The Concept of Emancipation as Political Action (Marx, Arendt, Rancière)

The text attempts to rethink the concept of emancipation and how it is structured as political action, while describing its historical origins and how it is further understood by the three important political philosophers: Karl Marx, Hannah Arendt, and Jacques Rancière. All three of them – specifically and with substantial differences – understand politics as a space for political action that leads to emancipation in the name of equality. In order to determine the historical origin of the concept in more detail, the argumentation of the text rely upon its elaboration within the school of “conceptual history”, which deals with the historical semantics of terms and sees the etymology of and the change in the meaning of terms as forming a crucial basis for a contemporary cultural, conceptual, and linguistic understanding, and afterwards it links this “pre-history” with Marx’s, Arendt’s, and Rancière’s understanding of the concept of emancipation, and see how they differ and are related to each other, considering what theoretical conclusions about the concept of emancipation we can take from these relations. Particular interest is aimed at how the concept of emancipation is perceived today, who the subject of emancipation is, what the method and final goal of emancipation is, and, finally, how these understandings can help us in the present time when it seems that we need emancipation more than ever.

The Corpus of Russian Translations of Social and Political Works of the Eighteenth Century

The project that has been carried out at the German Historical Institute in Moscow since 2016 continues the engagement of the Institute in the development of the history of concepts in Russia. The previous project, “The History of Concepts and Historical Semantics,” which was led by Ingrid Schierle and Denis Sdvizkov (both research fellows at the German Historical Institute in Moscow at the time), was undertaken between 2008-2014. It consisted of a series of conferences and resulted in several publications; namely, two volumes devoted to the history of key concepts in the Russian imperial period. However, the main focus of the current project is on translation as a laboratory of the Russian language of “civil sciences.” The project is being coordinated by Sergey Polskoy (Higher School of Economics, Moscow) and Vladislav Rjéoutski (German Historical Institute in Moscow). In addition, the editorial work on the database is being carried out by Evgenii Kushkov (Higher School of Economics, Moscow), with Vadim Popov (GHI Moscow) also being responsible for statistics and the visualization of the results of the project.

„Ein modernes Verdeutschungs-Unternehmen“. Über die historische Semantik der Buber-Rosenzweig-Bibel

This article traces a debate on Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig’s Germanization of the Bible. The trigger of the debate was Siegfried Kracauer’s infamous critique entitled “Die Bibel auf Deutsch” (“The Bible in German”), published in April 1926 in the Frankfurter Zeitung. In his harsh review of the first volume of the translation, Kracauer regards the use of the German language by Buber and Rosenzweig as an archaization. Relying in part on unpublished letters, this paper presents and explores the different perceptions of the translation, which embody the depths these fault lines penetrated both in general public discourse and, more specifically, in German-Jewish circles. This article also points towards the change of the German language in the 19th century that is embedded in the historical semantics of the Buber-Rosenzweig Bible.

Temporal comparisons, historical semantics of interaction and ‘post-war consensus’ in British Parliament: Studying time references in a deliberative environment

This article aims to demonstrate that the transition from the mainstream narrative to the interactional history of concepts promises tangible benefits for scholars of social time in general and temporal comparisons in particular. It is shown that the traditionally close alignment of narration with the production of historical consciousness at various levels hinders the study of time as a semantic variable perpetually contested, amended and upheld across society. Alternatively, the references to time made in public settings, allowing for more or less instant reactions (turn-taking) as well as expression of dissenting opinions (stance-taking), offer a much more representative palette of temporal semantics and pragmatics in a given sociopolitical environment. In a particularly intriguing case, the essentially deliberative venue where contestation is supported by both institutional arrangements and political reasons (British House of Commons) is put to test under circumstances commonly known as ‘the post-war consensus’ – the unspoken convention directing opposing political parties to suspend stance-taking regarding the past actions of the government during WWII, its immediate aftermath and its future prospects. As a reliable indicator of this arrangement, the contestation of temporal comparisons between relevant pasts and futures is tested in oppositions reflecting party allegiances (Conservatives vs. Labour vs. Liberals) and executive functions (government vs. opposition) between 1946 and 1952. It is shown that, notwithstanding the prevalence of non-contested statements aimed at preserving interactional coherence and pragmatic functionality of the setting, the moderately active contestation of the adversary’s temporal comparisons in the House of Commons at that time helped all parties, albeit to a different degree, to shape their own political and institutional roles as well as to delegitimize their respective adversaries.

Wafting spheres: much ado about nothing

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to implement the idea of the sphere on systems theory (type: Niklas Luhmann) and to test whether this theory can be used to gain a sharper approach to the complex of ideas of the sphere. The main theme is “the conceptual blurriness of the word sphere.” This essay analyzes the societal and historical semantics of the concept of sphere and nearby notions in the thought traditions in medieval society until the modern, i.e. the functionally differentiated society. Nearby notions as limitationality and boundary are discussed, as well as sphere as a “lexicalized metaphor.” At the end, the paper turns to the concept of sphere in modern society that is based on the distinction “public/private” and applies the discussion to the system of mass media. Design/methodology/approach This paper can be classified as a “conceptual essay” that draws on basic systems theoretical concepts. Findings The result of the theoretical considerations is that the word “sphere” represents nothing more than a “catchword” and can hardly lay the groundwork for empirical and theoretical research that would be instructive with regard to the new media and their massive influence on society. Originality/value This paper was researched and written solely by the author. All sources are clearly identified.