Instant Reading Group: Opacity as Counter-Resonance
March 26, 10:00–12:00

With

Hannah Wallenfels
Independent philosopher,
co-founder diffrakt e.V., DE

Details

Venue: Collegium Helveticum, Wolf Room

Free of charge, register for the reading group via this form.

Arrival & coffee from 09:30.

Authority is often associated with clarity and with transparency or with the power to define and categorize. In this collective reading session, we turn toward more complex and ambivalent forms. What if authority does not only operate through explicit commands, but through the demand to be understood? Taking Édouard Glissant’s short text For Opacity as our point of departure, we explore opacity as a counter-principle to regimes of clarity. Through shared out-loud reading, we trace how authority echoes in expectations of coherence and transparency. Can we relate without mastering? Can we conceptualize authority without fully understanding?

The session concludes with collective exercise in the form of a silent conversation. No prior knowledge or preparatory reading is required.

This session is part of the festival

Echoes of Authority
Three Days of Workshops, Discussions, Exhibitions, Performances, and More

March 24–27, 2026

Convened by Zainabu Jallo, Nina Kerschbaumer, Anna [Anouk] Luhn, and Victoria Seca

Festival