Transparency, Society and Subjectivity

404 Pages·2018·4.462 MB·English

by  Emmanuel Alloa, Dieter Thomä

Edited by
Emmanuel Alloa and
Dieter Thomä
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SUBJECTIVITY
Critical Perspectives
Transparency, Society and Subjectivity
“Incessantly invoked as a necessary condition of all aspects of democratic life,
transparency is being hailed as a top priority in public management, corporate
business, and international relations. But the more we critically examine what
transparency actually means, the more it emerges as an opaque, and perhaps
even occluding, concept. By offering a bold and comprehensive picture of the
new field of Critical Transparency Studies, this collection of essays is certain to
become the standard reference for years to come.”
—Giovanna Borradori, Professor of Philosophy at Vassar College, USA
“This important collection historicizes and criticizes transparency, one of neolib-
eralism’s most ubiquitous norms. As the contributors draw out the normative
presumptions of the concept, they alert us to its regulatory effects, its implica-
tions for surveillance and subjectivation. Rather than an ideal of democratic
freedom, transparency mobilizes distrust and commands exposure. Crucial read-
ing for anyone interested in critical assessment of our present values.”
—Jodi Dean, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, USA, and author of
Publicity’s Secret: How Technoculture Capitalizes on Democracy (2002)
Emmanuel Alloa • Dieter Thomä
Editors
Transparency, Society
and Subjectivity
Critical Perspectives
Editors
Emmanuel Alloa Dieter Thomä
School of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Humanities and Social Sciences
University of St. Gallen University of St. Gallen
St. Gallen, Switzerland St. Gallen, Switzerland
ISBN 978-3-319-77160-1 ISBN 978-3-319-77161-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77161-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018937890
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Contents
Transparency: Thinking Through an Opaque Concept 1
Emmanuel Alloa and Dieter Thomä
Not such Wicked Leaks 15
Umberto Eco
Part I Transparency in the Making 19
Transparency: A Magic Concept of Modernity 21
Emmanuel Alloa
Seeing It All, Doing It All, Saying It All: Transparency, Subject,
and the World 57
Dieter Thomä
The Dream of Transparency: Aquinas, Rousseau, Sartre 85
Manfred Schneider
v
vi Contents
The Unbounded Confession 105
Noreen Khawaja
Seeing It All: Bentham’s Panopticon and the Dark Spots
of Enlightenment 133
Miran Božovič
Transparency, Humanism, and the Politics of the Future Before
and After May ’68 155
Stefanos Geroulanos
Part II Under the Crystal Dome 177
The Limits of Transparency 179
Amitai Etzioni
Publicity and Transparency: The Itinerary of a Subtle
Distinction 203
Sandrine Baume
Regulation and Transparency as Rituals of Distrust: Reading
Niklas Luhmann Against the Grain 225
Caspar Hirschi
Not Individuals, Relations: What Transparency Is Really
About. A Theory of Algorithmic Governmentality 243
Thomas Berns
Obfuscated Transparency 259
Dieter Mersch
Conten ts vii
The Privatization of Human Interests or, How Transparency
Breeds Conformity 283
Thomas Docherty
Part III From the Panopticon to the Selfie and Back 305
Transparency and Subjectivity: Remembering Jennifer
Ringley 307
Vincent Kaufmann
Putting Oneself Out There: The “Selfie” and the Alter-Rithmic
Transformations of Subjectivity 323
Jörg Metelmann and Thomas Telios
Interrupting Transparency 343
Clare Birchall
Virtual Transparency: From the Panopticon to the Expository
Society and Beyond 369
Bernard E. Harcourt
Author Index 393
Subject Index 403
Notes on Contributors
Emmanuel Alloa is Research Leader in Philosophy at the University of St.
Gallen.
Sandrine Baume is Associate Professor at the Centre for Public Law in the
Faculty of Law and Criminal Justice at the University of Lausanne.
Thomas Berns is Senior Lecturer in Political Philosophy and Ethics at the Free
University of Brussels (ULB).
Clare Birchall is Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Culture in the Department
of English at King’s College London.
Miran Božovič is Professor of Early modern philosophy at the Faculty of Arts
of the University of Ljubljana.
Thomas Docherty is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the
University of Warwick.
Umberto Eco (†) was a novelist, literary critic and professor in semiotics at the
University of Bologna.
Amitai Etzioni is Professor of International Affairs at George Washington
University.
Stefanos Geroulanos is Associate Professor of European History at New York
University, and Director of the Center for International Research in the
Humanities and Social Sciences.
ix
x Notes on Contributors
Bernard E. Harcourt is Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law at
Columbia University and Director of the Columbia Center for Contemporary
Critical Thought.
Caspar Hirschi is Professor of History at the University St. Gallen.
Vincent Kaufmann is Professor of French Literature, Media and Culture at the
University of St. Gallen.
Noreen Khawaja is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Yale University.
Dieter Mersch is Philosophy chair and Head of the Institute for Theory at the
Zurich University of the Arts.
Jörg Metelmann is Associate Professor of Culture and Media Studies at the
University of St. Gallen.
Manfred Schneider is Professor of German Literature at the Ruhr-Universität
Bochum.
Thomas Telios is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of St. Gallen.
Dieter Thomä is Professor of Philosophy at the University of St. Gallen.
List of Figures
Transparency: A Magic Concept of Modernity
Fig. 1 Hajo Rose, Untitled [Self-Portrait with Dessau Façade (double
exposure)], 1930. © Hajo Rose Estate and Artists Rights Society
(ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst 26
Fig. 2 László Moholy-Nagy, Space Modulator [Transparency Plus!], 1940,
33.7 × 25.4 cm. Private Collection. Photo: Milton Halberstadt 50
Fig. 3 Siegfried Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture: The growth of the
new tradition, 2nd edition Cambridge: The Harvard University
Press, 1949, pp. 426–427 51
Publicity and Transparency: The Itinerary of a Subtle Distinction
Fig. 1 Google Books Ngram Viewer, instances of publicity and transparency,
1800–2008. Source: Ngram/Sandrine Baume 205
Virtual Transparency: From the Panopticon to the Expository Society
and Beyond
Fig. 1 Dan Graham, Günther Vogt Hedge Two-Way Mirror Walkabout,
Installation Metropolitan Museum, New York, (2014). Photographs
copyright © Tod Seelie, reproduced by permission 379
xi