debate

Through the Back: Situating Vision between Moving Bodies seeks to articulate this critical potential in a series of essays that explores the work of experimental choreographers active throughout the noughties: Alexander Baervoets, Boris Charmatz, Meg Stuart, Benoît Lachambre, Vera Mantero, Philipp Gehmacher, Jennifer Lacey and Nadia Lauro, and deufert & plischke.

The gap between rich and poor in Belgium has never been so big. One Belgian in five has difficulty making ends meet. One immigrant child in three grows up in poverty. This makes Belgium one of the worst pupils in the European class. But what is near the top of the political agenda? Criminality. Safety. Zero tolerance. Public nuisance. Loitering teenagers. But it should not be all one-sided. When they do not succeed in tackling the real problems, politicians always come back to the same thing: repression, as the political philosopher Bleri Lleshi says in De neoliberale strafstaat. On the basis of theoretical research and practical experience, Lleshi shows where thirty years of neoliberalism is rapidly leading us.

On the occasion of the publication of his book Entropic Empire, On the City of Man in the Age of Disaster, the cultural philosopher Lieven De Cauter will be talking to his co-author, the sociologist Rudi Laermans, about the old and new ‘nature states’, new relationships between humans and non-humans, and animality, bio-politics and cosmo-politics.

De Keisnijders (The Cobblestone-Cutters) is the first novel by the
theatre-maker and philosopher Pieter De Buysser. It is a compelling and
generous story about a utopian place and its occupants in the mid-21st
century. A gripping and fascinating voyage of discovery to the heart of
tomorrow’s Europe. Classic storytelling and challenging literature that
raises fundamental questions.