Perception, Jurisdiction, and Valorization in Colonial Modernity — On the Nexus of Accumulation, Race, and Aesthetics

Biographical Notes

    Katja Diefenbach
is Professor of Cultural Philosophy/Philosophies of Culture at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder). Her main research and teaching areas are contemporary French philosophy and epistemology (with a special focus on the relationship of Marxism and post-structuralism); the reception of contemporary French philosophy in Postcolonial and Gender Studies; Spinoza research as well as the colonial grammar of 17th-century political philosophy. Her publications include Spekulativer Materialismus. Spinoza in der postmarxistischen Philosophie (2018; English translation, 2025) and Encountering Althusser. Politics and Materialism in Contemporary Radical Thought (co-edited with Sara Farris, Gal Kirn, Peter Thomas, 2013). She is a member of the publishing collective b_books in Berlin. Homepage at the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)

    Ruth Sonderegger
is Professor of Philosophy and Aesthetic Theory at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Her main fields of research are the history of aesthetics (in the context of colonial capitalism), practice theories, and cultural and resistance studies. Her publications include Art and the Critique of Ideology After 1989 (co-edited with E. Birkenstock, M. J. Hinderer Cruz, and J. Kastner, 2013); Pierre Bourdieu und Jacques Rancière. Ästhetisches Regime oder ästhetische Disposition? (co-edited with J. Kastner, 2014); Vom Leben der Kritik. Kritische Praktiken – und die Notwendigkeit ihrer geopolitischen Situierung, 2019; Polyphone Ästhetik (co-authored with Christoph Brunner, Sofia Bempeza, Katharina Hausladen, and Ines Kleesattel, 2019). She is part of the transversal.at publishing collective. Homepage at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna

    Pablo Valdivia Orozco
is Senior Lecturer for Literary Studies at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder). His main research and teaching areas are Latin American and Western European Literature of the early modern/colonial period and 20th century, critical theory, and the history of modern aesthetics from a decolonial perspective. His publications include Weltenvielfalt: Eine romantheoretische Studie im Ausgang von Gabriel García Márquez, Roberto Bolaño and Sandra Cisneros (2013) and Gegen/Stand der Kritik (2015, co-editor). His latest work proposes a critical reexamination of Petrarch’s Secretum as a foundational text of colonial modernity and its cultural politics. He is a regular visiting professor in Bogotá, Colombia. Homepage at the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)