- International Political Theory, Contemporary Political Theory, Existentialism, Critical Theory, Albert Camus, Hannah Arendt, and 10 moreEthics of Narrative, Politics of Recognition, Transitional Justice and Reconciliation, Responsibility, Political Violence, Resistance, Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Walter Benjamin, and Tragedyedit
- Maša is a Lecturer in Political Theory at the University of Leeds. Her research interests are located within contempo... moreMaša is a Lecturer in Political Theory at the University of Leeds. Her research interests are located within contemporary political theory, international political theory and the history of political thought. She draws on twentieth-century philosophies of existence, enriched with feminist and postcolonial perspectives, to conceptualise the complexities and potentials of individual and collective action in conditions of systemic oppression. Within this focus, she has contributed to pressing issues of political judgement, memory politics, transitional justice, political violence and, most recently, resistance. Her current project explores the political potentials of disappointment within the modern revolutionary tradition.edit
This article explores how an existential account of emotions can enrich debates about negative emotions in transitional justice and peacebuilding scholarship. A growing literature has examined the challenge that the ex-resisters' negative... more
This article explores how an existential account of emotions can enrich debates about negative emotions in transitional justice and peacebuilding scholarship. A growing literature has examined the challenge that the ex-resisters' negative emotions, including disappointment, pose to the creation of sustainable peace in post-conflict societies. It has however not sufficiently accounted for disappointment's potentially productive political value. The paper fills this gap by examining how the ex-resisters' disappointment affects their capacity for political action against the remainders of past violence and oppression, with a specific focus on the South African context. I draw on Jean-Paul Sartre's existential account of the emotions' "magic" as a way of coping with the complexities of political action arising from our situated condition. I put Sartre's account in conversation with Nadine Gordimer's novel No Time Like the Present and experiences of disappointment among South African ex-resisters to show how disappointment can lead ex-resisters to different ways of confronting the complexity of political engagement in the wake of the incomplete transition. This dialogue reveals disappointment as a powerful source of resistance against the persistence of injustice, while also disclosing significant constraints upon political engagement in conditions of systemic violence.
Research Interests: Peace and Conflict Studies, Transitional Justice, Jean-Paul Sartre, Nadine Gordimer, Anxiety, and 15 moreEmotions, South Africa, Existentialism, Novels, Ontological Security, Protest and resistance, Race and identity in post-apartheid South Africa, Liberation movements, Anti-Colonialism, South African Literature; Nadine Gordimer's Novels, Disappointment, African politics, Transitional Justice, Gender and Human Rights, Existential Feelings, African National Congress, and Political value of art
Hegemonic practices of memorialization rely on narratives of heroic, morally untainted resistance, which cast traitors as the aberrant "other". This paper draws on Simone de Beauvoir's The Ethics of Ambiguity and historical and... more
Hegemonic practices of memorialization rely on narratives of heroic, morally untainted resistance, which cast traitors as the aberrant "other". This paper draws on Simone de Beauvoir's The Ethics of Ambiguity and historical and sociological accounts of betrayal to trouble this binary and construct a framework for memorialising betrayal in its ambiguity-in relation to the everyday reality of tragic dilemmas that resisters face. I show how attentiveness to the ambiguity of betrayal can help rethink heroic resistance myths beyond the exclusionary logic pitting moral purity against the depravity of treason-and warn against the reproduction of systematic practices of othering in the new political order. The paper develops the political relevance of this theoretical exploration via the example of a South African novel, The Texture of Shadows, examining how its insights into the ambiguity of betrayal challenge the myths of heroic resistance in South Africa.
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Feminist historians of political resistance have drawn attention to the 'honorary man' tradition-the belief women resisters must overcome their feminine bodies and act like their male counterparts to be taken seriously in resistance... more
Feminist historians of political resistance have drawn attention to the 'honorary man' tradition-the belief women resisters must overcome their feminine bodies and act like their male counterparts to be taken seriously in resistance movements. Yet they have not fully explored the resources of feminist theory to counter it. Building a bridge between history and theory, we address this gap by turning to the work of Simone de Beauvoir and Audre Lorde. We highlight their shared understanding that resistance is embodied and situated in social contexts shot through by oppressive gender, race, and class norms. We sketch out a view of feminist resistance that reveals that women resisters have novel possibilities for action, confront gendered vulnerabilities, and encounter difficult dilemmas that have no easy answers. Our paper deepens our understanding of the failures of the honorary man tradition, and it offers conceptual tools for scholars and activists to think beyond it.
