also political theoretical dilemmas vis-a-vis the modern state? How can they relate to such ambiguous public problems as drug use, which seem to defy national attempts to govern through legislation? And how might they even begin to conceptualise the concurrent practice of differing modes of the political, as is being called for by many indigenous groups? Do these and similar moments indicate the end of democratic politics as we know it?
What follows is a shortened version of the conversation we had about these and related questions after the Values of Critique symposium.
Formerly little-known among scholars in continental Europe, pragmatism has now established a strong foothold there within various disciplinary and institutional formations, as represented by some of the leading intellectuals of our time. Figures such as Jurgen Habermas, Pierre Bourdieu, Bruno Latour, Axel Honneth and Luc Boltanski all rely significantly on pragmatism to underpin their work. Indeed, Boltanski has been credited with inaugurating a new “pragmatic school of French sociology”. Various research networks have also sprouted up, including the Nordic Pragmatism Network, Associazione Pragma, alongside burgeoning journals such as Pragmatism Today and the European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy. By participating in this
course, students will access a vital toolkit of concepts that will prove invaluable as they confront the methodological problems each researcher faces.
More particularly, this course will:
● Develop participants’ familiarity with the basic concepts of pragmatism.
● Provide a robust outline of the history and present of pragmatism as a philosophy of human action and social science.
● Draw out the consequences of pragmatism for the methodology of the social sciences and in particular for Conflict and Development Studies.
● Show how pragmatism influences major contemporary theoretical and social scientific programs and their fundamental concepts, such as: power, growth, agency, knowledge and domination.
● Think through the consequences of a pragmatic approach to how we see the purpose of social science in a democratic society.