From New Fascism to Mimetic Studies

In this talk, Nidesh Lawtoo takes the recent Portuguese translation of “(New) Fascism” ((Novo) Fascismo, 2026, Sistema Solar – Documenta) as a springboard to analyze the contagious affective forces that led Donald Trump to power in the US and are currently at play in the rise of far-right movements in Europe as well. If the ancient concept of mimesis, and its link to emotional contagion, mythic communities and new media is generative of political pathologies, the field of mimetic studies shows that humans tendency to imitate goes beyond good and evil and can be put to democratic use as well.

Bio

Nidesh Lawtoo is a philosopher, literary critic and Professor of Modern and Contemporary European Literature and Culture at Leiden University, in the Netherlands. He led the ERC project “Homo Mimeticus” and he is the author of several books that open up the interdisciplinary field of mimetic studies including, The Phantom of the Ego (2013), (New) Fascism (2019), and Homo Mimeticus (2022), soon forthcoming in Portuguese translation with Sistema Solar – Documenta.