2018 | Wendy Brown
Where Liberal Democracy Once Was: Liberal Authoritarianism in the Twenty-First Century
The fifth Lucerne Master Class took place from 28 May to 1 June 2018 with Prof. Dr. Wendy Brown (University of California, Berkeley). It was the fourth master class on the general topic "The Culture of Markets".
Where Liberal Democracy Once Was: Liberal Authoritarianism in the Twenty-First Century
How might we grasp the novel fusion of libertarian freedom, white nationalism and authoritarianism appearing in right wing political formations across the EuroAtlantic today? What is the contribution of four decades of neoliberalism to building plutocratic political regimes rooted in neofascist popular sentiment, the very nightmare that the original neoliberal intellectuals aimed to prevent? What about contributions beyond those of neoliberal reason and policy? This bloc course will consider this problem by revisiting Hayek on neoliberalism, Nietzsche on nihilism, Marcuse on the psyches of late capitalist subjects, and Schmitt on space and horizons.
Wendy Brown | University of California, Berkeley
Wendy Brown is Class of 1936 First Professor of Political Science at the Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. A renowned political theorist, Brown is an equally influential thinker when it comes to the study of nineteenth and twentieth century continental theory, critical theory, and theories of contemporary capitalism. Her oeuvre constitutes an important source for both critically reflecting on and standing in opposition to developments within Western democracies over the past two decades: Politics Out of History (2001), Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire (2006), Walled States, Waning Sovereignty (2010), and her latest monograph Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution (2015).
