In view of some reactions to the massacre by the Islamofascist terrorist group Hamas in Israel on 7 October 2023, which was marked by inconceivable cruelty, the question is being asked in many places: is it time to say goodbye to any kind of ‘wokeness’? Or, as Jens Balzer explains with a knowledgeable view on the history of this contested term, is it not rather time to reflect on the original impulses of postcolonial and queer feminist theories: on the critical awareness of the fundamentally becoming, hybrid, diverse, ambivalent that precedes all formation of identity?
After Woke impressively points the way past rigidized, essentialist concepts of identity and shows: only by understanding identity as fictitious, fragile and fluid at all times can it become an urgently needed alternative to the reactionary forces of identitarian thinking that are preparing to take control of the world.
“Jens Balzer knows that some things first have to be thought about in a wild way to get closer to the truth.” – JUNGLE WORLD
Awards
Shortlisted for the Tractatus Prize 2024Essay
Jens Balzer, born in 1969, lives in Berlin and is a feature writer for DIE ZEIT. His last essay published by Matthes & Seitz Berlin, Ethics of Appropriation (2022) has been translated into Italian and Spanish.
