09 February 2010
great pieces by penny red
An excellent piece by Penny Red on women and blogging and the future of the left. Also a great piece here published yesterday on misogyny and the veil. She also wrote this great piece on the idiocy of transphobia within feminism while back:
Feminists - even prominent ones with big platforms to shout from - do not get to be the gatekeepers of what is and is not female, what is and is not feminine, any more than patriarchal apologists do. Intrinsic to feminism is the notion that such gatekeeping is sexist, recalcitrant and damaging.
Feminists - even prominent ones with big platforms to shout from - do not get to be the gatekeepers of what is and is not female, what is and is not feminine, any more than patriarchal apologists do. Intrinsic to feminism is the notion that such gatekeeping is sexist, recalcitrant and damaging.
08 February 2010
warwick symposium on the non-philosophy of francois laruelle
The Warwick University Philosophy Society, in association with Pli: The Warwick Journal of Philosophy, is pleased to announce a short symposium on the non-philosophy of Francois Laruelle on Wednesday the 3rd of March. This will take place in H0.52, in the humanities building, on Warwick main campus, from 3.30pm to 7.00pm.
Programme
3.30 - "Non-Philosophy in English" - Nick Srnicek (LSE), Anthony Paul Smith (Nottingham), Reid Kotlas (Dundee) - Three presentations introducing the central features of non-philosophy followed by a joint question and answer session.
5.00 - Break
5.30 - "From the First to the Second Non-Philosophy" - Francois Laruelle - Paper in French, with English translation provided by Anthony Paul Smith, followed by a question and answer session interpreted by Marjorie Gracieuse (Warwick).
Free to all, no registration required. For further enquiries contact t.k.osborne[at]gmail.com
Programme
3.30 - "Non-Philosophy in English" - Nick Srnicek (LSE), Anthony Paul Smith (Nottingham), Reid Kotlas (Dundee) - Three presentations introducing the central features of non-philosophy followed by a joint question and answer session.
5.00 - Break
5.30 - "From the First to the Second Non-Philosophy" - Francois Laruelle - Paper in French, with English translation provided by Anthony Paul Smith, followed by a question and answer session interpreted by Marjorie Gracieuse (Warwick).
Free to all, no registration required. For further enquiries contact t.k.osborne[at]gmail.com
07 February 2010
royal institute of philosophy: speaker needed at roehampton!
Not that I'm using the internet to do all my work for me or anything...but I need to find one more speaker for this term's philosophy talks at Roehampton. The date will be Tuesday Mar 23rd between 6 - 7.30 pm. You'll need to be in a Philosophy department (either finishing a PhD or employed in one, if indeed the latter applies to anyone any more) or working on Philosophy as your main subject (much as I would love to have some kind of anarchic raw theory event in which anyone and everyone can speak, a la Speakers' Corner, the RIP do have some rules...). Preferably someone working on Continental/European philosophy as I get to organise it this term.
So! Let me know! First person I approve of will get to come and talk to maybe 10-40 undergraduates (it should be aimed at them, smart but not over technical, or at least explain technical vocabulary). You get some drinks and dinner and even transport (unless you're like coming from Malaysia or somewhere, sorry). I won't necessarily put up the person's name if I get someone, but I will update if the date gets filled.
UPDATE: AH, God love the internet. Someone perfect has stepped forward. I may delegate all future work to the world wide web. Can it cook and clean for me? Would my mother approve?
So! Let me know! First person I approve of will get to come and talk to maybe 10-40 undergraduates (it should be aimed at them, smart but not over technical, or at least explain technical vocabulary). You get some drinks and dinner and even transport (unless you're like coming from Malaysia or somewhere, sorry). I won't necessarily put up the person's name if I get someone, but I will update if the date gets filled.
UPDATE: AH, God love the internet. Someone perfect has stepped forward. I may delegate all future work to the world wide web. Can it cook and clean for me? Would my mother approve?
ranciere interview! going free!
I interviewed Jacques Ranciere the other day before his talk at Whitechapel Gallery (among other gems from his talk: 'I could be a curator! You put one object zere, another one zere, a table and then you have a show!'). It isn't very long (perhaps 4-5000 words, I haven't transcribed it yet). It currently doesn't have a home. I could just put it up here when I have time, but I thought someone might want it for some student magazine or whathaveyou. I didn't ask him about art at all: I mainly asked him about pedagogy, the internet and human nature. Can't promise his answers (or rather what had to say in order to respond to my ill-worked-out questions) are earth-shattering, but he's pretty good on defending the internet from snobby French elitists who get upset about kids reading classic texts 'in the wrong order'. I tried to ask him about pornography, as I thought that might have some interesting relation to the whole idea of the supposdly 'passive' spectator which he attacks in The Emancipated Spectator, but he didn't have anything to say, really. Shame!
