Christian Leonhardt
Christian Leonhardt is a political scientist and post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Intercultural and International Studies (InIIS) at the University of Bremen, Germany. He studied political science at the University of Bremen and wrote his dissertation developing a theory of political-radical democratic action, exploring the theoretical affinities between radical theories of democracy and activist theory production. His research and teaching interests are political theory in general and theories of anarchy, poststructuralist theory, radical democracy and philosophy of science in particular.
"Scenes of the Political – radical democracy and activist theory production" (PhD-Project)
Within the corresponding general discourse on democracy, theories of radical democracy claim that it is a mistake to reduce democracy to institutions and rational processes. Rather, democracy is believed to emerge from the infinite and self-constituted practice of the equally free and thereby contesting existing institutions and processes. However, apart from sympathetic commentaries these theories remain surprisingly vague about what to do in moments of political contestations and therefore lacking action-oriented knowledge for subjects struggling in these situations.
In my project "Scenes of the Political", I provide a radical democratic answer to this question in three steps. First, I problematize the institutional and procedural fixation of liberal and liberal-democratic theory. Because those who reduce democracy to fixed institutions and procedures, and confuse it with statehood, are going to lose it. Second, such a liberal intuition also appears in Chantal Mouffe's radical democratic theory of democracy. I therefore propose, with Jacques Rancière, to think democracy with an anarchist intuition. Thirdly, I look at activist theory productions from the Occupy Wall Street movement and thus at one of the moments in which political action appears for radical democratic theory.
In the project, I also take literary excursions to Alexander Herzen, the Roman plebeians or a children's story about the painter Zinnober, among others, each of which tell theory in its own way. In the interplay with academic and activist theory production, scenes of the political emerge that enable critical interpretations of the democratic negotiation of the common and open up new horizons for a poetology of political theory.
Leonhardt, Christian, 2022: Ein Laboratorium der Demokratie? Occupy Wall Street als Ereignis und Referenz, in: Mittelweg 36 31 (4), S. 54-70.
Zieringer, Carolin; Leonhardt, Christian, 2020: Politik, Körper, Ironie: Rancière queer-feministisch weiterdenken, in: Mareike Gebhardt (Hg.), Staatskritik und Radikaldemokratie. Das Denken Jacques Rancières, Staatsverständnisse, Baden-Baden: Nomos, S. 171 – 187.
Leonhardt, Christian, 2019: Jenseits der guten Ordnung. Theoretische Konstellationen zwischen Bakunin, Rancière und CrimethInc., in: Mathis, Klaus/Langensand, Luca (Hg.), Anarchie als herrschaftslose Ordnung?, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, S. 95 – 119.
Leonhardt, Christian, 2019: Henry David Thoreau, in: Comtesse, Dagmar/Flügel-Martinsen, Oliver/Martinsen, Franziska/Nonhoff, Martin (Hg.), Handbuch Radikale Demokratietheorie, Berlin: Suhrkamp, S. 115 – 120.
Leonhardt, Christian; Nonhoff, Martin, 2019: Widerständige Differenz. Transnationale soziale Bewegungen zwischen gegenhegemonialer Institutionalisierung und nicht-integrativer Präfiguration, in: Zeitschrift für Politische Theorie, 10 (1), S. 9 – 28.
Leonhardt, Christian, 2018: Reinszenierungen. Von der Szene der Plebejer zur Untersuchung des politischen Moments in gegenwärtigen Bewegungen, in: Linpinsel, Thomas/ Lim, Il-Tschung (Hg.), Jacques Rancière und die Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden: Springer, S. 141 – 163.
Leonhardt, Christian, 2017: Zwei Namen des Ausnahmezustandes. Giorgio Agamben und Jacques Rancière im Unvernehmen, in: Matthias Lemke (Hg.), Ausnahmezustand. Theoriegeschichte - Anwendungen - Perspektiven, Wiesbaden: Springer VS, S. 41 – 56.
Leonhardt, Christian, 2017; Reviewed: Gabriel Hürlimann; 2015, Analytik der Revolte. Über agonistische Konstellationen von Macht, Freiheit und Subjekt im Anschluss an Michel Foucault., in: Zeitschrift für philosophische Literatur, 5 (1), S. 19 – 28.
"Poetics of theory. Contradictory narratives and activist theory production." (Lecture at the colloquium of the DFG Research Training Group "Contradiction Studies”, University of Bremen), December 2023.
„Poetik der Theorie. Widersprüchliche Erzählungen und aktivistische Theorieproduktion.“ (Lecture at the international conference of political theory „Political theory in times of uncertainty“, University of Bremen), September 2023.
„Keine Diversität ohne Gleichheit – Keine Gleichheit ohne Diversität“ (Lecture at the DVPW-Sektionstagung „Kämpfe um Diversität. Theorie an der Grenze von Wissenschaft und Politik“, University of Duisburg-Essen), March 2023.
„Anarchismus, Universität & Wissenschaft“ (Podiumsdiskussion am Institut für Geographie, Universität Jena), Mai 2022.
„Zwischen anarchistischer Subversion und radikaler Demokratietheorie“ (Workshop „Staat und Gesellschaft. Anarchistische Perspektiven in der spätmodernen Sozialtheorie“; Institut für Soziologie/ Universität Gießen), Januar 2018.
„Die Anarchie der Ordnung – Theoretische Konstellationen jenseits der guten Ordnung“ (Tagung „Anarchie als herrschaftslose Ordnung?“; org. Rechtswissenschaftliche Fakultät / Universität Luzern), Oktober 2016.
„Widerständiges Widerstehen“ (4. Fachtagung der DNGPS „Herrschaft und Widerstand. Sozialwissenschaftliche Perspektiven auf umkämpfte Verhältnisse“ in Kassel), April 2015.
Summer term 2024
Seminar “Spaces of the Political” (University of Bremen)
Winter term 2023/24
Seminar (with Franziska Rau) „Art and the political – a transdisciplinary rendezvous“ (University of Bremen)
Summer term 2023
Seminar (with Martin Nonhoff) “Hegel's theory of the state and the law“ (University of Bremen)
Winter term 2022/23
Seminar “Politics of Literature” (University of Bremen)
Summer term 2022
Seminar “'But if it’s rage you’re feeling, why quote philosophy professors?' – activist theory production as political theory” (University of Bremen)
Winter term 2021/22
Seminar “Identity politics / politics of identity” (University of Bremen)
Summer term 2021
Online-Seminar/C “Politics beyond the state” (University of Bremen)
Winter term 2020/21
Online-Seminar/C “Spaces of the Political” (University of Bremen)
Summer term 2020
Übung for “Introduction to Political Theory” (University of Bremen)
Winter term 2019/20
Seminar “Anything goes or the genesis of a scientific fact. Philosophy/Critique of sciences as political theory” (University of Bremen)
Summer term 2019
Seminar “Equality-Democracy-Disagreement-Politics. Introduction to Jacques Rancière” (University of Bremen)
Summer term 2019
Übung for “Introduction to Political Theory” (University of Bremen)
Summer term 2018
Übung for “Introduction to Political Theory” (University of Bremen)
Winter term 2016/17
Seminar “The politics of insurrection – Introduction to theories of the political” (University of Bremen)
Summer term 2016
Übung for “Introduction to Political Theory” (University of Bremen)
Winter term 2014/15
Seminar (with Frieder Vogelmann) „Demokratie und Anarchie. Zum Unbeherrschbaren der Selbstbestimmung“ (University of Bremen)
Summer term 2014
Übung for “Introduction to Political Theory” (University of Bremen)