The development of financial transactions cannot be understood without looking at the art of fabulation, and the discursive productions of capitalist economics belong to the field of work of a science that deals with the systematic production of non-knowledge. This is not just about business cosmetics or fraud, profitable nonsense or falsifications, humbug, bullshit or swindling. Rather, one should recognize the (financial) economic genre of fabulation as a special variant from the history of truth-telling. Using a prominent literary example that goes back to the financial crises of the 19th century, the lecture aims to show how the truth game of capitalism is characterized by a pseudological structure.
Joseph Vogl
Vita
Joseph Vogl is Professor of Modern German Literature, Cultural and Media Studies at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (since 2006) as well as Regular Visiting Professor at Princeton University (since 2007). He studied modern literature, philosophy, history, and linguistics in Munich and Paris (Promotion 1990, Habilitation 2000), and has taught and researched at various institutions including Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, the University of California, Berkeley, Indiana University Bloomington, IFK (Vienna). From 1998 to 2006 he was Professor for “Theory and History of Artificial Worlds” at the Department of Media Studies, Bauhaus-University Weimar. For his work he received several awards, e.g. shortlist for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize 2015 in the category of non-fiction (“Der Souveränitätseffekt”), Günther-Anders-Price for Critical Thinking (2022).
Research Areas
History and Theory of Knowledge
History of finance, power and risk in modern era
Discourse and Media Theory
18th to 20th century Literary History
Publications (Selection)
Ort der Gewalt. Kafkas literarische Ethik, München 1990.
Gemeinschaften. Positionen zu einer Philosophie des Politischen, hg. v. Joseph Vogl, Frankfurt/M. 1994.
Poetologien des Wissens um 1800, hg. v. Joseph Vogl, München 1999.
Kalkül und Leidenschaft. Poetik des ökonomischen Menschen, München 2002.
Über das Zaudern, Berlin-Zürich 2007.
Soll und Haben. Fernsehgespräche, Berlin-Zürich 2009 (mit Alexander Kluge).
Das Gespenst des Kapitals, Berlin-Zürich 2010.
Der Souveränitätseffekt, Zürich-Berlin 2015.
Senkblei der Geschichten. Gespräche, Zürich-Berlin 2020 (mit Alexander Kluge).
Kapital und Ressentiment. Eine kurze Theorie der Gegenwart, München 2021.