UPDATE: It's going to ephemera, a good, free online journal who are concerned with 'theoretical and political aspects of organizations, organization and organizing'. I happen to be rubbish at organising anything, but I'm happy that it'll end up somewhere open to everyone. Now to find the time to transcribe it!
then = people using the streets: now = cars using the streets
Giovanni, with reference to the palimpsest city idea, forwarded me links via Stephen Judd, to these timelapse photos. This one is of Glasgow. Almost all the photos in the set reveal how little room on the road there now is for anything other than cars.
form and genesis: theory reading group at cornell conference
The Theory Reading Group at Cornell University invites submissions for its sixth annual interdisciplinary spring conference:
Form and Genesis
Featuring keynote speakers Adrian Johnston (University of New Mexico) and Robert Kaufman (University of California, Berkeley)
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York
April 22-24, 2010
Increasingly it seems that contemporary thought is confronted with two ways of explaining its objects. On the one hand, a formal approach seeks to analyze the necessary structures or defining qualities that make something what it is. On the other hand, a genetic or historical method aims to uncover the forces that give rise to form or structure in the first place. Do these modes of explanation disqualify one another, or are there compelling prospects for their integration? For example, is it possible to understand how thought or rationality can grasp its own determining processes? Or, on the contrary, is thought structurally unable to access a domain that is by nature exterior to reason, sense, or order?
Broadly understood, the formal approach tends to seek logical explanations, while the genetic approach looks to materialist or genealogical accounts. The relation between these two orders of explanation has wide implications. What is the connection between logical or normative form and its temporal, material, or historical genesis? Conversely, what might an analysis of the structure of genealogy or critique tell us about the latter? Does the political critique of form as an arbitrary convention mitigate its powers of normativity? What is the relationship between form and history, or form and materiality in literary and aesthetic theory? What is the status of formalism, whether literary or logical-mathematical, in contemporary theory?
Suggested topics:
Speculation and critique
Formalisms and historicisms
The transcendental and the empirical
Limits of philosophy/limits of science
Form of the political
Originality
Events of reason
Condition and cause
Sense and nonsense
Form and genre
History and form in aesthetics
Breaking form: the sublime, the unrepresentable, the iconoclastic
Formation and deformation
The finite and the infinite
Forms of the event
Structure and drive (Freud, Lacan, Deleuze, Guattari)
Form and interpretation (New Critics, Deconstruction)
History, genealogy, critique (Nietzsche, Foucault)
Marxism and form (Benjamin, Adorno, Jameson)
Forms of life (Wittgenstein, Arendt, Agamben)
Please limit the length of abstracts to no more than 250 words. The deadline for submission of 250-word abstracts for 20-minute presentations is March 1, 2010. Please include your name, e-mail address, and phone number. Abstracts should be e-mailed to theory@cornell.edu. Notices of acceptance will be sent no later than March 6, 2009. For more information about the Cornell Theory Reading Group, visit http://www.arts.cornell.edu/trg .
Form and Genesis
Featuring keynote speakers Adrian Johnston (University of New Mexico) and Robert Kaufman (University of California, Berkeley)
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York
April 22-24, 2010
Increasingly it seems that contemporary thought is confronted with two ways of explaining its objects. On the one hand, a formal approach seeks to analyze the necessary structures or defining qualities that make something what it is. On the other hand, a genetic or historical method aims to uncover the forces that give rise to form or structure in the first place. Do these modes of explanation disqualify one another, or are there compelling prospects for their integration? For example, is it possible to understand how thought or rationality can grasp its own determining processes? Or, on the contrary, is thought structurally unable to access a domain that is by nature exterior to reason, sense, or order?
Broadly understood, the formal approach tends to seek logical explanations, while the genetic approach looks to materialist or genealogical accounts. The relation between these two orders of explanation has wide implications. What is the connection between logical or normative form and its temporal, material, or historical genesis? Conversely, what might an analysis of the structure of genealogy or critique tell us about the latter? Does the political critique of form as an arbitrary convention mitigate its powers of normativity? What is the relationship between form and history, or form and materiality in literary and aesthetic theory? What is the status of formalism, whether literary or logical-mathematical, in contemporary theory?
