Duration
25 May 2026 - 29 May 2026
Failure, Fragility, Futility are some of the F-words that describe the impoverished spirit of our time (one can easily find out more). When the Cold War ended, there was widespread celebration: we thought then that the liberal-democratic camp had resoundly defeated illiberalism and various forms of totalitarianism. There was even a sense that we had made all the progress we could possibly make and that history simply came to an end. A defininig book of those years was Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History.
It may well be that without a worthy adversary to keep it alert, liberal (and representative?!) democracy loses steam and is jeopardised. In retrospect, not only was our victory short-lived – it may have been a great defeat in disguise. What eventually prevailed was not liberal democracy, but illiberalism, autocracy, the surveillance state, and new and ever more creative, be those modern or pre-modern, forms and faces of fascism.
Although liberalism and liberal democracy have brought a major contribution to the making of the modern world, the latter is turning against it today. Scholars and pundits of various ideological persuasions have been busy writing obituaries for liberal democracy, often without clearly defining that term. These critics might differ among themselves, but they all seem to agree that liberal democratic principles are increasingly incapable of solving our deep social, cultural, political, and economic problems.
Readings:
Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (1992)
E.M. Cioran, History and Utopia
Costica Bradatan, In Praise of Failure (2023, selections)
Aurelian Craiutu, Why Not Moderation? Letters to Young Radicals (2024), selections)
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die (Crown, 2018)
Jan-Werner Müller’s What Is Populism (2016)
Patrick Deneen’s Why Liberalism Failed (2018)
Nikola Petković. Metamorfoze Franza Kafke. (2025) (pp. 9-18) an English version will be distributed to non-Croatian speakers.
Course Schedule:
May 25 Monday (9-12 AM)
Nikola Petković. A Welcome Address (10 min)
Costica Bradatan. Ruins Everywhere. On the Varieties of Political Failure (The lecture is followed by a discussion)
……..
5-7 PM (Student’s Workshop)
May 26 Tuesday (9 AM – 2 PM)
Ozana Ramljak. The Quiet After Triumph: Film, Fragility, and the Experience of Failure (The lecture is followed by a discussion)
……..
5 PM -till late
Zrinko Ogresta. Isprani (Washed Out, 1995. (in-class screening and a discussion followed by the talk) After The screening and during the talk requirement: BYOB.
May 27 Wednesday (9-12 AM)
Aurelian Craiutu. The Fragility of Moderation (The lecture is followed by a discussion)
……..
5-7 PM (Student’s Workshop)
May 28 Thursday (9-12 AM)
Nikola Petković. FY: The Futility of Yearning (The lecture is followed by a discussion)
……..
5-7 PM (Student’s Workshop)
May 29 Friday (9-12 AM)
A Plenary Discussion and Closing Statements
