Vita
Christian Hammermann earned a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology, with a minor in the History of Science, and a Master of Arts in International Criminology at the University of Hamburg. He is interested in social theory and qualitative methodology, especially grounded theorizing, and has previously researched questions related to cultural sociology and the far right. His bachelor's thesis, which was awarded the 2018 Janpeter-Kob-Price by the Alumni Association of Hamburg Sociologists, drew on Fredric Jameson's literary theory to analyse the representation of society in Michel Houellebecq's controversial novel Soumission. For his master's thesis, he has investigated the seeming contradiction between climate change denial and ecological positions in the contemporary German far right, following Gerhard Kleining's qualitative heuristics.
PhD Project
Christian's PhD project Affecting Security: How Public Controversies Shape Reactions to Right-Wing Terrorism in Germany investigates the dynamics and impacts of debates about security responses to right-wing terrorism. While governments tend to react to right-wing terrorist incidents by strengthening security agencies, civil society actors often fundamentally challenge their work. In Germany, right-wing terrorism became a major public concern after the self-exposure of the National Socialist Underground (NSU) in 2011. In the ensuing debates, the function and legitimacy of the domestic intelligence offices, the Verfassungsschutz, became an especially contested issue. More than a dozen parliamentary inquiries into the NSU case have since provided unprecedented insight into how these intelligence agencies work, and called for reforms. Following an ethnographic and abductive approach drawing on documents, observations, and interviews, Christian's PhD project asks how these inquiries turn the secret work of intelligence agencies into public issues, and how this publicity impacts the intelligence agencies, with a focus on the current second parliamentary inquiry into the NSU in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
Presentations
2021: Zellen und Komplexe fühlen - Affektive Techniken in der Kontroverse um das Ausmaß des Nationalsozialistischen Untergrunds. Paper presented at the Workshop “(Un-)Sicherheitsgefühle: zur sinnlichen Organisation prekärer Ordnung” (June 10-11) by Sonderforschungsbereich 138 „Dynamiken der Sicherheit“, Universität Gießen (digital).
Publications
2020: Agnostische Adaption: Das amor fati des resilienten Subjekts?, in Susanne Krasmann/Christine Hentschel (Eds.): »Exposure« – Verletzlichkeit und das Politische in Zeiten radikaler Ungewissheit, Bielefeld: Transcript, pp. 147-158.
2019: Rezension zu: Katja Diefenbach: Spekulativer Materialismus. Spinoza in der postmarxistischen Philosophie. Wien/Berlin: Turia+Kant 2018., in Zeitschrift für philosophische Literatur 7(3), pp. 1-9.
2018: BOOK REVIEW: Mariana Valverde, Michel Foucault, in Foucault Studies 24, pp. 211- 213.
Contact
christian.hammermann"AT"uni-hamburg.de
