Space creator

If my records are correct, my first publication in Thesis Eleven dates back almost a quarter of a century. It was a curious piece, using thoughts by Claude Lefort to reflect about the unsettledness of modernity and, further, to suggest elements of a historical-comparative sociology of European and North American societies. This piece was followed by numerous others, up to the present, on themes as diverse as the political form of Europe; the kind of individualism that arose after ‘1968’; and the lasting significance of viruses. Thesis Eleven also provided space for me, in a special issue co-edited with historians Paul Ginsborg, Luisa Passerini and Bo Stråth, to reflect on our historical distance to the events of ‘1968’. My appearances in the journal further include two articles about Johann Arnason’s work, a former co-editor of Thesis Eleven, one of which actually intended as a congratulation to Johann’s 60th birthday.

Why do I recall all that? This past half-century has arguably witnessed a further specialization and fragmentation of the social sciences and humanities, together with the diffusion of an easily manipulable indicator of the supposed ‘impact’ of a journal. More recently, furthermore, intellectual debate has been marked by calls for imposing distinctions between what can be said and what cannot be said – on political, not philosophical grounds. These two trends lead to a situation that appears as paradoxical. On the one hand, we witness a steadily increasing number of scholarly and public-intellectual journals and of analyses and viewpoints that are published therein. On the other hand, the increase in items seems to be matched or outdone by the rising size of the interstices between them. These are the places from which nothing can be said, or maybe better: the places from which things said will not be heard.

I mentioned my own works in Thesis Eleven because Peter has always in some way been involved with them, either welcoming or proposing them. Welcoming those that otherwise might have remained in the interstices. And proposing writings that made spaces of expression larger and the interstices smaller.

Maybe Peter has done so because his own interests are so wide that he has a sense of going beyond conventional boundaries of investigation and thought – from the political and intellectual history of socialism and modernity to rock music and, indeed, placeness.

It is common to speak about journal editors as gatekeepers, the ones deciding about who and what can go in or not. Often the term is used with critical intent, referring to people in positions of unaccountable power, which they use in a way that restricts communication more than ordering its flow. Despite such criticism, which is often justified, the role of gatekeeping is doubtlessly necessary. Interestingly, though, I have never experienced Peter in this role. Rather than a gatekeeper, Peter is a space creator, and not only as a journal editor but also in all other communications I have had – and hope to keep having – with him. This is a good occasion to express gratefulness. Thank you very much, Peter, and happy birthday!

OPEN IN VIEWER

Peter giving a lecture, 2007