Rage Summit: Participants

Aaron Ben-Ze’ev
The philosopher is President of the University of Haifa, where he founded the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Emotions. He is considered one of the leading experts in this field. In his books, Ben-Ze’ev analyzes the differences between affective forms, with a focus on the psychology of philosophy – most recently in regard to the subject of love. His major works include “Love Online: Emotions on the Internet” (2004), “In the Name of Love: Romantic Ideology and Its Victims” (with R. Goussinsky, 2008) and “The Subtlety of Emotions” (2000).

Gurminder K. Bhambra
In her research, the University of Warwick sociologist analyzes sociological aspects of modern life. Bhambra is concerned especially with the relation of dominant narratives to the marginalization and suppression of the interests of non-European “others,” and at present is exploring the possibilities of a historical sociology in a postcolonial world. She has authored or co-authored numerous books and articles, including “Historical Sociology, International Relations and Connected Histories” (2010) and “1968 in Retrospect: History, Politics and Alterity” (with I. Demir, 2009). She helped organize the Re-Launch conference “1968: Auswirkungen und Folgen” [1968: Impact and Implications] (2008) and currently leads the research project “Connected Histories / Connected Sociologies: Rethinking the Global.”

Heinz Bude
The German sociologist and researcher on social exclusion touched on the nerve of our time with the recent publication of “Die Ausgeschlossenen. Das Ende vom Traum einer gerechten Gesellschaft” (2008). Bude held a post as Visiting Scholar at Cornell University and has been a lecturer at the University of Kassel since 2000. He was the local organizer of the 33rd Congress of the German Sociological Society, on “The Nature of Society” (2006). In 2008 he published the book “Exklusion. Die Debatte über die ‘Überflüssigen’” jointly with Andreas Willisch.

Amir Hassan Cheheltan
An electrical engineer by training, the Tehran-born author published his first volume of stories, “Sigheh” (German: “Ehefrau auf Zeit”), in 1976. Following a several-year residence in London, Cheheltan was drafted into military service during the Iran-Iraq War, the period in which he wrote his first novel, titled “Die Klage um Qassem” in the German translation. Originally banned, the book did not appear in Iran until 20 years later. His latest, highly acclaimed novel, “Teheran Revolutionsstraße,” a portrait of Iranian society and its political, economic and social constraints and dislocations, has not been published in Iran and is available only in German translation.

To the biography of Nikita Dhawan

Luca Di Blasi
Di Blasi earned a doctorate in philosophy at Catholic University in Eichstätt and was a research associate in the project “Mysticism and Modernity” at the University of Siegen. The main focuses of his work are philosophy of religion and cultural, media, and art theory. In addition to articles in various newspapers (including Die Zeit, Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, and Neue Zürcher Zeitung), he has published “Cybermystik” (2006) and is currently working on “Grammatheologie. Die religiöse Dimension des Medienwandels und die postsäkulare Kondition.” He is an academic assistant at the Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry.

María Do Mar Castro Varela
Varela studied psychology and education, earned a doctorate in political science, and teaches intercultural social work as well as gender and queer studies at the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences in Berlin. Her research emphases lie in postcolonial studies, gender and queer studies, and critical migration research. She has authored numerous works, including “Postkoloniale Theorie. Eine kritische Einführung,” the standard introduction to postcolonial theory, which she published jointly with Nikita Dhawan.

