UNIVERSAL
About us
The focus area investigates dynamics of universalization. At its core lies the question of how particular constructions of the world obscure their historical, cultural, and social contingency, develop claims to universal validity, and succeed in gaining recognition and ratification of such claims. At the same time, it addresses the related question of how and when such processes fail at various stages, how and when claims to universality are contested, and how and when the particular origins of such constructions are unveiled and decried.
This agenda offers a unique and potentially synergetic crystallization point for many ongoing research endeavors at Bielefeld University.
Research Topics
- Globalization & Global Structures of World Society
Processes of globalization and the emergence of global structures in world society are inherently tied to claims to universality and their ratification. Furthermore, contestations of such claims (as for instance in postcolonial perspectives and projects of [cultural] decolonization) are themselves often embedded in (and indeed reinforce) global relations. In addition, the tensions between universalizing claims and their contestation in this context also require pursuing an analysis that covers a variety of epochs and regions in order to avoid undue teleologies and presentisms
- Practices of Comparing
Dynamics of universalization and their contestation are substantially driven by practices of comparing. Through comparisons, specific standards (i.e., tertia comparationis) are often implicitly departicularized and a class of comparata de-historicized and essentialized (e.g., races, nation states, world literature). Moreover, comparisons with claims to universality (i.e., not limiting themselves on spatial, temporal and social dimensions) are drivers of globalization. As such, they can further elicit counter comparisons that aim to contest such claims in asserting fundamental difference and/or introducing alternative standards of comparison.
- The Common Good, the Welfare State, the Good Life, the Economy & Political Philosophies