is Professor of Sociology of Art and Politics at the Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (Antwerp University – Belgium) where he leads the Culture Commons Quest Office. He is also research professor at Groningen University and editor in-chief of the international book series “Arts in Society”. In 2016 he became laureate of the prestigious Odysseus grant for excellent international scientific research of the Fund for Scientific Research Flanders in Belgium. His research focuses on creative labour, the institutional context of the arts and on cultural politics. Gielen is author of The Murmuring of the Artistic Multitude: Global Art, Politics and Post-Fordism (Valiz, 3rd rev. ed., 2015) and Creativity and Other Fundamentalisms (Ram, 2013). He is the editor of No Culture, No Europe: On the Foundation of Politics (Valiz/Trancity, 2015).
In the wake of the US presidential election, the severity of the crisis facing liberal representative democracy is clear. The need for a civil domain has never been greater, argues sociologist Pascal Gielen. What options are left to creatives still prepared to imagine a better world?