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Despite the recent revival of revolutionary commitment in response to left melancholia, I suggest that the contemporary academic left has not adequately addressed the difficulty of responding to failure as an inevitable aspect of... more
Despite the recent revival of revolutionary commitment in response to left melancholia, I suggest that the contemporary academic left has not adequately addressed the difficulty of responding to failure as an inevitable aspect of revolutionary politics. The dominant tendency has been to try to offset the risk of failure by managing revolutionary action in line with a pregiven model of revolutionary change-only to limit the range of possibilities for revolutionary engagement. To address this problem, I draw on Rosa Luxemburg, a foremost revolutionary thinker, whose experiences of disappointment led her to rethink the notion of revolutionary commitment as a practice of learning from failure. This rethinking of commitment suggests a different way of engaging with failure-one that expands our imagination of political possibilities beyond the confines of the dominant contemporary responses to left melancholia and enriches their visions of revolutionary change.
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Introduction to the special issue guest edited by Maša Mrovlje and Jennet Kirkpatrick. This special issue includes contributions by Tal Correm, Maša Mrovlje, Gisli Vogler, and Bronwyn Leebaw. Of late, resistance has become a central... more
Introduction to the special issue guest edited by Maša Mrovlje and Jennet Kirkpatrick.
This special issue includes contributions by Tal Correm, Maša Mrovlje, Gisli Vogler, and Bronwyn Leebaw.
Of late, resistance has become a central notion in political theory, standing at the heart of attempts to respond to the dilemmas of contemporary times. However, many accounts tend to ascribe to an idealised, heroic view. In this view, resistance represents a clearcut action against injustice and stems from individuals’ conscious choice and their unwavering ethical commitment to the cause. Some liberal scholars, most notably Candice Delmas and Jason Brennan, have argued that citizens of democratic societies have a moral duty to resist state-sanctioned injustice. This resistance occurs either through ‘principled – civil or uncivil – disobedience’ or through ‘defensive actions’. While acknowledging that pervasive injustice can compromise our cognitive and moral capacities, however, their articulation of our political obligation to resist refrains from a sustained examination of the moral dilemmas, uncertainties and risks that arise when fighting systemic oppression.
This special issue includes contributions by Tal Correm, Maša Mrovlje, Gisli Vogler, and Bronwyn Leebaw.
Of late, resistance has become a central notion in political theory, standing at the heart of attempts to respond to the dilemmas of contemporary times. However, many accounts tend to ascribe to an idealised, heroic view. In this view, resistance represents a clearcut action against injustice and stems from individuals’ conscious choice and their unwavering ethical commitment to the cause. Some liberal scholars, most notably Candice Delmas and Jason Brennan, have argued that citizens of democratic societies have a moral duty to resist state-sanctioned injustice. This resistance occurs either through ‘principled – civil or uncivil – disobedience’ or through ‘defensive actions’. While acknowledging that pervasive injustice can compromise our cognitive and moral capacities, however, their articulation of our political obligation to resist refrains from a sustained examination of the moral dilemmas, uncertainties and risks that arise when fighting systemic oppression.
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This is the introduction to the special issue on Violent Complicities beyond the Legal Imagination: Exploring the Epistemic and Political Power of Art, co-edited by Mihaela Mihai and Maša Mrovlje.
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Film Studies, Romanian History, Narrative, Political Violence, and 12 moreVichy France, Documentary Film, Primo Levi, Memorials and the Memorial Art-Work in the Public Arena, Genocide, Complicity, Dictadura Militar Argentina, Gender Norms, Grey Zone, Oppression of Women, Structural Oppression, and Political value of art
Research Interests: Violence, Subversion, Judith Butler, Simone de Beauvoir, Gender And Violence, and 14 moreHannah Arendt, Frantz Fanon, Primo Levi, South Africa, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Resistance, Protest and resistance, Betrayal, Complicity, Everyday Resistance, Heroic Resistance, Moral goodness, Grey Zones of Resistance, and Svetlana Broz
The article aims to expose and contest the gendered representation of betrayal in resistance movements. For a theoretical framework, I draw on Simone de Beauvoir’s critique of masculinist myths of femininity in The Second Sex, combined... more
The article aims to expose and contest the gendered representation of betrayal in resistance movements. For a theoretical framework, I draw on Simone de Beauvoir’s critique of masculinist myths of femininity in The Second Sex, combined with contemporary feminist scholarship on the oppressive constructions of female subjectivity in debates on war and violence. I trace how the hegemonic visions of virile resistance tend to subsume the grey zones of women’s resistance activity under two reductive myths of femininity – the self-sacrificial mother and the seductive femme fatale – while obscuring the complexities of betrayal arising from women’s embodied vulnerabilities. I demonstrate the political relevance of this theoretical exploration on the example of two representative French Resistance novels, Joseph Kessel’s Army of Shadows and Roger Vailland’s Playing with Fire.
