Nicos Tzanakis Papadakis (completed)

Born on 01/03/1989

Studied Political Science and History at the Panteion University of Athens (2006-2010); Graduated with a thesis on the structural equivalence of Cartesian metaphysics and Hobbesian political philosophy (title: Cogito and sovereignty); Erasmus studies in political science at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (summer semester 2010)

Master's degree in philosophy at the Free University of Berlin (2011-2014); Finished with a thesis on the relationship between logical and historical representation in Marx’s Capital (title: Logic and History in the Critique of Political Economy); 2012-2014 study grant from the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation

Since 2015 doctorate in philosophy at the Institute for Philosophy at the Free University of Berlin; Doctoral scholarship from the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation

2016 winner of the Young Talent Award of the International Walter Benjamin Society, the Walter Benjamin Archive and the Center for Literary and Cultural Research Berlin.

 Doctorate

 The dissertation examines the relationship of Walter Benjamin's legal criticism to his historical philosophy of tragic i.e., sad drama. On the basis of Benjamin's historical-philosophical women's aesthetics (origin of the German tragedy) and his critique of law (on the critique of violence), the aim is to reconstruct how the drama incorporates the legal discourse and criticizes it. The thesis should be suggested that Benjamin's philosophy of history of drama represents the genesis of insight into the constitutive contradictions of law. Tragedy and bourgeois tragedy stand for two closely linked stages of this insight: In tragedy, the institutionalization of the law is staged as the overcoming of a state of endless moral collisions; in bourgeois tragedy, the knowledge of their failure is understood in the form of the allegorical. The law functions as a form of tragedy and as an object of bourgeois tragedy. In the context of this work, not only is Carl Schmitt's theory of sovereignty gaining in importance, which Benjamin received and critically claimed for his theory of bourgeois tragedy. In addition, to clarify this critical reception, Schmitt's later reactions to Benjamin's drama theory are included, as they took shape in the book Leviathan, and Hamlet or Hekuba.

Publications

As co-editor

Together with Frank Voigt, Jan Loheit and Konstantin Baehrens (eds.): Material and Concept. Working procedures and theoretical relationships of Walter Benjamin. Hamburg: Argument Verlag 2019.

Together with Michael Rahlwes and Till Rudnick (eds.): Radical Philosophy and Critique of Politics. Münster: Dampfboot-Verlag 2019.

Articles (Selection)

 “Dialectics and political constitution of the economic category in Marx's capital,” in: S. Breda, K. Boveiri, F.O. Wolf (Ed.) Materialistic Dialectics in Marx and Beyond Marx, Berlin: Publication of the Free University of Berlin 2016

“The sovereign right on the stage: on the critical representation of sovereignty in baroque drama,” in: Frank Voigt, Nicos Tzanakis Papadakis, Jan Loheit and Konstantin Baehrens (eds.): Material and Concept. Working method and theoretical relationships of Walter Benjamin. Hamburg: Argument-Verlag 2019

[Together with Till Rudnic and Michael Rahlwes:] "Marx’s Critique of Political Economy as Critique of General State Doctrine," in: Michael Rahlwes and Till Rudnick; Nicos Tzanakis Papadakis (Ed.) Radical Philosophy and Critique of Politics. Münster: Dampfboot-Verlag 2019.

"Aporias of the objective spirit between Berlin and Weimar," in: Myriam Gerhard (Ed.) Hegel's encyclopedic system and his legacy, Hegel-Jahrbuch 2018, Dunkler and Humblot [probably:] 2020

“The unfinished tract. On the connection between legal and economic criticism according to” Marx in: Living thinking: Marx as a provocateur. (Eds.) Wolfgang Girnus, Andreas Wessel, Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, [probably:] 2020

 Talks

 “The place of the oppressed and its time,” lecture at the International Walter Benjamin Conference of the International Walter Benjamin Society, Jerusalem, December 13-16, 2015

"Violence and legal form: Walter Benjamin's critique of law and its affinities to the critique of political economy," Lecture at the conference "Marx2016;" organized by the Center for Marxist Studies, Stockholm, September 15-16, 2016.

“From law to history. Benjamin's Reception of Carl Schmitt in the Origin of German Bourgeois Tragedy,” lecture at the workshop: Material and Concept of Working Process and Theoretical Relationships of Walter Benjamin. Workshop; Center for Literature and Culture Research Berlin. 24-26.03.2017

“Law and the subject of power. Legal subject and disciplinary individual in Foucault,” lecture at the conference “Disappearance and reappearance of the subject;” organized by Topika: Society for the Study of Human Sciences, Kioni (Greece), 09-11.09.2017.

“› Leviathan is missing! ‹Carl Schmitt's reception of Benjamin's origin of the German tragedy.”, Lecture at the International Walter Benjamin Conference of the International Walter Benjamin Society, Oxford, September 24-27, 2017

“Value of politics and politics of value,” lecture at the Marx 200 conference. Politics-Theory-Socialism, organized by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. Berlin (May 2-6, 2018).

“Allegory and bad infinity,” lecture at the conference “Walter Benjamin and poetry;” organized by the Collaborative Research Center “Episteme in Motion” Berlin, October 29-30, 2018.

“The factual contradiction of law,” lecture at the conference “Translations of violence. About Walter Benjamin's ›On the Critique of Violence‹;” organized by the Center Marc Bloch Berlin, June 12th, 2019.

Fetish Walter Benjamin, panel discussion with Lotte List, Frank Voigt and Ingar Solty Literature Forum in the Brecht House, October 15, 2019

Organization of meetings and workshops

"Tension: Subject;" Conference of the international interdisciplinary working group for philosophical reflection (IiAphR), Technical University, Berlin, 06-08.06.2013

"Material and Concept of Working Process and Theoretical Relationships of Walter Benjamin;" Workshop, Center for Literary and Cultural Research Berlin, March 24-26, 2017

"Topika: Disappearance and reappearance of the subject," meeting of the Society for the Study of Human Sciences, Kioni (Greece) 7-12.09.2017

“Emancipation but how?”; Panel discussion with Susane Lettow, Judith Dellheim, Frieder Otto Wolf and Alex Demirović

Teaching

Winter Semester 2015/16: [together with Anne Becker:] Method as a detour: updating Walter Benjamin's epistemological criticism for the present; Part II: Conceptual understanding of time. Humbolt University (Q tutorial).

Summer Semester 2016: [together with Anne Becker:] Method as a detour: updating Walter Benjamin's critique of knowledge for the present; Part III: The language of updating. Humbolt University (Q tutorial).

Winter Semester 2018/19: [together with Anne Becker:] State of exception: border (relief) setting in terms of legal logic. Humbolt University (Q tutorial).

Summer Semester 2019: [together with Prof. Dr. F.O. Wolf:] Louis Althusser's Critique of Political Philosophy, Free University of Berlin.

Contact: nicostzanakis@gmail.com