Jannes Thode

Career

After study­ing M.A. Phi­los­o­phy and B.A. Region­al Stud­ies Asia/Africa at the Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin and work­ing as a stu­dent assis­tant for the Chair of ‘Cul­tures and Soci­eties of South Asia’ and the MIDA project, I have been work­ing as a research fel­low for the MIDA project since April 2024. This includes main­tain­ing the web­site, organ­is­ing work­shops and con­fer­ences, as well as edi­to­r­i­al work on the pub­li­ca­tion of Archival Reflex­i­con arti­cles and the­mat­ic resources. With­in the project I am inter­est­ed in the rela­tion­ship between affect, atmos­phere and pow­er in archives.

In addi­tion, I am research­ing the rela­tion­ship between affect and vio­lence in colo­nial Ben­gal after 1756 as part of my dis­ser­ta­tion project, which began in July 2024. I would like to explore this rela­tion­ship using the con­cept of an atmos­phere of vio­lence in order to shift the focus from war­like con­flicts to every­day forms of vio­lence or even a gen­er­al ten­sion that favoured violence.

Dissertation: State of Tranquillity? Affect, Atmosphere and Violence in Early Colonial Bengal

My dis­ser­ta­tion aims to enrich the cur­rent research on the nexus of affect, anx­i­ety and vio­lence in colo­nial India. I seek to answer the ques­tions of how dif­fer­ent affects were entan­gled in ear­ly colo­nial Ben­gal, how these affects were lived and mate­ri­alised in the socio-phys­i­cal space, and how these mate­ri­alised affects enabled and facil­i­tat­ed the use of vio­lence. Through these ques­tions, I hope not only to offer a cor­rec­tive to the roman­ti­cised his­tor­i­cal accounts of the British Empire, but also to con­tribute to the ongo­ing debate on colo­nial vio­lence by demon­strat­ing the impor­tance of atmos­pher­ic prac­tices as pre­con­di­tions for vio­lent action.

I explore the nexus in the begin­ning of colo­nial Ben­gal, from 1756 to 1793, when the East India Com­pa­ny rose from a trad­ing com­pa­ny to become the local ruler of Ben­gal. This ascen­dan­cy sparked debates about sov­er­eign­ty, tax­a­tion, or jurispru­dence and changed the rela­tion­ship between the British and the local pop­u­la­tion. This was accom­pa­nied by an affec­tive reor­gan­i­sa­tion char­ac­terised by a slow shift from a flu­id and inter­ac­tive rela­tion­ship between the Com­pa­ny offi­cials and local inter­me­di­aries to a more dis­tant, scep­ti­cal, sus­pi­cious and racialised one. Although this tran­si­tion­al and trans­for­ma­tive peri­od has been exten­sive­ly researched, the rela­tion­ship between affect and vio­lence has been understudied.

Dur­ing this peri­od, I will first seek a deep­er under­stand­ing of the over­all affec­tive land­scape of the British and how it has changed over these years, dis­en­tan­gling the clus­ter of anx­i­ety, fear, and angst and under­stand­ing their con­nec­tions with oth­er affects. Rather than focus­ing on one affect or one social group, I analyse the affec­tive land­scape as mul­ti-lay­ered, with dif­fer­ent affects con­flict­ing or con­verg­ing, damp­en­ing or ampli­fy­ing each oth­er. For exam­ple, the anx­ious state of gen­er­als, con­stant­ly antic­i­pat­ing an unknown and dif­fuse threat, is fun­da­men­tal­ly dif­fer­ent from that of civ­il ser­vants strug­gling with sense-mak­ing. More­over, fear and anx­i­ety as affects are not eas­i­ly sep­a­ra­ble from oth­er affects such as love, affec­tion or sad­ness. Only this com­plex of dif­fer­ent, inter­mixed affects, I argue, can ade­quate­ly cap­ture the vio­lent nature of the British Empire in India.

