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'No matter how long I may look at an image, I shall never find anything in it but what I put there. It is in this fact that we find the distinction between an image and a perception.' - Jean-Paul SartreL'Imagination was published in 1936 when Jean-Paul Sartre was thirty years old. Long out of print, this is the first English translation in many years. The Imagination is Sartre's first full philosophical work, presenting some of the basic arguments concerning phenomenology, consciousness and intentionality that were to later appear in his master works and be so influential in the course of twen

The usefulness of strategic imagination is one of the coveted competitive advantages today. I present some of the moments of its historical evolution and some of the social architectures that can generate it.

AbstractImagination is often considered the pinnacle of representational cognition. Looking at the concrete details of imagining in context, this paper aims to contribute to the emerging literature that is challenging this representational view by offering a relational and radically situated alternative. On the basis of observing architects in the process of making an architectural art installation, we show how to consider imagination not as de-contextualized achievement by an individual but as an opening up to larger-scale "affordances," i.e. the unfolding possibilities for action. We show how the architects coordinate the enactment of multiple affordances across different timescales, from small-scale affordances of picking up a mobile phone to the large-scale affordance of making the installation that takes months to unfold. These affordances get co-determined as they are jointly enacted. It is within this determining process that imagination too finds its place. On our view it is the indeterminacy of multiple affordances unfolding in action simultaneously that can be experienced as imaginative. The indeterminate character of this coordinative process allows activities to widen and open up, letting new possibilities for action enter into them.

The article is concerned with the current security policy paradigm of precaution, which tries to be prepared for a completely unknown ("unknown unknowns") situation of danger. Within this political security regime, imaginations, both of disruption and security, gain center stage: They enable – at least approximately – the preparative handling with a yet unknown or even unthinkable future catastrophe and simultaneously serve as media of societies self-description. To be able to grasp the political role of imagination analytically, after a short historical and theoretical introduction, the article presents a model that shows the transformation of diffuse anxiety into specific scenarios of fear infused with implications of values and actions to be the central function of collective imaginations of danger. Based on this, a typology of disruption is developed that distinguishes between predetermined disruption, adaptive disruption and overstressing disruption. ; The article is concerned with the current security policy paradigm of precaution, which tries to be prepared for a completely unknown ("unknown unknowns") situation of danger. Within this political security regime, imaginations, both of disruption and security, gain center stage: They enable – at least approximately – the preparative handling with a yet unknown or even unthinkable future catastrophe and simultaneously serve as media of societies self-description. To be able to grasp the political role of imagination analytically, after a short historical and theoretical introduction, the article presents a model that shows the transformation of diffuse anxiety into specific scenarios of fear infused with implications of values and actions to be the central function of collective imaginations of danger. Based on this, a typology of disruption is developed that distinguishes between predetermined disruption, adaptive disruption and overstressing disruption.

Call for Papers für ein Panel auf der DGS-Sektionenkonferenz vom 23. bis 25. September 2024 in Osnabrück. Deadline: 15. März 2024

This paper retraces the political imagination in the background of an activist-artistic-scholarly project of commemorating socialist heritage in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It suggests that more analytical attention needs to be paid to the coevalness of postsocialism. As a growing body of literature demonstrates, postsocialism can provide inspiration for imagining utopian futures. However, this orientation towards the future is not all there is to its political imagination. The main argument of the paper is that postsocialist political imagination is an epistemological and political project of re-describing the failures – those of socialist modernity as well as of the contemporary postsocialist moment – in a way that acknowledges disappointment, but still makes it possible to act. With its focus on redescribing present failures, it differs from decolonial political imagination, which is a project of prescribing new models, blueprints, and examples for how to organize reality beyond the hegemonic concepts and institutions that have been developed within the modernity/coloniality nexus. While postsocialist and decolonial political imaginations are interwoven in complex ways, since both are critical epistemological and political projects, there are important differences between them and one cannot and should not be reduced to the other. ; In diesem Beitrag wird die politische Imagination nachgezeichnet, die den Hintergrund für ein aktivistisch-künstlerisch-wissenschaftliches Projekt mit dem Namen "Mostar's Hurqualya" bildet, das an das sozialistische Erbe des Partisanenfriedhofs in Mostar, Bosnien und Herzegowina, erinnert. Die Hauptthese des Beitrags lautet, dass die postsozialistische politische Imagination ein erkenntnistheoretisches und politisches Projekt zur Neubeschreibung des Scheiterns – sowohl des Scheiterns der sozialistischen Moderne als auch des gegenwärtigen postsozialistischen Moments – darstellt, und zwar in einer Weise, die die Enttäuschung anerkennt, aber dennoch die Möglichkeit zum Handeln zulässt. Mit seinem Schwerpunkt auf der Neubeschreibung des Scheiterns unterscheidet sich der Beitrag möglicherweise von einer dekolonialen politischen Imagination. Er wird als ein Projekt verstanden, das neue Modelle, Entwürfe und Beispiele dafür vorgibt, wie die Realität jenseits der hegemonialen Konzepte und Institutionen organisiert werden kann, die im Rahmen des Zusammenhangs von Moderne und Kolonialität entstanden sind. Postsozialistische und dekoloniale politische Imaginationen sind zwar auf komplexe Weise miteinander verwoben, da es sich bei beiden um kritische epistemologische und politische Projekte handelt, es gibt jedoch auch Unterschiede zwischen ihnen. ; Peer Reviewed

Das Berliner Ensemble und die Komische Oper haben die aufwendige Hybrid-Inszenierung "Felix's Room" zusammen produziert. Dank eines virtuellen 3D-Scanners entstand aus einer Skizze ein Bühnenraum mit Fenstern, einer Tür und Möbeln.

von Sophie Diesselhorst