Jesenko Tešan

Jesenko Tešan has completed his dissertation, Perpetual Peace Treaty as War: A Study in Permanent Liminality, and its defense, and will receive his degree from the National University of Ireland, Cork in winter 2018. He also holds master degrees from LSE and Cambridge. He has co-authored numerous publications with Joan Davison. His latest publication is Defending the Nation from her Nationalism(s) Nationalism and Ethnic politics, (2017). His research interests lie at the intersection of political, socio-anthropological phenomena and the path out of permanent liminality for societies facing intractable teritorial disputes.

 

Issue: 6:4 (The twenty fourth issue)

This paper analyzes the symbolism of George Kennan’s famous “X” article
relative to the challenges of contemporary post-socialist and post-conflict transitions. It unpacks recent developments in the field of contemporary political discourse, discussing the critical application of practices such as thinking with your heart, parrhesis, and pathos, as well as Kennan’s suggestion of the significance of uncertainty and reflection for global relations. The central question is: What would Kennan write in an X Article to the societies and states in transition? While various definitions of the term “parrhesis” exist, this paper employs both the definition suggested by Michel Foucault who understood it as “fearless speech” and Eric Voegelin who closely follows Plato’s meaning linking it with “heart”, i.e. vision of the spiritual, an existential (dis)order of representatives of a society.