Ours is a time of disruption; a “disruptive age” as Bernard Stiegler terms it. Rapid technological change, the accelerating scarcity of biospheric resources, heightened political and economic volatility, social unrest and discontent – these are just some of the pressures that are radically (re-)shaping the modern condition, and which are making the experience of disruptiveness an “epochal signature” (Erich Hörl) of the twenty-first century.

The language of disruption is pervasive. At root, the term derives from the Latin disrumpere, meaning to break apart or to shatter; it refers to the action of “rending or bursting asunder”. But it also carries the sense of interrupting or jamming; of “breaking between” and “preventing something […] from continuing as usual or as expected”. To disrupt is to unsettle conventional frames and norms, flows and continuities – it is, in essence, a destructive act. And yet equally, it holds force as a generative move – one that not only calls into question what is entrenched and naturalized but which conjures the possibility of thinking and making things anew. 

For this year’s Critical Times summer school, we invite postdocs, ECRs and graduate students from across disciplines to join us for a week of intensive exchange on the meanings, forms and effects of disruption – as event, as process, as mode, as gesture. Our aim is to open a space for thinking – deeply, critically and creatively – about how disruptive forces upset existing notions of law and justice, tradition and community, and about the possibilities they open for transforming our legal, political and cultural imaginaries.

Further details here

Contact: steven.howeremove-this.@remove-this.unilu.ch