Alenka Ambrož Postdoctoral Fellow Resident at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften: September 2023–August 2024 Research topic at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften: »Democracy, Reason and Madness: Relational Pathologies and ›Communities of Care‹ in the Atlantic World« Project outline: The objective of this postdoctoral project is to investigate reason and madness as political categories in the context of the Atlantic world. As a space of a constant struggle for democracy as well as of intense migrations, both forced and voluntary, the Atlantic has been perceived in the twentieth century as a laboratory of pathologies of relations. Authors such as Frantz Fanon, Albert Memmi, Franco Basaglia and W.E.B. Du Bois proposed philosophical, psychiatric and sociological diagnosis of these pathologies, sharing the conviction that »psychic is political«. Taking into account phenomena such as colonial legacy and systemic racism, they examined ways in which systems of discrimination and oppression create mental fragility on the side of both the oppressor and the oppressed. Following their diagnoses and placing them within wider traditions of critical theory and phenomenological psychiatry, the project aims to identify a shared paradigm of »care of the relation«, resulting in »communities of care«, where aesthetic education meets democratic engagement. (Alenka Ambrož) Research partner: Alenka Ambrož is a fellow at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften at the invitation of research focus Forschungsschwerpunktes »Democratic Vistas: Reflections on the Atlantic World« Scholarly profile of Alenka AmbrožAlenka Ambrož received her PhD in philosophy at École Normale Superieure in Paris (ENS) in 2021. In her thesis on The Concept of Relation in Philosophy of Translation, she explored epistemic, ethical and political stakes of intercultural translation from a postcolonial perspective. Originally from Ljubljana, Slovenia, she studied at the University of Ljubljana, University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). She lectured at Paris 3 Sorbonne-Nouvelle University and was a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Advanced Studies Southeast Europe and at the University of Nova Gorica. She also collaborated with the Institute for Criminology at the Faculty of Law, Ljubljana. In 2022/2023, she held a visiting scholarship at the French department of Columbia University, New York. Her current research focuses on questions of emergency politics, democracy and mental health.Main areas of research: Political philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, epistemologySelected publications:
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