Published by De Gruyter

Beyond Universalism / Partager l’universel

Studies on the Contemporary / Études sur le contemporain

Edited by: Markus Messling

ISSN: 2700-1156

e-ISSN 2700-1164

Overview
Volumes

The book series Beyond Universalism | Partager l’universel problematizes universality after Western universalism. Globalization does not necessarily entail a universal awareness. Rather, we witness a wide array of cultural, relativistic, and racist contestations of a common world. But how can universality be addressed after the necessary epistemic and ethical critique of Western universalism? Building on the importance of such concepts as materiality and reparation, narration and translation, this series seeks to understand how a new consciousness of universality is under way of being produced. How do contemporary cultural and social practices open up concrete settings so as to create experiences, reflections and agencies of a shared humanity?

The volumes of the series are peer-reviewed.

La collection Beyond Universalism | Partager l’universel pose le problème de l’universalité après l’universalisme occidental. La mondialisation n’implique pas nécessairement la conscience de faire partie d’un monde commun – en témoigne un large éventail de contestations culturelles, relativistes et racistes. Mais comment aborder l’universel après la nécessaire critique épistémique et éthique de l’universalisme occidental ? En s’appuyant sur des concepts tels que la matérialité et la réparation, la narration et la traduction, cette collection cherche à comprendre comment des pratiques culturelles et sociales contemporaines produisent, à partir de contextes concrets, des expériences, des réflexions et des agentivités qui contribuent à faire émerger une humanité partagée.

Les volumes de la collection sont soumis à l'évaluation par les pairs (peer-review).

Editorial Board　

Souleymane Bachir Diagne (Columbia University, NY)

Tammy Lai-Ming Ho (Hong Kong Baptist University)

Christopher M. Hutton (University of Hong Kong)

Ananya Jahanara Kabir (King’s College London)

Mohamed Kerrou (Beït el-Hikma, Carthage)

Soumaya Mestiri (Université de Tunis)

Olivier Remaud (EHESS Paris)

Sergio Ugalde Quintana (El Colegio de México)

Author / Editor information

Markus Messling, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany.

Topics

Book Open Access 2025

Tier-Mensch-Relationen

Den Spuren von Tieren folgen: Spanisch- und französischsprachige Erzähltexte der Gegenwart

Maria-Anna Schiffers, European Research Council (ERC)

Volume 7 in this series

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This book delves into the many questions pertaining to human-animal relations today, with special focus on a new understanding and fresh perspectives beyond the problematic logocentric framework of modernity. It invites readers to reconsider their relations, both for our present and future lives.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.0000/9783111444949
ISBN:: 9783111444949
ISBN:: 9783111444550
ISBN:: 9783111443850
Subject:: Literary Studies
Subject:: Romance Literature
Subject:: Romance Literature, general
Subject:: French Literature
Subject:: 21st Century
Subject:: Hispanic Literature
Subject:: 21st Century
Subject:: Topics in Literary Studies
Subject:: Individual Motifs, Motif Research
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Open Access 2024

Universalism(e) & …

Conversations

Elsie Cohen, Azyza Deiab, Franck Hofmann, Markus Messling, Clément Ndé Fongang, Hélène Thiérard, Jonas Tinius, European Research Council (ERC)

Volume 6 in this series

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This book confronts the history and legitimacy of Western Universalism. In the form of conversations, it documents thinking-in-process about how new forms of universality after hegemonic universalism can be thought and practised. Bringing into play their practices and theories, the interlocutors of Universalism(e) & … lay their own traces of a minor universality, situated in the troubling present of our times.

Ce livre s’attaque à l'histoire et à la légitimité de l’universalisme occidental. Sous la forme de conversations, il documente la réflexion en cours sur les façons de penser et de pratiquer de nouvelles formes d’universalité après l’universalisme hégémonique. À partir de leurs pratiques et de leurs théories, les interlocuteurs d’Universalism(e) & ... font apparaître leur propre cheminement autour de cette universalité mineure située dans le présent troublant de notre époque.　