Suggested topics:
Speculation and critique
Formalisms and historicisms
The transcendental and the empirical
Limits of philosophy/limits of science
Form of the political
Originality
Events of reason
Condition and cause
Sense and nonsense
Form and genre
History and form in aesthetics
Breaking form: the sublime, the unrepresentable, the iconoclastic
Formation and deformation
The finite and the infinite
Forms of the event
Structure and drive (Freud, Lacan, Deleuze, Guattari)
Form and interpretation (New Critics, Deconstruction)
History, genealogy, critique (Nietzsche, Foucault)
Marxism and form (Benjamin, Adorno, Jameson)
Forms of life (Wittgenstein, Arendt, Agamben)
Please limit the length of abstracts to no more than 250 words. The deadline for submission of 250-word abstracts for 20-minute presentations is March 1, 2010. Please include your name, e-mail address, and phone number. Abstracts should be e-mailed to theory@cornell.edu. Notices of acceptance will be sent no later than March 6, 2009. For more information about the Cornell Theory Reading Group, visit http://www.arts.cornell.edu/trg .
06 February 2010
conference: real objects or material subjects? dundee march 27-28
Conference Schedule: Real Objects or Material Subjects?
February 6, 2010
‘Real Objects or Material Subjects’
Department of Philosophy, University of Dundee
March 27-28, 2010
SCHEDULE
Saturday
11am-12pm: registration
12pm-12:15pm: Introductory Remarks
12:15pm-1:30pm: James Williams (Dundee) “Contemplating Pebbles”
1:30pm-2:30pm: Lunch
2:30pm-4:00pm: Nathan Coombs (Royal Holloway, University of London) Platonism and Realism: Badiou contra Harman
Sid Littlefield (Georgia College & State University): Inflationary and Deflationary Metaphysics
Mike Olson (Villanova University) On the Dogmatic Limitations and Speculative Resources of Transcendental Idealism
4:30pm-6:00pm: Graham Harman (American University, Cairo) “I Am Also of the Opinion that Materialism Must Be Destroyed”
Sunday
10:00am-10:15am: Introductory Remarks
10:15am-11:30am: Adrian Johnston (University of New Mexico) “‘Naturalism or anti-naturalism? No, thanks–both are worse!’: Science, Materialism, and Slavoj Zizek.”
11:45am-1:15pm:
Austin Smidt (Nottingham) The Beyond In Our Midst: Sartre’s Robust Materialism as a Root of Revolution
Tom Eyers (Middlesex) Lacanian Materialism and the Question of the Real
Colby Dickinson (KU Leuven) Materialism as pantheistic animality: Giorgio Agamben and the silence of transcendence
1:15pm-2:00pm: Lunch Break
2:00pm-3:00pm:
John Van Houdt (KU Leuven): The Necessity of Contingency or Contingent Necessity? Meillassoux, Hegel, and the Logic of Modal Necessity
Paul Ennis (University College Dublin) Phenomenology and the Ancestral
3:15pm-4:30pm: Peter Hallward (CRMEP, Middlesex) “Self-Emancipation between Hegel and Marx”
4:30pm-5:00pm: Closing Discussion
Registration is ESSENTIAL, please email mykeburns@gmail.com with Name/Address/Institutional Affiliation/Email Address by March 1st.
Cost is 10 pounds unwaged/ 20 pounds waged. Checks can be made out to Michael Burns and sent to:
Michael Burns, Department of Philosophy, University of Dundee, Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN, Scotland, UK
Details on travel/accommodation will be posted shortly.
February 6, 2010
‘Real Objects or Material Subjects’
Department of Philosophy, University of Dundee
March 27-28, 2010
SCHEDULE
Saturday
11am-12pm: registration
12pm-12:15pm: Introductory Remarks
12:15pm-1:30pm: James Williams (Dundee) “Contemplating Pebbles”
1:30pm-2:30pm: Lunch
2:30pm-4:00pm: Nathan Coombs (Royal Holloway, University of London) Platonism and Realism: Badiou contra Harman
Sid Littlefield (Georgia College & State University): Inflationary and Deflationary Metaphysics
Mike Olson (Villanova University) On the Dogmatic Limitations and Speculative Resources of Transcendental Idealism
4:30pm-6:00pm: Graham Harman (American University, Cairo) “I Am Also of the Opinion that Materialism Must Be Destroyed”
Sunday
10:00am-10:15am: Introductory Remarks
10:15am-11:30am: Adrian Johnston (University of New Mexico) “‘Naturalism or anti-naturalism? No, thanks–both are worse!’: Science, Materialism, and Slavoj Zizek.”
