Conference Abstract
In times of experienced polycrisis, fundamental disruption, and far-reaching transformations, the number of profound challenges seems incalculable. At both the socio-political and academic levels, enormous complexity and multiple interdependencies pose the task of counteracting resignation, despair, and indifference, of developing suitable analytical and practical approaches, and of outlining new forms of agency. This intensifies entanglements among diverse constituencies (culturally, non/human, different interests and ontologies, etc.) and on and between various scales of crisis processes. How can one respond to these increasing relational intensities through conceptual and methodological means, given that they are often politically, socially and culturally met with denial and exclusion?
Response-Abilities: Professing the Study of Culture in Times of Disruption, Entanglements, and Transformation
(Abstract: Doris Bachmann-Medick, Michael Basseler, Jens Kugele, Andreas Langenohl)
International Symposium, International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC)
June 24–26, 2026
In times of experienced polycrisis, fundamental disruption, and far-reaching transformations, the number of profound challenges seems incalculable. At both the socio-political and academic levels, enormous complexity and multiple interdependencies pose the task of counteracting resignation, despair, and indifference, of developing suitable analytical and practical approaches, and of outlining new forms of agency. This intensifies entanglements among diverse constituencies (culturally, non/human, different interests and ontologies, etc.) and on and between various scales of crisis processes. How can one respond to these increasing relational intensities through conceptual and methodological means, given that they are often politically, socially and culturally met with denial and exclusion?
For an international research centre such as the GCSC, this crisis constellation also has institutional dimensions. While from the perspective of the study of culture, 'the international' always bore the promise of excellence, wide outreach, polyvocality, and productive translations in academic activities, the current crisis constellation manifests not least in terms of a multidimensional crisis of the international: strains in international academic cooperation under conditions of warfare, an increased vulnerability of international scholars and more generally migrants in many societies, and the international dissemination of 'worst practices' in misrepresenting and denigrating academic work, to name only a few. Hence, the international is an apt, but not the only, scale on which for the entanglements that crisis processes create directly impact research in the humanities and social sciences.
However, "crisis" is not a self-explicatory term, so the study of culture cannot merely affirm given crisis descriptions either. How can we reconstruct crisis constellations not as a mere ‘response’ to a state of affairs presupposed as given, but rather dialogically understand the complexities of crises as they confront, and are worked and transformed by, different constituencies? With the concept of ‘response-ability’, our symposium thus seeks to address such concerns (cf. Barad 2010, Haraway 2016, Hoppe 2024) by highlighting the question of how we as scholars can develop and foster our capacity to answer (cf. Derrida’s notion of "répondre") in and to a world which is ever more entangled precisely in and through its crises.
In its most basic sense, response-ability describes "an ability to respond, to respond to the world beyond oneself, as well as a willingness to recognize its existence" (Kuokkanen 2007: 39). This involves locating forms of responsiveness and accountability within concrete social and disciplinary contexts; discussing responsibilities of various actors; addressing questions of agency and capability; (re-)coupling the humanities and social sciences with society;
interrogating their unique knowledge position; and addressing the challenges to internationalised academic practices (cf. Gabriel et al. 2022).
This symposium aims to broaden and concretise the concept of, and explore different perspectives on, response-ability to include professional and institutional responsibilities (cf. Higgins 2021; Kuokkanen 2007), capabilities, responsiveness, and accountability more broadly.
- What are the response-abilities of the social sciences and humanities, and more specifically, of the Study of Culture as an interdisciplinary and international field?
- Which analytical tools and methodological concepts do they offer to approach the nested crises of our time?
Taking the double anniversary of our research centre (20 years International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture, GCSC, and 25 years Giessener Graduiertenzentrum Kulturwissenschaft, GKK) as an opportunity for reflection and discussion, the symposium aims to shed light on what ‘professing the Study of Culture’ – in a dual sense of ‘practicing as a profession’ and ‘avowing’ – entails at a historical moment that is marked by experiences of profound disruption and transformation. A constitutive part of the polycrisis is its political, social and cultural denial, regularly leading to exclusion.
- How can one account for positionality and situatedness without reproducing entrenchments, uncapable of productively processing conflicts, between different positions, identifications, and interests?
- Can and should the old project of turning conflicts and confrontations into forces of cohesion instead of disruption be readdressed by the study of
culture?
The symposium sets out to explore response-ability beyond mere reactive responses to crises in order to emphasize the transformative abilities and active intervention potential of the international and interdisciplinary Study of Culture.
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