In the Conjuncture

Conjuncture: from the Latin conjungere (to bind together, to connect, to join). A combination of circumstances, a convergence of events, an intersection of contingencies and necessities, a complex, overdetermined state of affairs—usually producing a crisis, leading to a breaking point, driving to an historic crossroads . . .

“In The Conjuncture” is a new thematic section of Cultural Critique, consisting of short pieces meant at once as soundings, interventions, and provocations regarding a cultural and political phenomenon of urgent and topical interest. Straddling the seldom-crossed border between critical-theoretical scholarship and op-ed journalism, this section will focus, each time, on a singular historical conjuncture whose salient features may resonate with other situations elsewhere, and whose aftershocks may be felt rippling across the global terrain. In this section, we invite public intellectuals to write in the conjuncture.

The editors welcome proposals for this thematic section, which should be addressed to Cultural Critique, Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature, 235 Nicholson Hall, 216 Pillsbury Drive S.E., University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, U.S.A., or via email to cultcrit@umn.edu.

The Anna Hazare Movement in India

In this issue of Cultural Critique, “In The Conjuncture” brings together G. Arunima, Partha Chatterjee, and Shiv Visvanathan to critically assess the Anna Hazare movement in India. Anna Hazare’s fast against corruption and his demand for the institution of a Jan Lokpal, or ombudsman, galvanized many sections of the Indian population in 2011. In inviting prominent social scientists to write about this movement, we wished to consider its impassioned deployment of “corruption,” as well as what such a deployment might signal about democracy, agency, and the state of the political today. Aware that “corruption” is given a contingent necessity in the Hazare case, we envision this dialogue not as settling the matter of “corruption,” but as potentially stirring further engagements with this leitmotiv of contemporary geopolitics. These commentaries were written between December 2011 and January 2012.