11:45am-1:15pm:
Austin Smidt (Nottingham) The Beyond In Our Midst: Sartre’s Robust Materialism as a Root of Revolution
Tom Eyers (Middlesex) Lacanian Materialism and the Question of the Real
Colby Dickinson (KU Leuven) Materialism as pantheistic animality: Giorgio Agamben and the silence of transcendence
1:15pm-2:00pm: Lunch Break
2:00pm-3:00pm:
John Van Houdt (KU Leuven): The Necessity of Contingency or Contingent Necessity? Meillassoux, Hegel, and the Logic of Modal Necessity
Paul Ennis (University College Dublin) Phenomenology and the Ancestral
3:15pm-4:30pm: Peter Hallward (CRMEP, Middlesex) “Self-Emancipation between Hegel and Marx”
4:30pm-5:00pm: Closing Discussion
Registration is ESSENTIAL, please email mykeburns@gmail.com with Name/Address/Institutional Affiliation/Email Address by March 1st.
Cost is 10 pounds unwaged/ 20 pounds waged. Checks can be made out to Michael Burns and sent to:
Michael Burns, Department of Philosophy, University of Dundee, Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN, Scotland, UK
Details on travel/accommodation will be posted shortly.
save philosophy jobs at king's
Things are getting vicious. Sign the letter here by Monday.
pli: call for papers on contingency
CALL FOR PAPERS ON CONTINGENCY
Pli invites submissions for the next volume (22) on the topic of Contingency. Recently, contingency has been reassessed (Meillassoux, After Finitude) in ways which bring that notion back into the centre of the contemporary philosophical debate. For the next volume of Pli we welcome papers that aim to understand or shed new light on this important notion. “The root of freedom in God is the possibility or contingency of things, by which it happens that innumerable things are found which are neither necessary nor impossible, from which God chooses those which do most to testify to his own glory.” Leibniz, Contingency and Necessity.
“In this externality, the determinations of the Notion have the show of an indifferent subsistence and isolation [Vereinzelung] in regard to each other, and the Notion, therefore, is present only as something inward. Consequently, Nature exhibits no freedom in its existence, but only necessity and contingency.” Hegel, §248, Encyclopedia.
“The Logos breaks up into hieroglyphics, each one of which speaks the
transcendent language of a faculty. Even the point of departure—namely,
sensibility in the encounter with that which forces sensation—presupposes
neither affinity nor predestination. On the contrary, it is the
fortuitousness or the contingency of the encounter which guarantees the
necessity of that which it forces to be thought.” Deleuze, Difference and
Repetition.
Possible topics include:
- Contingency, necessity and probability.
- The necessity of contingency in Quentin Meillassoux.
- Early modern understanding of contingency in Leibniz and/or Spinoza.
- Contingency after Kant.
- The Hegelian rehabilitation of the principle of sufficient reason.
- Nietzschean becoming.
- Contingency and Heideggerian 'facticity'.
- Contingency and the Event
Submissions should be articles no longer than 8,000 words, accompanied by an abstract, and sent by email to: plijournal@googlemail.com . Alternatively submissions can be sent in the form of a single hard copy plus a copy on disk as a Word, ODT or RTF file. Include an e-mail address for future correspondence. The deadline for submissions is the 30th of June 2010. Please refer to the 'Notes for Contributors' on the journal's website.
Pli: The Warwick Journal of Philosophy,
Department of Philosophy
University of Warwick
Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK
Visit http://www.warwick.ac.uk/philosophy/pli_journal/
Pli invites submissions for the next volume (22) on the topic of Contingency. Recently, contingency has been reassessed (Meillassoux, After Finitude) in ways which bring that notion back into the centre of the contemporary philosophical debate. For the next volume of Pli we welcome papers that aim to understand or shed new light on this important notion. “The root of freedom in God is the possibility or contingency of things, by which it happens that innumerable things are found which are neither necessary nor impossible, from which God chooses those which do most to testify to his own glory.” Leibniz, Contingency and Necessity.
