Over the past decades, several political and cultural theorists have argued that the domain of politics, and even the very idea of the political, has been hollowed out. Scholars such as Chantal Mouffe, Claus Offe, Jacques Rancière, Saskia Sassen, Ellen Meiksins Wood and John Bellamy Foster (to name a few) have argued that politics appears to have lost its proper status or has been submerged in the more powerful and encompassing infrastructures of late capitalism. Such an emptying out of the political domain is not in itself an altogether new phenomenon in the history of the West. A historical parallel can be drawn with the way in which the political domain was vacated by the Roman Catholic Church from the early Middle Ages onwards. Machiavelli, for one, like Marsilius of Padua before him, struggled with this emptying out of the domain of politics. The least we can say is that, due to its obstinate recurrence, the issue is worth studying from a diachronic perspective, paying attention to the way it develops through history. It may also be rewarding to consider the hollowing out of the political as a structural problem inherently belonging to politics itself, or to study how scholars in different times have addressed it, and possibly to interconnect their analyses and solutions. We propose to do that in relation to a key concept in this matter: the political moment – the moment of the political and the moment in the political.
In our view, the political moment is invested with an indelible cultural and aesthetic element. With regard to the cultural investment of the political one could think, for instance, of the dynamic confrontation of Christianity with the sovereign forces of antiquity in the early modern era, in particular in the republican tradition. Alternatively, one could consider the emergence of colonialism as a cultural and political regime, as well as more recent anti-colonial struggles that took place in theory and in practice. With regard to the aesthetic investment of the political, one could think, for instance, of the lasting import of rhetoric and posture, sensuousness and affectivity that shape the way politics has been practiced and understood from antiquity to the present day. Alternatively, one could consider our current political situation, which takes its shape through various media and regimes of affective visibility that suffuse contemporary society.
This is why our interest in the political moment does not imply a return to J.G.A. Pocock’s classic study of the Machiavellian moment. Rather, as we understand the political moment, Machiavelli’s emphasis on virtù as a pivotal concept for politics was able to serve as evidence of the intrinsic entanglement of aesthetics and politics, since it was concerned not just with an opening up of the political domain but with the possibility of creating a differently shaped world.
As the phrase ‘opening up’ suggests, not only is politics related to action, but also the possibility of the political itself depends upon action. Politics itself can be defined, intrinsically, as a form of action (for example, as ‘concerted action’). But to understand how the political is opened up by action, the moment of action needs to be taken into account. With regard to this issue, we want to consider whether we can arrive at such a moment through particular and discrete actions, or whether we have to prepare ourselves, prepare ourselves better, whilst waiting for the right moment.
Some, like Beck and Giddens, have suggested that we no longer need a political moment, or classical notions of political action, since we live in a post-political era. Some, like Žižek, have proposed refraining from action for the time being in order to study and analyse our present situation and to discern what causes the structural violence within capitalism and its political regimes. (The attempt here would appear to be analogous to the ‘fail again, fail better’ of Beckett in Worstward Ho.) Then there are those that have called for a vigorous revitalisation of antagonism in politics. Others believe they have spotted novel forms for concerted action in relation to global politics and economy. Finally, there are those who have detected the recurrence of revitalised state capitalism on the grounds of an almost unassailable fusion of the post-national state and global capitalism.
To come to grips with the political moment we not only need to understand our current moment; we must also have an idea of how the conceptualization of the political moment developed over time. That is to say, instead of considering the political moment from an exclusively contemporary point of view, or from an exclusively political angle, Waiting for the Political Moment will focus on the intertwinement of politics, capitalism and/or aesthetics from the late Middle Ages to the present day.
The conference will take place in Rotterdam and Utrecht, June 17-19 2010. It will be an interdisciplinary meeting with ample time to present and discuss ideas in a relatively restricted setting of junior and senior scholars. Through discussing each other’s work the conference will host an in-depth debate on the cultural state of politics today. At the end of each day there will be a public lecture for a wider audience.
In addition to the theoretical program, Waiting for the Political Moment will also have an artistic program in which a number of artists will present performances, video screenings and artistic research projects relating to the ‘political moment’. The artistic and theoretical programs will work in close connection with each other, with theoretical discussions alternating with artistic work. The artistic program is organised by Katarina Zdjelar.

Waiting for the political moment is made possible by the generous support of Stichting Letteren en Samenleving Rotterdam, Erasmus Trust Fund Rotterdam, the Centre for the Humanities and the OGC at Utrecht University, The Faculty of History and Art of the Erasmus University Rotterdam, the City of Rotterdam, Mya - NAC Cultuurfonds, and OCA – Office for Contemporary Art Norway.