Eva-Maria Engelen
Engelen studied philosophy, history and law in Mannheim, Constance and Freiburg, earning her doctorate in 1990 with the dissertation “Zeit, Zahl und Bild. Studien zur Verbindung von Philosophie und Wissenschaft bei Abbo von Fleury.” In 1992 she received the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize, then held posts at Harvard and Yale, and in 1996 obtained her postdoctoral qualification in Constance. Her research concentrations include theory of knowledge, philosophy of language, and the history of philosophy. The focus of her current research projects is the relationship between emotions and consciousness, and associated (e)valuations with regard to cognitive, emotional and conscious processes. She is a founding member of “The Young Academy,” a collaborative project of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

Femmes with Fatal Breaks
Femmes With Fatal Breaks, Berlin’s first female DJ collective, formed in March 1999. The trio consists of DJ T-ina, DJ Christine Lang, and MC Quio, each of whom also has her own international solo career. All three are dedicated to the broken beat, their vinyl selections ranging from breakbeat to drum & bass to dubstep. From 2001 to 2003 the Femmes event series in Club Bastard created a pulsating, ecstatic atmosphere that made it a highlight of Berlin nightlife. Since 2004 the Femmes have been conquering the city’s best and most diverse clubs: Watergate, ZMF, Deep and Rosi’s.

Rüdiger John
Born in Austria in 1971, the artist and founder of the Gesellschaft für kritische Ästhetik (Society for Critical Aesthetics) (2003) lives in Baden-Baden and New York. His work revolves around systemic art, artistic research, transfer art, critical aesthetics and interventionist art. In 2004/2005 he taught at Berlin University of the Arts as a visiting professor for “Art and Economy – Transfer Art, Systemic Art, Artistic Research.” John advises companies as a coach and consultant.

Marc Jongen
Jongen is a research associate for philosophy and aesthetics at Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design and the head of its research institute. In addition to his contributions to various edited collections, newspapers and magazines (Die Zeit, Sinn und Form, Der Tagesspiegel), he has published such works as “Der göttliche Kapitalismus. Ein Gespräch über Geld, Konsum, Kunst und Zerstörung” (2007) and, most recently, “Die Vermessung des Ungeheuren. Philosophie nach Peter Sloterdijk” (2009).

Sylvère Lotringer
Lotringer holds the title of Professor Emeritus in French literature and philosophy at Columbia University. As coeditor of “Semiotext(e),” he published the original “German Issue” in 1982 as well as its 2009 reprint. He studied at the Sorbonne, worked with theorists such as Paul Virilio and Jean Baudrillard, and has written on Georges Bataille, Simone Weil, L.-F. Céline, Marguerite Duras and Robert Antelme, among others. He is considered to have played a pivotal role in introducing French theory to the United States.

Dominique Malaquais
Malaquais was a researcher at the Centre d’Études des Mondes Africains in Paris and co-director of the platform SPARCK (Space for Panafrican Research, Creation and Knowledge – The Africa Centre, Cape Town, South Africa). She wrote “Architecture, pouvoir et dissidence au Cameroun” (2002) and has published numerous articles about contemporary urban culture in Africa. She is currently working on the publication of “Dreaming the Global City,” a multidisciplinary examination of images, constructions and visions of urban space in Douala, Kinshasa and Johannesburg. Malaquais is a coeditor of the journal “Chimurenga” and a member of the staff at “Politique Africaine.” At present she is conducting research at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University.

Boyan Manchev
Manchev teaches at Collège Internationale de Philosophie (CIPh) in Paris and is an associate professor of theory of literature and philosophy at New Bulgarian University in Sofia. He has also been a guest lecturer at the Academy for Theater and Film in Sofia and organized projects with ZKM (Karlsruhe), Tanzquartier (Vienna), ICA (Sofia), Kunsthaus (Dresden) and the Akademie Schloss Solitude (Stuttgart). His work deals with theories of representation with respect to images and the body and to contemporary conceptualizations of the subject and community, with a particular focus on visual art, theater and dance.

Rudolf Maresch born 1954, lives as an author, journalist and critic in Lappersdorf near Regensburg. He is the editor of several books dealing with the topics media and the public, culture and politics, and the future of Western societies (Knowledge-based Society 2.0; The Society to Come). Including: Kommunikation – Medien – Macht [Communication - Media – Power] (Frankfurt: 1999); Cyberhypes (Frankfurt 2001), Space, Knowledge, Power [Raum, Wissen, Macht] (Frankfurt 2002), The Renaissance of Utopia [Renaissance der Utopie] (Frankfurt 2004) - all published by Suhrkamp Verlag.Since the mid-1990s, he has been working for various media on the Internet, including at present the online magazine Telepolis.

