The spring Common Session 2023–University of Hamburg – 15 till 17 May 2023
Theme: Rethinking the Dangerous in Scary Times
The 2023 Spring Common Session in Hamburg wants to open a new discussion on the foundational criminological notion of “the dangerous”. In times of acute planetary insecurity, multiple entangled crises – nuclear, ecological, pandemic, authoritarian, and humanitarian – converge to a frightening prospect for both our future and our present. How have common perceptions changed about the subjects, places, modes of governance and forms of resistance that are understood as threatening, eerie, or in need of control and punishment? Some critical voices raise concerns over harmful public constructions, such as “climate refugees”, and adverse consequences of security practices, including police brutality. Others call for more control and the establishment of new offences (e.g. “ecocide”).
A crucial focal point for all of them becomes the rendering visible of everyday and “non spectacular” harms of “slow violence” (Nixon) and destruction of life worlds. What does “the revenge of the real” (Bratton) look like for Critical Criminology? And what does being critical mean for criminology in these times?
Common Study Programme in Critical Criminology 