Friday, 6.7.2018
10:00
In English
Moderation: Annika Haas

The starting point for my work is a communication understood in its radical sense, that is, from etymological inspirations that situate it as the experience of »the common«. Communication is the mutual sharing of the common, what this talk’s title refers to when using the German term Mit-Teilung(literally »co/with- sharing« or, more fundamentally, the sharing of the »with«) in order to suggest a semantic shift of the concept of communication.

Inspired by the conference’s theme, I am interested in addressing and outlining the problem of »the common« in a theoretical contrast with the concepts of appropriation, mediation, and figuration. As a space of proximity and distance, partaking in the common does not mean appropriating it, but it rather implies an irreparable loss of what is one’s very own. In other words, the common is not only the opposite of what is private, but especially it is what escapes any appropriation. Furthermore, contrary to a more recurring interpretation, I expect to delineate during my talk the »common« as opposed to belonging – being in common is lack of belonging.

Consequently, I intend to extend the problematic of this opposition by discussing related terms such as the »public« and the »collective«. Through this theoretical approach, the »common« emerges as the condition of mediation itself and it negates its own figuration during the mediation’s process. So the purpose of my presentation is to unfold those conceptual contrasts in order to present the »common« as the condition of existence of a relationship (in opposition to relation), be it based on mediation, figuration or appropriation.

Maurício Liesen is lecturer and postdoctoral researcher at the Federal University of Paraná (Brazil). Between 2014 and 2017 he was a visiting scholar at the University of Potsdam (Germany). He is also a research fellow at the Center for Studies in Philosophy and Communication (FiloCom) at the University of São Paulo.