Dennis Mischke on the "Crisis of Confidence" in the XXI Century

While listening to Dennis Mischke's awesome presentation titled "It's Not Cricket" - Games of Confidence, Cosmopolitanism and Reflexive Mimicry in Joseph O'Neill's Netherland", some thoughts struck me:

"I find it very ironic that the Economic Crisis took place in the Information Age. I find it ironic that the abundance of information about the coming Crisis, which was available in the American politicosphere, was ignored by those who were in power. I find it ironic that more information can contribute to our lack of confidence."


I shared those with the presenter. Unfortunately, Dennis Mischke was interrupted by the moderator. My comment received no response. No offline response. If I am not mistaken, he still has a blog.

Dennis was talking about "another 'crisis of confidence'", which took place recently. "With burst of the mortgage bubble in 2007 it became obvious that the excesses of speculation on Wall Street had put too much confidence in the control of risks." He proposed with confidence in his voice. "<...> It [the current crisis of confidence] has to be seen in the light of the larger Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, 30 years of Neo-Liberalism, Transnationalism, the World Risk Society and Reflexive Modernization." He referred to Jameson, Giddens, Beck, Lash. As an illustration to the mentioned, he provided a brief narrative analysis of Joseph O'Neill's novel Netherland. Read The New York Times review of "the wittiest, angriest, most exacting and most desolate work of fiction we’ve yet had about life in New York and London after the World Trade Center fell" here.

From the brochure "BOND 2010: The BOchum and DortmuND American Studies Dissertation Colloquium":
Dennis Mischke received his M.A. in English and American Studies, Media Studies and Cognitive Science at Potsdam University and The University of Technology Sydney. A doctoral Student at the Research School at the Ruhr University Bochum, his project is entitled "Cosmopolitan Spaces in 19th Century Transatlantic American Literature". Read more about his dissertation project here.

Evaluation: Great presentation! Informative. Ironic, at times. Provocative. Concise.