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Nostalgia for days gone by is widespread in our current political moment. Arguments for a positive trajectory of either democracy or equality feel unfeasible to many. Recent interventions have described a foreclosure of conceiving a democratic future in our society due to a constant focus on the immanent end of democracy by the hands of its foes or a total planetary collapse (White 2024). The concept of “hyperpolitics” (Jäger 2023) aims to grasp the correlating dominant political practices. In hyperpolitical times, everything has turned political, polarized, and deemed highly important in the now. Yet, attention moves quickly from one issue, social media post, or scandal to the next (Jäger 2023). Importantly, this type of politics functions according to the logics of the attention economy, thereby evading institutional work and the building of sustainable change (Cicerchia 2025), leading to a simulative type of democratic politics not rooted in meaningful action (Blühdorn 2013). Debates about “post-truth” echo many of these observations and problems (Newman, Conrad 2024; Galanopoulos, Stavrakakis 2022). Among the seeming helplessness of progressive politics, specters of the past march on. Historically committed atrocities and their underlying beliefs become less stigmatized, radical right-wing politics mainstreamed, and reminders of the past evaporate unfelt. The question emerging out of this description of the present is: What role can historical memory play in hyperpolitical times for progressive imaginaries of the future and successful warnings against repeating the mistakes of the past?
For more information, please see the link: https://vsjf2025.univie.ac.at/undemocratic-pasts-pre-conference-workshop/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR4-wZDuPp7I83GbPKVVAu74T6h30d2AIjO9RL-aiMsIicZaOJWWmK6GTuDbLA_aem_4GK-1fSpYMFRYJVDQgJ-Rg
