Ungrounding the Political: The Contemporary Role of Antagonism, Contingency and Difference in Political Theory

November 11, 2025

11-12 November 2025

School of Arts and Humanities

University of Lisbon

 

Invited Speaker: Oliver Marchart (Universität Wien)

Amid the turbulence of today’s political landscape—marked by crises of representation, the rise of populist movements, and increasingly polarized modes of protest and governance—the need to revisit and rethink the political has become pressing. This workshop aims to do just that: to explore the ontological stakes of politics and to interrogate how the political is staged, contested, and made manifest. It is this re-thinking of the political that stands at the basis of Oliver Marchart’s contribution to political theory. Marchart’s inquiry on the manifold dimensions of the political are at the forefront of contemporary post-foundationalism, a tradition which, in its recent history, has reshaped discussions around democratic politics, political subjectivity, and the aesthetic dimensions of collective action. Building on thinkers such as Claude Lefort, Ernesto Laclau, Jacques Rancière, and Jean-Luc Nancy, Marchart advances a vision of politics that cannot be grounded in consensus or stability, but finds its being in antagonism, contingency, and the constitutive lack at the heart of social order. From this perspective, politics is not confined to institutional procedures or policy debates; it emerges wherever social meaning is articulated, dislocated, or performed. Aesthetic practices, too, play a vital role here—not as embellishments to politics, but as central means of rendering visible the groundlessness of the social and imagining alternatives to dominant orders.

Progamme:

DAY 1, 11 NOVEMBER (Room C201.J. Sala Mattos Romão)

10.00 –

10.10

Registration
10.10–

10.20

Welcome: Opening Remarks

 

10.20 –

11.30

Keynote Lecture: Oliver Marchart (University of Vienna)

Politics – Philosophy – Democracy:

 On Post-Foundationalism in Sensu Stricto and in Sensu Largo

Chair: João Rochate da Palma

 

11.30 –

11.50

Coffee-Break

 

11.50 –

13.20

Session I: Antagonism and Hegemony in Post-Foundational Theory

Chair: Mariana Teixeira

1. Deniz Vyaznikov (University of Vienna) – Fanaticism: Commitment against Dangerous Victory

2. David Sanchéz (University of Oviedo) – The Ambiguous Status of Antagonism in Castoriadis.

3. João Rochate da Palma (Centre of Philosophy, University of Lisbon) – Antagonism and Dislocation in Laclau: How Hegemony Becomes What It Is

13.20 – 14.50Lunch
14.50 – 15.50Session II: Art, Politics, and Conflictual Aesthetics

Chair: Antonio Oraldi

1. Valerie Scheibenpflug (University of Vienna) – Aesthetics, Arts and Politics in Marchart and Rancière: Key Differences

2. Juan Evaristo Valls Boix (Complutense University of Madrid) – ‘There is no Art without Laziness’: The Refusal of Work in Spanish Contemporary Artistic Activism

 

15.50 – 16.10Coffee Break

 

16.10 –

17.10

Replies by Oliver Marchart
19.00Workshop Dinner

DAY 2, 12 NOVEMBER (Library Room B112.B)

9.30. –

11.00

Session III: Radical Democracy, Emptiness and Institutions

Chair: Zach Taylor

1. Adrià Caballé (University of Barcelona)– The Void in Radical Democracy: A Comparison between Lefort’s Conception of Emptiness’ as Place, and Laclau’s as Subject

2. Anna Weithaler (University of Vienna) – The Two Faces of Political Representation

3. Sergej Seitz (University of Vienna) – Infrastructures of Radical Imagination: A Political Theory of Counter-Institutions

 

11.00 –

11.20

Coffee-Break
11.20 –

12.50

Session IV: Social Division and Democratic Ethos

Chair: Francesca Scapinello

1. Albano Pina (UBI – PRAXIS) – The Originary Division of the Social: Lefort vs Marx

2. Andreas Wiener (University of Würzburg) – Democratic Ethics as an Ethics of Self-Alienation

3. Tamara Caraus (Centre of Philosophy, University of Lisbon) – Marx and the Political

12.50 – 14.20Lunch
14.20 – 15.50Session V: Contingency and Ontological Foundations

Chair: Tamara Caraus

1. Anke Devyver (KU Leuven) – Confronting Contingencies: Comparing the Scope of Social Changeability in Marchart and Adorno

2. Lluís Barceló (University of Barcelona) – Philosophy of the Process: Deleuze and Guattari between Lack and Abundance

3. Jordi Jubany (University Pompeu Fabra – Barcelona) – The Institution and the Psyche: Re-reading Castoriadis’ Theory of Socialization

 

15.50 – 16.10Coffee Break
16.10 –

17.10

Session VI: Discourse and Political Disruption

Chair: Maura Ceci

1. Phillip Quell (University of Vienna) – Resistance through Subjection: The Enigma of Theoretical Responsibility

2. Rainer Stummer (University of Bremen) – Discursivity and Materiality: An Antagonistic Relation

 

17.10 –

18.10

 

Replies by Oliver Marchart

 

 

 

18.10- 18.30

Concluding Remarks

The workshop will be conducted in English and held in person only. There is no registration fee. The organizers cannot cover travel or accommodation costs. For further details or inquiries, please contact the workshop organizers.

 

Organization: Tamara Caraus and João Rochate da Palma  (Praxis – CFUL)

Event organized as part of the activities of Praxis-CFUL

 

This event is funded by Portuguese national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., in the scope of the project UIDB/00310, Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa.

 

Praxis-CFUL

https://cful.letras.ulisboa.pt/praxis/

Practical Philosophy Research Group

 

Centro de Filosofia – Universidade de Lisboa