Workshop: Dissidents as Figures of Truth (Since the 1970s)

14 – 16 July 2021

Organised by the research initiative “(East) European Epistemologies” (Friedrich Cain, Dietlind Hüchtker, Bernhard Kleeberg, Karin Reichenbach and Jan Surman)

What do Andrei Sakharov, Noam Chomsky, Protestant Nonconformists separating from the Church of England in the 17thand 18thcenturies, and today’s mask opponents have in common?

They all have at times been called, and identified themselves as, dissidents. Though, we almost intuitively associate dissidents with Soviet intellectual nonconformists, and those from other countries of the Eastern Bloc.

At our conference, we want to look more closely at how the figure of the “dissident” became constructed and solidifiedacross the Iron Curtain and after the fall of the Soviet Union. We will focus on practices, techniques, and media settings which (co)produce the dissident as a (mostly male) “truth figure”, which includes practices of staging oneself, and ways of embodying the (epistemic) values and virtues associated with this figure.

 

Organised by the research initiative “(East) European Epistemologies” (Friedrich Cain, Dietlind Hüchtker, Bernhard Kleeberg, Karin Reichenbach and Jan Surman)

What do Andrei Sakharov, Noam Chomsky, Protestant Nonconformists separating from the Church of England in the 17thand 18thcenturies, and today’s mask opponents have in common?
They all have at times been called, and identified themselves as, dissidents. Though, we almost intuitively associate dissidents with Soviet intellectual nonconformists, and those from other countries of the Eastern Bloc.
At our conference, we want to look more closely at how the figure of the “dissident” became constructed and solidifiedacross the Iron Curtain and after the fall of the Soviet Union. We will focus on practices, techniques, and media settings which (co)produce the dissident as a (mostly male) “truth figure”, which includes practices of staging oneself, and ways of embodying the (epistemic) values and virtues associated with this figure.

Keynote, round tableand final discussionwill be open to the public. To sign up, please follow bit.ly/3yEfj6Y
For technical help, please contact Ines Rößler(ines.roessler@leibniz-gwzo.de).

The participation in the workshop is limited. To register and for further information, please contact Karin Reichenbach (karin.reichenbach@leibniz-gwzo.de).