“In this externality, the determinations of the Notion have the show of an indifferent subsistence and isolation [Vereinzelung] in regard to each other, and the Notion, therefore, is present only as something inward. Consequently, Nature exhibits no freedom in its existence, but only necessity and contingency.” Hegel, §248, Encyclopedia.
“The Logos breaks up into hieroglyphics, each one of which speaks the
transcendent language of a faculty. Even the point of departure—namely,
sensibility in the encounter with that which forces sensation—presupposes
neither affinity nor predestination. On the contrary, it is the
fortuitousness or the contingency of the encounter which guarantees the
necessity of that which it forces to be thought.” Deleuze, Difference and
Repetition.
Possible topics include:
- Contingency, necessity and probability.
- The necessity of contingency in Quentin Meillassoux.
- Early modern understanding of contingency in Leibniz and/or Spinoza.
- Contingency after Kant.
- The Hegelian rehabilitation of the principle of sufficient reason.
- Nietzschean becoming.
- Contingency and Heideggerian 'facticity'.
- Contingency and the Event
Submissions should be articles no longer than 8,000 words, accompanied by an abstract, and sent by email to: plijournal@googlemail.com . Alternatively submissions can be sent in the form of a single hard copy plus a copy on disk as a Word, ODT or RTF file. Include an e-mail address for future correspondence. The deadline for submissions is the 30th of June 2010. Please refer to the 'Notes for Contributors' on the journal's website.
Pli: The Warwick Journal of Philosophy,
Department of Philosophy
University of Warwick
Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK
Visit http://www.warwick.ac.uk/philosophy/pli_journal/
05 February 2010
me on the radio...in australia
[And the photo! This is the best one yet]
If you want to hear what I sound like at 7am talking about my book, then click here for the Woman on the Line site. Thanks to Elanor McInerney for a smart interview and apologies for giggling quite so much...
tickets for love on trial now available
coup pour coup film screening tonight!
InC: Continental Philosophy Research Group
Film Series 'On revolution'
Followed by a discussion with Alberto Toscano (Sociology, Goldsmiths) and
Stathis Kouvelakis (French, King's College).
Friday 5 February
5-8pm
RHB 137
All welcome.
Coup pour coup (Blow for Blow), 1972, Marin Karmitz
Coup pour coup is a film about a worker's strike at a textile plant in and
around Rouen, France in 1971. The strike is organized and led by women and
the film is written and enacted by the actual striking workers. This film
was a collaborative and collective effort. Videotapes of upcoming scenes
are discussed by the workers, and camera angles as well as dramatic
refinements were agreed on before any film was edited. Coup pour coup is an
appeal for rights and labor and against industrial injustice and
exploitation.
For more info contact: r.cavallini[at]gold.ac.uk
02 February 2010
cuts, furloughs, reapplications, closures: come in academia, your time is up...
The universities were not, in the main, immediately hit by the recession: 'protected' by a sluggishness that permeates the system, from pie-chart pokers to VCs enjoying long lunches with business leaders, there were, nevertheless, hints from abroad that the UK was not to be spared the iron rod of irrationality when it came to saving money, even if it were to amount to the destruction of any residual academic reputation the UK might have in the name of saving of enough money to be in Iraq for about five minutes, or give to a banker for about twenty seconds.
But, despite the fact that 18-year-olds have no jobs to go to, no apprenticeships to sign up for, no industry to partake in and are afforded as little respect as at any time in history, swingeing, petty cuts will mean that fewer will go to university, to be taught by fewer staff at fewer places. The threats to student places, and to staff jobs are mounting, and fast...FE and Adult Ed have already been completely screwed over...even the hallowed Russell Group will make redundancies if they think they can somehow use them to skew the debate towards increased and differential fees. As for the rest of us: to become colleges of 'excellence' for foundation courses in hairdressing and tourism studies, cos working class students just shouldn't be allowed to read Kant, should they, Mr Cameron? S^*c$%^s, the lot of you.