Sec­ond­ly, I focus on affect as a rela­tion between bod­ies and things that inhab­it and shape socio-phys­i­cal space. While the lit­er­a­ture on anx­i­ety tends to focus on dis­cur­sive prac­tices such as media cov­er­age of events and their fram­ing, I pay atten­tion to spa­tial prac­tices and how affect is embed­ded in phys­i­cal space. Through the notion of atmos­phere, I trace the phys­i­cal mate­ri­al­i­sa­tions of affect and how the affec­tive lives of indi­vid­u­als are both expressed through and shaped by the spaces they inhab­it. Archi­tec­ture or spa­tial rit­u­als are then seen as affec­tive prac­tices that cre­ate and change an atmos­phere. The British cre­at­ed or appro­pri­at­ed spe­cif­ic spaces and rit­u­als in order to feel at home or to cre­ate an atmos­phere of secu­ri­ty and homeliness.

Final­ly, I want to con­sid­er how British atmos­pher­ic prac­tices cre­at­ed the con­di­tions for colo­nial vio­lence to flour­ish in every­day inter­ac­tions as well as in extra­or­di­nary excess­es. I argue that vio­lence is enabled by the change of atmos­phere. By shap­ing the socio-phys­i­cal space, the British cre­at­ed an atmos­phere of ten­sion that facil­i­tat­ed vio­lence. The prac­tices they used to reduce or coun­ter­act their anx­i­ety were always already accom­pa­nied by a con­fronta­tion with that anx­i­ety there­by rein­forc­ing it. By attempt­ing to cre­ate British spaces in a for­eign place, the strange­ness of that place was made all the more strik­ing and intim­i­dat­ing, while at the same time their dis­play of pow­er reas­sured the British sub­jects, low­er­ing the thresh­old for the exer­cise of violence.

Education

since 2024 Doc­tor­al Can­di­date, Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin
Focus Area: Ear­ly Colo­nial Ben­gal, Affect, Vio­lence, Atmos­phere
Work­ing Title: State of Tran­quil­li­ty? Affect, Atmos­phere and Vio­lence in Ear­ly Colo­nial Bengal

2019 – 2024 B.A. Area Stud­ies Asia/Africa, Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin
Focus Area: South Asia, Colo­nial India

2018 – 2023 M.A. Phi­los­o­phy, Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin
Focus Area: Marx­ism, The­o­ries of Ide­ol­o­gy, Social Epis­te­mol­o­gy, Affect
The­sis: Hop­ing Sub­jects / Hof­fende Sub­jek­te: Althuss­er und der Hoff­nungs­diskurs der ana­lytis­chen Philosophie

2015 – 2018 B.A. Phi­los­o­phy & Social Sci­ences, Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin
Focus Area: Ontol­ogy, Meta­physics
The­sis: Why There Are No Art­works, but We Still Can Talk as if There Were: A Fic­tion­al­is­tic Approach in the Ontol­ogy of Artworks

Occupational Career

since 2024 Research Fel­low / DFG-Fund­ed Long-Term Project „Das Mod­erne Indi­en in deutschen Archiv­en (Mod­ern India in Ger­man Archives)“, Leib­niz-Zen­trum Mod­ern­er Ori­ent, Berlin

2022 – 2024 Stu­dent Assis­tant / DFG-Fund­ed Long-Term Project „Das Mod­erne Indi­en in deutschen Archiv­en (Mod­ern India in Ger­man Archives)“, Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin, Berlin

2021 – 2024 Stu­dent Assis­tant / Chair of „Kul­turen und Gesellschaften Südasiens“, Depart­ment of South Asian Stud­ies, IAAW, Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin, Berlin

Teaching Experience

Win­ter Term 2023/2024 B.A. Course: Pulse of the Nation: Per­spec­tives on Nation and Nation­al­ism in South Asia, Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin, Berlin

Publications

with Paula Schn­abel: “Archival Silences and Indo-Ger­man Entan­gle­ments: Ways of Uncov­er­ing Hid­den Voic­es”. The Bodleian Con­vey­or, 20.11.2024. Avail­able at https://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/theconveyor/archival-silences-and-indo-german-entanglements-ways-of-uncovering-hidden-voices/.