Universalism(e) & … révolution, histoires concrètes, préhistoire, multiláteralisme, savoir(s), the partisan position, narration, reparation　　　

Entretiens avec / Conversations with: Arjun Appadurai, Leyla Dakhli, Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Giovanni Levi, Gisèle Sapiro, David Scott, Adania Shibli, Maria Stavrinaki

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111373164
ISBN:: 9783111373164
ISBN:: 9783111373706
ISBN:: 9783111372372
Subject:: History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: Colonial and Postcolonial History
Subject:: Literary Studies
Subject:: Romance Literature
Subject:: Romance Literature, general
Subject:: Narratology
Subject:: Topics in Literary Studies
Subject:: Postcolonial Studies
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Open Access 2024

Literature and the Work of Universality

Alice Duhan, Stefan Helgesson, Christina Kullberg, Paul Tenngart

Volume 5 in this series

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In an age of accelerating ecological crises, global inequalities and democratic fragility, it has become crucial to achieve renewed articulations of human commonality. With anchorage in critical theory as well as world literary studies, this volume approaches literature – and modes of literary thinking – as a key resource for such a task. "Universality" is understood here not as an established "universalism", but as a horizon towards which intellectual inquiry and literary practices orient themselves. In the field of world literature, there is by now a wide repertoire of epistemological resources through which claims to universality can be both questioned and reconfigured. If, at one end of the spectrum, world literature confronts us with the spectre of homogenisation and the commodification of difference under a regime of global capitalism, at another end renewed forms of philological, anthropological and ecological attentiveness to the particulars of languages and texts within the crucible of connected histories allow for defamiliarising perspectives both on received historical narratives and aesthetic practices. Vernacularity emerges here as a central point of reference for constructing the universal from within the particular, the idiomatic, and the experiences of social subordination or complicity.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111209159
ISBN:: 9783111209159
ISBN:: 9783111208527
Subject:: Literary Studies
Subject:: Literary Studies, general
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Open Access 2023

Universality after Universalism

On Francophone Literatures of the Present

Markus Messling, Michael Thomas Taylor, European Research Council (ERC)

Volume 4 in this series

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The idea of universalism inherited from the French Revolution has been strongly discredited by its colonial history; today, it is also the target of nationalist attacks. What remains of it? Now available in English, Markus Messling's critically acclaimed study shows how contemporary Francophone literatures seek, after European universalism, approaches to a new universality, without which knowledge and justice cannot be organised in world society.

With a foreword by Souleymane Bachir Diagne

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111128306
ISBN:: 9783111128306
ISBN:: 9783111129617
ISBN:: 9783111125558
Subject:: Cultural Studies
Subject:: Topics in Cultural Studies
Subject:: Postcolonial Studies
Subject:: Literary Studies
Subject:: Romance Literature
Subject:: French Literature
Subject:: 21st Century
Subject:: Topics in Literary Studies
Subject:: Postcolonial Studies
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Open Access 2023

Reparation, Restitution, and the Politics of Memory / Réparation, restitution et les politiques de la mémoire

Perspectives from Literary, Historical, and Cultural Studies / Perspectives littéraires, historiques et culturelles

Mario Laarmann, Clément Ndé Fongang, Carla Seemann, Laura Vordermayer, European Research Council (ERC)

Volume 3 in this series

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Over the past roughly two decades, the interconnected concepts of reparation, restitution, and commemorative culture have gained renewed momentum – in academic discourse as much as in activist, artistic, and political contexts.

This development insists on a critique of the material and systemic conditions of societies and global relations. In their 2018 report on the restitution of looted cultural artifacts, for example, Bénédicte Savoy and Felwine Sarr discuss restitutions in the light of a new ethics of relations. Individual acts of restitution, but also the processes of material and immaterial reparation that go with them, are viewed as mediators in the by definition irreparable legacy of colonialism and its present repercussions. A new ethics of relations might even go beyond anthropocentrism: The destruction of nature in the Anthropocene and the destruction of humanity that is colonialism both require a fundamental questioning of the premises of western modernity and a radically different relationship to the world.

The present volume aims to examine different discourses and practices of reparation, bringing together perspectives from cultural studies, memory studies, post- or decolonial studies as well as literary studies. Chapters from these disciplines are complemented by contributions from the fields of philosophy, art, and literature in order to explore the multiple facets of reparation.

With contributions by Kader Attia, Lucia della Fontana, Ibou Coulibaly Diop, Alexandre Gefen, Hannah Grimmer, hn. lyonga, Helena Janeczek, Markus Messling, Clément Ndé Fongang, Aurélia Kalisky, Fabiola Obame, Angelica Pesarini, Aurore Reck, Olivier Remaud, Patricia Oster-Stierle, Sahra Rausch, Igiaba Scego, Ibrahima Sene, Christiane Solte-Gresser, Jonas Tinius.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110799514
ISBN:: 9783110799514
ISBN:: 9783111627823
ISBN:: 9783110799538
ISBN:: 9783110799507
Subject:: Cultural Studies
Subject:: Topics in Cultural Studies
Subject:: Memory
Subject:: Postcolonial Studies
Subject:: Literary Studies
Subject:: Romance Literature
Subject:: Romance Literature, general
Subject:: Topics in Literary Studies
Subject:: Memory
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Open Access 2023