Research Interests: French Literature, Women, Transitional Justice, Violence Against Women, Simone de Beauvoir, and 15 moreGender And Violence, France, Women and Gender Studies, Resistance, Betrayal, Transitional Justice, gender, French Resistance Literature and Cinema, Roger Vailland, Complicity, The French Resistance, Gender and War/Post-War, Simone de Beauvoir, Feminism, Gender Norms, Joseph Kessel, and Philosophy and Politics of Resistance
The paper examines how the disappointment of ex-resistance fighters can illuminate the grey zone of founding-the ambiguity of beginning anew against the background of systemic violence that eludes the predominant linear visions of... more
The paper examines how the disappointment of ex-resistance fighters can illuminate the grey zone of founding-the ambiguity of beginning anew against the background of systemic violence that eludes the predominant linear visions of transition. For a theoretical framework, I draw on Hannah Arendt's insights into the ambiguity of beginning anew as a practice of attunement that takes oppressive practices as points of departure for democratizing political action. I explore how the ex-resisters' stories of disappointment can invigorate this practice, focusing on their ability to reorient political action towards reframing unjust relationships in a way that guards against systematic exclusions in the future. The paper demonstrates the political relevance of disappointment on the example of a South African ex-resister's memoir, Pregs Govender's Love and Courage. Govender's narrative discloses how experiences of disappointment can orient the ex-resisters' efforts to confront the complexities of founding obscured from the official story.
Research Interests: Narrative, Storytelling, Hope, Hannah Arendt, South Africa, and 15 moreSystemic violence, Resistance, Founding, Disappointment, New Beginning, Grey Zone, Attunement, Linda Zerilli, David Scott, ex-resistance fighters, Pregs Govender, grey zone of founding, Patchen Markell, melancholic hope, and systemic complicity
The Algerian-French writer Albert Camus is commonly recognized as one of the main representatives of the twentieth-century existentialist movement, whose concern with the meaning of human existence in the world of the dead god continues... more
The Algerian-French writer Albert Camus is commonly recognized as one of the main representatives of the twentieth-century existentialist movement, whose concern with the meaning of human existence in the world of the dead god continues to reverberate in our time. His philosophical and political imagination was importantly shaped by the terrifying events of the twentieth century, which, in his view, exposed the inadequacy of the most cherished moral standards of the Western philosophical tradition. Throughout his oeuvre, Camus manifested a steadfast commitment to the social and political issues of his day. His interventions took the form of philosophical, political and lyrical essays, novels, short stories and theatre plays, as well as works of journalism. Largely disregarded as a political thinker worthy of the philosophical canon, Camus has recently been praised for providing a peculiar political sensibility that is of prescient relevance to the perplexities of contemporary politics.
Research Interests: Marxism, Revolutions, Simone de Beauvoir, Nihilism, Jean-Paul Sartre, and 15 moreAlbert Camus, Solidarity, Rebellion, Algerian Independence War, Existentialism, Ambiguity, French colonial Algeria, Absurd, Limits, The French Resistance, Jean Grenier, The Rebel, Commited art, Revolutionary Violence, and responsibility of the artist
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The article contributes to current theoretical debates about the political significance of narrative imagination by drawing on Albert Camus's and Hannah Arendt's existentially-grounded aesthetic judging sensibility. It seeks to displace... more
The article contributes to current theoretical debates about the political significance of narrative imagination by drawing on Albert Camus's and Hannah Arendt's existentially-grounded aesthetic judging sensibility. It seeks to displace the prevalent tendency to probe literature for its moral-philosophical insights, and instead delves into the experiential reality of our engagement with literary works. It starts from Martha Nussbaum's recognition of the literary ability to account for the fragility of human affairs, yet finds her reduction of narrative imagination to the role of furthering moral lessons wanting politically. Against this background, the article reclaims Camus's and Arendt's dialogical-representative judging orientation and its insight into the narrative ability to respond to the intersubjective character of political action. As such, their aesthetic sensibility reveals the potential political significance of literary imagination in its capacity to open a public space where the contradictions of our situated existence can be confronted through politics between plural equals.
