Whose Universal? There is a fundamental paradox at the heart of modernity. A conference on humanist ideals and colonial reality
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Lecture within the framework of the conference Whose Universal? as part of the 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art on July 3, 2022 at Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg.
A decade after their eruptions, the revolutions that were labelled as the “Arab Spring” seem to inspire despair with more aggressive dictators in place, devastating civil wars or toxic stalemates. Some social scientists have downgraded them to insurgencies. If the political landscapes reek of failure, the cultural fields attest to the exact opposite. And perhaps it’s fruitful to rethink the universalist theory of revolutions.