Minor Universality / Universalité mineure

Rethinking Humanity After Western Universalism / Penser l’humanité après l’universalisme occidental

Markus Messling, Jonas Tinius, European Research Council (ERC)

Volume 2 in this series

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The circulation and entanglements of human beings, data, and goods have not necessarily and by themselves generated a universalising consciousness. The "global" and the "universal", in other words, are not the same. The idea of a world-society remains highly contested. Our times are marked by the fragmentation of a double relativistic character: the inevitable critique of Western universalism on the one hand, and resurgent identitarian and neo-nationalistic claims to identity on the other. Sources of an argumentation for a strong universalism brought forward by Western traditions such as Christianity, Marxism, and Liberalism have largely lost their legitimation. All the while, manifold and situated narratives of a common world that re-address the universal are under way of being produced and gain significance. This volume tracks the development and relevance of such cultural and social practices that posit forms of what we call minor universality. It asks: Where and how do contemporary practices open up concrete settings so as to create experiences, reflections and agencies of a shared humanity?

With contributions by Isaac Bazié, Anil Bhatti, Jean-Luc Chappey, Elsie Cohen, Leyla Dakhli, Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Nicole Fischer, Albert Gouaffo, Stefan Helgesson, Fatma Hotait, Christopher M. Hutton, Ananya Jahanara Kabir, Mario Laarmann, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Olivier Remaud, Gisèle Sapiro, Bénédicte Savoy, Maria-Anna Schiffers, Laurens Schlicht, Sergio Ugalde Quintana, Hélène Thierard, Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110798494
ISBN:: 9783110798494
ISBN:: 9783110798647
ISBN:: 9783110798487
Subject:: Cultural Studies
Subject:: Topics in Cultural Studies
Subject:: Postcolonial Studies
Subject:: Literary Studies
Subject:: Romance Literature
Subject:: Romance Literature, general
Subject:: Topics in Literary Studies
Subject:: Postcolonial Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Philosophy of Culture
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Open Access 2021

The Epoch of Universalism 1769–1989 / L’époque de l’universalisme 1769–1989

Franck Hofmann, Markus Messling, European Research Council (ERC)

Volume 1 in this series

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2019 witnessed the 30^th anniversary of the German reunification. But the remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall coincided with another event of global importance that caught much less attention: the 250^th anniversary of Napoleon Bonaparte’s birth. There is an undeniable historical and philosophical dimension to this coincidence. Napoleon’s appearance on the scene of world history seems to embody European universalism (soon thereafter in the form of a ‘modern’ imperial project); whilst scholars such as Francis Fukuyama saw in the events of 1989 its historical fulfilment. Today, we see more clearly that the fall of the Berlin Wall stands for an epistemic earthquake, which generated a world that can no longer be grasped through universal concepts. Here, we deal with the idea of Europe and of its relation to the world itself. Picking up on this contingency of world history with an ironic wink, the volume analyses in retrospect the epoch of European universalism. It focusses on its dialectics, polemically addressing and remembering both 1769 and 1989.

L’année 2019 a été marquée par le 30^e anniversaire de la réunification de l’Allemagne, éclipsant un autre événement d’envergure mondiale : le 250^e anniversaire de Napoléon Bonaparte. La dimension philosophico-historique de cette coïncidence ne peut pourtant pas être négligée : si l’arrivée de Bonaparte sur la scène de l’histoire mondiale semble incarner l’avènement de l’universalisme européen (bientôt amené à prendre sa forme « moderne » et impériale), certains penseurs ont suggéré, avec Francis Fukuyama, que « 1989 » marquait son accomplissement historique. Aujourd’hui, il apparaît au contraire que la chute du mur de Berlin a été un véritable tremblement de terre épistémique, et rendu inopérants les concepts universels. Dans le monde d’après, c’est à l’idée d’Europe et à sa relation au monde que nous avons affaire. Revenant par un geste ironique sur cette contingence historique, le présent volume se veut une analyse rétrospective de l’époque de l’universalisme, dans toute la dialectique que les commémorations de 1769/1989 ont fait surgir.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110691504
ISBN:: 9783110691504
ISBN:: 9783110995183
ISBN:: 9783110691610
ISBN:: 9783110691474
Subject:: History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: Colonial and Postcolonial History
Subject:: Literary Studies
Subject:: Romance Literature
Subject:: Romance Literature, general
Subject:: Topics in Literary Studies
Subject:: Postcolonial Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Philosophy of Culture
Publisher:: De Gruyter