WORKSHOP

Recent scholarship on the history and style of theory has fundamentally revised the traditional image of detached observation. In doing so, it brings other dimensions of theory into focus: its situatedness, its embeddedness in media ecologies and practices, and its affective forces. This is particularly apparent in recent theoretical developments. Works from the posthumanities, New Materialism, or actor-network-theory reject the notion of objective observation. Instead, these approaches propose a different relationship between theory and its objects, and this is accompanied by a different style and ›sound‹: affective terminology is not avoided but emphatically sought out, theorizing is marked by a high degree of metaphorical language, poetic form, and the narration of subjective experience. Yet it appears that, not least because of their critique of anthropocentrism and language-centered approaches, these theories tend to leave the persuasive effects of their own writing unexamined.

Given this recent emergence of theories that point toward alternative forms of theoretical writing yet often do not critically examine the effects of their own rhetorics, the long-standing question of theory's impact and operativity can be reframed: as a question of the relationship between theory and suggestion.

The reading workshop explores this question by examining the rhetorical modes and practices that shape theory formation, and by asking to what extent suggestion is not merely a special case of undue influence but a fundamental mode of theory. It turns, on the one hand, to theories of suggestion, and, on the other, to the suggestiveness of theory as such – ranging from ›hot‹ theoretical styles that deliberately deploy suggestive rhetoric to ›cold‹ styles whose persuasive force lies precisely in a language of ›neutrality‹ and detachment.

Programme

Thursday, November 5, 2026

Venue: CAS, Gorch-Fock-Wall 3, 20354 Hamburg

02:00 pm	Welcome and Introduction: Charlotte Coch, Julia Soytek
02:15 pm	Michael Gamper (Berlin): Gabriel Tarde: Die Gesetze der Nachahmung (1890); Gilles Deleuze: Differenz und Wiederholung (1968)
03:15 pm	Elena Beregow (Duisburg-Essen): Ludwik Fleck: Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatsache (1935)
04:15 pm	Coffee break
04:35 pm	Philipp Osten (Hamburg): Max Nonne: Therapeutische Erfahrungen an den Kriegsneurosen in den Jahren 1914–1918 (1922)
05:35 pm	Eva Axer (Berlin): Walter Benjamin: Der Sürrealismus (1929)

Friday, November 6, 2026

Venue: CAS, Gorch-Fock-Wall 3, 20354 Hamburg

9:00 am	Ehler Voss (Bremen): Claude Lévi-Strauss: Die Wirksamkeit der Symbole (1949)
10:00 am	Elisa Ronzheimer (Bielefeld): [Umberto Eco]: Carmen Nova (1983)
11:00 am	Coffee break
11:20 am	Davide Giuriato (Zürich): Donna Haraway: Cyborg Manifesto (1985); Companion Species Manifesto (2003)
12:20 pm	Lunch break
01:20 pm	Vera Thomann (Zürich): Paul Preciado: Ich bin ein Monster, das zu euch spricht (2019)
02:20 pm	Julian Müller (Hamburg): Bruno Latour: Jubilieren (2011)
03:20 pm	Closing discussion

>> Download Workshop-Programme (PDF, in German language)