The Institute for Contemporary Critical Thought is pleased to invite you to join us for the second installment of a serial experiment with and around our theme of Herd.
Led by an eclectic range of thinkers, and provoked by selected readings, each session in this series will experiment with the concept’s many permutations, to rethink Herd as /Species, as /The Masses, as/Population, as /Kin, and more. Join us, as we spin out in many directions, thinking with the figure of the herd to grapple with not only transformative global changes affecting health, but also, and more broadly, to experiment with new ways of thinking amidst the here-and-now of our present planetary condition.
On 18 March, Hannah Richter leads a discussion of Herd/The Masses. Hannah has chosen two pieces for this session:
(1) LeBon, G. (1986) ‘The Sentiments and Morality of Crowds.’ In: The Crowd. A Study of the Popular Mind, 16-46. London: T. Fisher Unwin.
(2) Richter, H. (2026) ‘In the shadow of the crowd: crowd psychology, mass politics and contemporary political theory.’ (excerpt)
The two pieces aim to stimulate reflection on how, and on what basis, we conceptualise and engage with the people as collective political actor, especially if we deem their political attitudes and choices objectionable. The excerpt from Gustave Le Bon’s The Crowd (1896) exemplifies the political ideas of 19th century crowd psychology, which warned against individuals being hypnotised and corrupted by the irrational and authoritarian force of the masses. Crowd psychology was pseudo-scientific, even by the standards of its time, and tainted by elitist and eugenicist undertones. Hannah’s paper highlights how influential figures in 20th century political thinking, including some who were vehemently opposed to the reactionary politics of the crowd psychologists, nevertheless adopted some of their key paradigms because they promised insight into the politically fraught dynamics of emergent mass societies.
Reading excepts will be shared after registration. For the full-length draft of ‘In the shadow of the crowd,’ please contact Hannah directly at h.richter@sussex.ac.uk.
Please join us as the Herd gathers once more, and make sure to sign up to our mailing list to receive the invitation to subsequent meetings.
The Herd series is shepherded by Kari Lancaster, Marsha Rosengarten, and Nele Jensen.