Abdelwahab Meddeb
A “cosmopolitan with Islamic roots,” the philosopher, novelist and essayist has attracted attention in recent years for his criticism of an Islamist culture of resentment. He founded the literary journal Dédale, teaches at the Université de Paris X Nanterre, and directs the radio program “Cultures of Islam” at Radio France Culture. His book, “La Maladie de l’Islam” (2002; Eng.: The Malady of Islam), which earned him the Francois Mauriac Prize, triggered intense debate in both the Islamic world and Europe. He was awarded the Prix international de francophonie Benjamin Fondane in 2007 for his book “Contre-prêches.” English translations of Meddeb’s novels include “Islam and Its Discontents” (2003) and “Talismano” (1993; forthcoming). His article “Orient und Okzident. Politiken des Bildes, Bilder der Politik. Der Westen in den Augen des Islam” appeared in the issue No 87 (2009) of Lettre International.

Clemens Meyer
Clemens Meyer was born in 1977 in Halle / Saale, and lives currently in Leipzig. In 2006 he published his debut novel, "Als wir träumten”, for which he won several awards, including 'the' Mara-Cassens-Preis. awarded. In 2008, he continued his work with his book “Die Nacht, die Lichter. Stories”, for which he was awarded the" Preis der Leipziger Buchmesse”.

Yana Milev
Milev is a media artist, philosopher of culture and media, academic and exhibition curator, and cultural entrepreneur. She has studied scenography, media art and cultural theory in Dresden, martial arts in Kyoto and Berlin, and cultural philosophy, media theory and art anthropology in Vienna and Karlsruhe. She is the founder of AOBBME, a Berlin-based platform for interdisciplinary and transitive research. As of 2010, she is a visiting research fellow at the international college of the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design research institute. Emphases of her academic work include states of emergency, comparative studies in cultural technologies, sociology of design and media, and protest cultures. Selected publications: “Emergency Design. Design Strategies in Working-Fields of the Crisis,” Vienna/New York (coeditor with G. Blechinger) (2008) and “Emergency Empire: The Transformation of the State of Emergency. Part 1: Sovereignty,” Vienna/New York (2009).

Robert Misik
The Austrian journalist and author writes regularly for the newspaper Die Tageszeitung. Subjects that he repeatedly takes up include globalization (critique), consumer culture, and goods production. In 1999 and 2000 he received the Bruno Kreisky Prize for the Political Book. He published “Genial dagegen,” his critical bestseller in the area of globalization theory, in 2005. In 2009 he was awarded the Austrian State Prize for Cultural Journalism.

Célestin Monga
Monga, a native of Cameroon, is an Economic Advisor to the World Bank Senior Vice President and Chief Economist. In his 13-year career in the Bank, he has held positions in both operations and in the research department, including as Lead Economist in Europe and Central Asia and Manager of the Policy Review team in the Development Economics vice Presidency. He has also served on the Board of Directors of MIT’s Sloan School of Management (Sloan Fellows) and taught at Boston University and the University of Bordeaux (France). He was the Economics editor for the widely acclaimed 5-volume New Encyclopedia of Africa (Charles Scribner’s, 2007). His books have been translated into several languages. Prior to joining the World Bank, he worked as Department Head and Manager in the Banque Nationale de Paris group. He holds degrees from MIT, Harvard, and the universities of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Bordeaux and Pau.

Terézia Mora
The Hungarian-born author and translator has lived in Berlin since 1990. She primarily writes stories and novels. “Seltsame Materie” (1999) contains ten short stories about a childhood in Communism and Catholicism. The 2009 “Der einzige Mann auf dem Kontinent” is her second novel, following “Alle Tage” of 2004. Mora’s Hungarian-German translations include Péter Esterházy’s “Harmonia Caelestis.” She is a recipient of the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize as well as the Leipzig Book Fair Prize.