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The paper engages the grey zone of violent resistance – the morally ambiguous situations facing liberation activists that have generally fallen outside the grasp of transitional justice scholarship. For this purpose, it draws on Albert... more
The paper engages the grey zone of violent resistance – the morally ambiguous situations facing liberation activists that have generally fallen outside the grasp of transitional justice scholarship. For this purpose, it draws on Albert Camus's artistic sensibility, reconstructing how his artistic appeal to the limits of rebellion can tackle the difficulty of judging violent resistance. The paper demonstrates the relevance of Camus's artistic sensibility on the case of the armed anti-apartheid struggle. It analyses two South African novels, Afrika's The Innocents and Wicomb's David's Story, in an attempt to show how their literary insights can enrich the official vision of reconciliation as propounded by the TRC.
Research Interests: Critical Theory, Violence, Literature, Transitional Justice, Political Violence, and 15 moreJean-Paul Sartre, Reconciliation, Albert Camus, South Africa, Existentialism, Plurality, Resistance, Political Judgement, Non-violence, Zoë Wicomb, African National Congress, Grey Zone, South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Tatamkhulu Afrika, and Pan Africanist Congress
The article examines the political challenge and significance of forgiveness as an indispensable response to the inherently imperfect and tragic nature of political life through the lens of the existential, narrative-inspired judging... more
The article examines the political challenge and significance of forgiveness as an indispensable response to the inherently imperfect and tragic nature of political life through the lens of the existential, narrative-inspired judging sensibility. While the political significance of forgiveness has been broadly recognized in transitional justice and reconciliation contexts, the question of its importance and appropriateness in the wake of grave injustice and suffering has commonly been approached through constructing a self-centred, rule-based framework, defining forgiveness in terms of a moral duty or virtue. Reliant on a set of prefabricated moral standards, however, this approach risks abstracting from the historical, situated condition of human political existence and thus arguably stands at a remove from the very quandaries and imperfections of the political world, which it purports to address. Against this background, this article draws on Albert Camus's and Hannah Arendt's aesthetic, worldly judging sensibility and its ability to kindle the process of coming to terms with the absurd, and perhaps unforgivable character of reality after evil. As an aptitude to engage the world in its particularity, plurality and contingency rather than seeking to subdue and tame it under prefabricated standards of thought, namely, worldly judgement is able to reveal how past tragedies have arisen from the ambiguity of human engagement in the world and thereby also elicit the distinctly human capacities of beginning anew and resisting such actions in the future. As such, I suggest, it is well-suited to bring into clearer focus and confront the main political challenge and significance of forgiveness: how to acknowledge the seriousness of the wrongs committed, yet also enable the possibility of a new beginning and restore among former enemies the sense of responsibility for the shared world.
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How can we reinvigorate the human capacity for political judgement as a practical activity capable of addressing the uncertainties of our postfoundational world? The book takes up this challenge by drawing on the historically attuned... more
How can we reinvigorate the human capacity for political judgement as a practical activity capable of addressing the uncertainties of our postfoundational world? The book takes up this challenge by drawing on the historically attuned perspective of 20th-century philosophies of existence – in particular the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus and Hannah Arendt. Displacing the lingering rationalist temptations, it engages these thinkers’ aesthetic sensibility to delve into the experiential reality of political judgement and revivify it as a worldly, ambiguous practice. The purpose is to illustrate the prescient political significance of existentialists’ narrative imagination on two contemporary perplexities of political judgement: the problem of dirty hands and the challenge of transitional justice. This engagement reveals the distinctly resistant potential of worldly judgement in its ability to stimulate our capacities of coming to terms with and creatively confronting the tragedies of political action, rather than simply yielding to them as a necessary course of political life.