Festival of Abstract Thought is an interdisciplinary platform working across philosophy, critical theory, social thought, and artistic practice. After ten years in Warsaw, the festival brings its public approach to thinking to Berlin.

Like many other places in Europe Poland is not quite central, not quite Western, but you can’t really call it a margin either. There’s a strong ambition to catch up with the center and even stronger fear of sliding into the periphery. Caught between them we end up full of contradictions and tensions, both looking down on others and being looked down on. Rather than resolving these tensions or trying to fit in, the festival takes the in-between as a position from which to think: embrace being unfit and in-between, seeing what weirdness lives there and what coalitions can be built. What do we see that isn’t visible from the center? What critical ideas, resistances, ecologies, strange solutions, and unfinished paths emerge?

Program

Thinking (from) the Semi-Periphery in a Fracturing World. Poland as a strating point. (Talk)
6:00 p.m. – 7.30 p.m.

How do we fit into a world that is coming apart? And what happens when fitting in requires learning to describe yourself in someone else’s terms? Starting from Immanuel Wallerstein’s concept of the semi-periphery, together with Barbara Brzezicka and Filip Brzeźniak-Kujda we explore the double binds of aspiring to the centre while fearing marginalisation. Turning the current political fever into philosophical reflection, we take Poland as a starting point for comparisons with other semi-peripheral experiences. Thinking from semi-periphery means for us also thinking in a semi-peripehric language. Polish is not a language widely spoken, but at the same time it is not viewed as “exotic”. And yet we believe there are concepts in Polish that might shed new light on current problems. Using Barbara Cassin’s framework of “untranslatables” we will show some Polish concepts that we find inspiring.

Pierogi, Anyone? Dinner with Kitchen Conversations (Community dinner)
8:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.

Perhaps you’ve made them with your Polish babcia?
Perhaps you never miss an opportunity to eat them whenever you can?
Perhaps you only have them on Christmas Eve?
Perhaps you’ve eaten too many and can’t even think about them anymore?
Perhaps you feel bad for all the other Polish dishes that get left in the background?
Perhaps you feel they’re too mild and need a little sauce?
Perhaps you think they’re just like Italian ravioli, but bigger?
Perhaps you prefer Ukrainian varenyky?
Perhaps the German translation, Teigtaschen, just doesn’t do them justice?
Perhaps you’re still on the lookout for good ones in Berlin?

The evening ends with communal eating, chatting, and exchange, hosted by artist Patrycja Rozwora.

Further details on the program and guests can be found on the festival website.