Jonathan Klein was Arts and Media Fellow at the Center in Berlin. He studied European Studies, International Politics and Political Theory in Maastricht, Tokyo, New York and Frankfurt am Main and subsequently worked as a research assistant at the Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders”. He is currently writing his doctoral thesis in Frankfurt am Main (under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Martin Saar) on the systematization and reconsideration of the concept of societal alienation in social theory.

According to his interpretation, the concept of societal alienation refers to a specific constitution of social relations, in which these relations become an alien power, relatively independent of the will of the actors, who nevertheless produce them. His work seeks to demonstrate that the concept of alienation is indispensable for understanding the social-theoretical specificity of the social interdependence constituted by the system of commodity production.

Grasping the constitution of this social connection with its contradictory dynamics is the basis for arriving at a more profound understanding of the economic and political crises of our time. Furthermore, such a perspective is oriented towards an immanent critique of the capitalist economy, holding the promise for developing more realistic perspectives of transformation.