Sheila Mysorekar
Mysorekar grew up in India and Germany and studied in Cologne and London. As a journalist (politics/economy) she works in Jamaica and Argentina, among other countries. She was a correspondent for Germany’s ARD network in Latin America for many years and is active in Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland (ISD). Her publications include “re/visionen. Postkoloniale Perspektiven von People of Color auf Rassismus, Kulturpolitik und Widerstand in Deutschland” (with Kien Nghi Ha and Nicola Lauré-al Samarai, 2007), “Der Moslem-TÜV” (with Fatih Cevikkollu, 2008) and “Dienstags gibt es Tantra-Sex. Politische Satiren über Rassismus, Sex und den Neandertaler” (2009).

Nina Power
Power lives in London, teaches philosophy at Roehampton University, and co-authored Alain Badiou’s “On Beckett.” She has published numerous works on European philosophy, education, art and politics. She also writes for newspapers (including the New Statesman, New Humanist, Cabinet, Radical Philosophy and The Philosophers’ Magazine) and reports regularly in her blog, “infinite thought.” Her book “One-Dimensional Woman” was published in 2009.

To the biography of Monika Rinck

Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez
Rodríguez studied sociology, political science and Romance studies in Germany, France and Ecuador and teaches transcultural studies at the University of Manchester. Her work is situated at the intersection of critical migration, gender, queer and postcolonial studies, racism research and political sociology. For her monograph “Female Migrant Intellectuals. Subjectivities in the times of Globalization” (1999), she won the Augsburger Wissenschaftspreis für interkulturelle Studien [Augsburg Academic Award for Intercultural Studies]. Another of her publications known in Germany is the anthology, coedited with Hito Steyerl, “Spricht die Subalterne Deutsch? Migration und Postkoloniale Kritik” (2003). She is co-director of the Migration and Diaspora Cultural Studies Network (MDCSN) at the University of Manchester.

Oliver Ruf
Ruf is a scholar of literature, media and cultural studies. He has worked as a cultural journalist, lecturer in literature, and project editor, and currently lectures at the Institute for German Language and Literature at the Technical University Dortmund. His literary criticism and essays appear regularly in German-language newspapers. Ruf recently received the award of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in the Year of the Humanities, as well as the Merkur magazine essay prize. Two works published in 2009 deal with the “kulturelle Praxis des Verausgabens” and the “Ästhetik der Ausschließung. Ausnahmezustände in Geschichte, Theorie, Medien und literarischer Fiktion.”

Michail Ryklin
Ryklin, a philosophy professor and author, studied philosophy and aesthetics at the Moscow State University and in 1995 became a correspondent for the cultural journal Lettre International. He headed the philosophical anthropology faculty at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow and was visiting professor at Humboldt University of Berlin. For his book “Mit dem Recht des Stärkeren,” published in Germany in 2006, Ryklin won the 2007 Leipzig Book Fair Prize for European Understanding.

Paolo Santangelo
Santangelo is a professor for East Asian history at Sapienza University of Rome. He directed an international research project on the perception of passions in modern China, the initial results of which were published in 2003 under the title “Sentimental Education in Chinese History. An Interdisciplinary Textual Research in Ming and Qing Sources.” Focuses of his research include mentalities, the perception of emotions, the intellectual and social history of East Asia, and the development of moral sensibility during the Ming and Qing dynasties. One of his major publications is “From Skin to Heart. Perceptions of Bodily Sensations and Emotions in Traditional Chinese Culture” (with U. Middendorf, 2006).

