The Multiple Faces of the “Civis”, or: Is Citizenship Translateable?

Stefan Nowotny

According to Emile Benveniste, the two classical European languages, Greek and Latin, offer two different linguistic models of understanding the “citizen”: whereas the Greek model relates the polites to a polis, and hence builds up on a relation of membership, the Latin model constructs the meaning of civitas as based on the reciprocities among a multiplicity of cives, regardless of membership status. If it is true that any practiced language draws upon capacities of translation, then we might be able to analyse some elements of the political languages of our time as traces of a specific “rewording” of the tension between these two models, at least as far as the European context is concerned. The political determination of borders is but one of these elements. But what is the role of those in this process who are regarded, in present-day Europe, as “non-European citizens” or “European non-citizens”?

Stefan Nowotny

biography

conference