Volker Schlöndorff
Schlöndorff is one of the most successful directors, screenwriters and producers in German cinema. He was born in Wiesbaden in 1939 and attended a Jesuit boarding school in Brittany. After obtaining his baccalauréat, he studied political science in Paris. He began his career as an assistant director under Louis Malle, Jean-Pierre Melville and Alain Resnais. As writer and director, he received the 1966 International Film Critics Prize in Cannes for his first successful film, “Young Törless.” The films that followed included “The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum” (1975) and “The Tin Drum” (1979), which earned him an Oscar as well as the Palme d’Or in Cannes. Since 2001 Schlöndorff has chaired the Verein Europäisches Filmzentrum Babelsberg. In 2009 he staged Leo Tolstoy’s “The Light That Shines in the Darkness” at Neuhardenberg Palace near Berlin. In autumn 2009 the production traveled to Yasnaya Polyana, the Tolstoy country estate, and in 2010 it will go to Moscow.

To the biography of Mark Terkessidis

To the biography of Joseph Vogl

Stefan Weidner
The translator, author and journalist and has come to the fore as a mediator of Arab culture vis-à-vis the West. Weidner’s academic career encompassed Islamic studies, German language and literature, and philosophy, with stations in Göttingen, Damascus, Berkeley and Bonn. Since 2001 he has been the chief editor of the journal Fikrun wa Fann (Art & Thought), published by the Goethe-Institut as a contribution to the Islamic-Western cultural dialogue. His most recent major publication, from Verlag der Weltreligionen, is “Manual für den Kampf der Kulturen. Warum der Islam eine Herausforderung ist.” Weidner held the Schlegel Visiting Professorship for Translation at the FU Berlin during winter semester 2009/2010.

Annette Weisser
The artist studied in Bremen and Cologne and teaches at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. In her complex installations Weisser puts video, drawings and collages to work both with and against each other. Alongside her work as an artist (e.g. The End of the World, Reception Gallery, Berlin 2010), she has written on art and published articles in such periodicals as springerin, Die Tageszeitung and Spex. She has also co-curated exhibitions, including “Arbeitshaus Einatmen. Ausatmen” at Kunsthaus Dresden (2005).

Feridun Zaimoglu
Zaimoglu, who has resided in Germany since 1965, is one of the most prominent German-language novelists. He studied art and medicine in Kiel and today is an author, screenwriter, dramatist and journalist. “Kanak Sprak” (1995), directed against a pervasive romantic multiculturalism, first put him in the public eye. He won the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize jury award in 2003 for “Häute,” further distinction for the migration epic “Leyla” (2006), and the Corine international book award in 2008 for “Liebesbrand.” He has also written numerous dramas and screenplays, including “Casino leger,” “Ja. Tu es jetzt” (2003), “Halb so wild” (2004), “Lulu Live” (2005), “Romeo und Julia” (2006) and “Schwarze Jungfrauen” (2006).

Jean Ziegler
Born in 1934 in Thun, Ziegler is a moralist, globalization critic and provocateur. He was a Social Democrat representative of Geneva in the Swiss National Council in Bern, and from 2000 to 2008 was a UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food as well as a member of the UN task force on humanitarian aid to Iraq. From 2008 to 2009 he was a member of the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee and was on the advisory board of the civil and human rights organization Business Crime Control. Ziegler, named professor emeritus of sociology in 2002, was influenced by his friendship with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, as well as his acquaintance with Che Guevara. A two-year residence in the newly independent Congo around 1960 played a formative role in his political development. As a young UN employee there he experienced the spirit of optimism on the election of Patrice Lumumba as the country’s first prime minister and the disillusionment that followed his assassination. Many of Ziegler’s publications are known internationally, including “Swiss Whitewash” and “Empire of Shame.” His book “Hate For the West” was published in 2009.

Rüdiger Zill
Zill holds a position on the academic staff of the Einstein Forum, Potsdam, where he has organized the series /Passions in Cultures/ and other events since 2003. He studied philosophy, history and sociology in Berlin and London, earning his doctorate with a dissertation on the function of models and metaphors in philosophical theories of emotion. He has taught at the Technical University of Dresden and been a visiting lecturer at the New School for Social Research in New York, as well as a research fellow at the Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften (IFK) in Vienna.