But, despite the fact that 18-year-olds have no jobs to go to, no apprenticeships to sign up for, no industry to partake in and are afforded as little respect as at any time in history, swingeing, petty cuts will mean that fewer will go to university, to be taught by fewer staff at fewer places. The threats to student places, and to staff jobs are mounting, and fast...FE and Adult Ed have already been completely screwed over...even the hallowed Russell Group will make redundancies if they think they can somehow use them to skew the debate towards increased and differential fees. As for the rest of us: to become colleges of 'excellence' for foundation courses in hairdressing and tourism studies, cos working class students just shouldn't be allowed to read Kant, should they, Mr Cameron? S^*c$%^s, the lot of you.
peter osborne at middlesex thursday night
A reminder of the following :
An announcement of a change in the CRMEP research seminar schedule, for Thursday 4 February:
Peter Osborne (CRMEP) will give a paper entitled 'Fragment, Project, Information: Friedrich Schlegel, Walter Benjamin and Sol Witt.'
David Cunningham (Westminster University) was originally scheduled to present a paper on 4 February, and sends his sincere apologies.
Peter Osborne is director of the CRMEP. He works on a wide range of topics in modern European philosophy, aesthetics and contemporary art. His books include Marx (2005), Philosophy in Cultural Theory (2000), and The Politics of Time (1995).
The seminar will begin at 17:00, in the Saloon, on the ground floor of the Mansion building at Trent Park.
CRMEP research seminars are open to anyone wishing to attend. Directions for getting to Trent Park are available on the Middlesex website.
An announcement of a change in the CRMEP research seminar schedule, for Thursday 4 February:
Peter Osborne (CRMEP) will give a paper entitled 'Fragment, Project, Information: Friedrich Schlegel, Walter Benjamin and Sol Witt.'
David Cunningham (Westminster University) was originally scheduled to present a paper on 4 February, and sends his sincere apologies.
Peter Osborne is director of the CRMEP. He works on a wide range of topics in modern European philosophy, aesthetics and contemporary art. His books include Marx (2005), Philosophy in Cultural Theory (2000), and The Politics of Time (1995).
The seminar will begin at 17:00, in the Saloon, on the ground floor of the Mansion building at Trent Park.
CRMEP research seminars are open to anyone wishing to attend. Directions for getting to Trent Park are available on the Middlesex website.
01 February 2010
odw photo silliness!
The lovely Petar at Mama in Zagreb sent me this photo of a child reading my book (note Mark's Capitalist Realism in the back there too). Which gives me a great idea about collecting a whole series of pictures of the book in strange and wonderful settings. If anyone is tempted to send me anything along these lines, I would of course put it up, hint hint. I have already seen another nice shot of someone reading it on public transport: the more utopian the setting, the better!
30 January 2010
laruelle in nottingham: one-day conference
See here for details.
He once remarked - it is said - that he was the only philosopher since Fichte to have milked a cow. This is more than reason enough to go and see him.
He once remarked - it is said - that he was the only philosopher since Fichte to have milked a cow. This is more than reason enough to go and see him.
28 January 2010
new left project
Someone sent me an email about new left project. Don't know anything about it, but could be good! Have a look.
27 January 2010
deleuze summer school with added kafka!
"Franz Kafka and the Perspective of Minority"
A Deleuze and Guattari summer school in Prague at The Institute for Philosophy at The Charles University.
Seminars and Lectures given by Ron Bogue, Ian Buchanan, Eugene Holland, Petr Kouba and Gregg Lambert. There will also be guided tours of Kafka's Prague and screenings of Orson Welles' The Trial.
Saturday 17th to Wednesday 21st July 2010
Registration will be 160 euros and cheap student accommodation will be available.
Convened by Professor Petr Kouba and Ian Buchanan.
There is a facebook group Deleuze and Kafka Summer School that you can join to get more information.
A Deleuze and Guattari summer school in Prague at The Institute for Philosophy at The Charles University.
Seminars and Lectures given by Ron Bogue, Ian Buchanan, Eugene Holland, Petr Kouba and Gregg Lambert. There will also be guided tours of Kafka's Prague and screenings of Orson Welles' The Trial.
Saturday 17th to Wednesday 21st July 2010
Registration will be 160 euros and cheap student accommodation will be available.
Convened by Professor Petr Kouba and Ian Buchanan.
There is a facebook group Deleuze and Kafka Summer School that you can join to get more information.
alberto on sloterdijk for tpm
Review of Derrida, An Egyptian: On the Problem of the Jewish Pyramid, God’s Zeal: The Battle of the Three Monotheisms and Terror from the Air here.
'The price of leaving behind what he scornfully calls “the fantasy of universalism” turns out to be very high indeed.'
'The price of leaving behind what he scornfully calls “the fantasy of universalism” turns out to be very high indeed.'
note to self when well again, in perpetuity
You know, Nina, when you get really ill and you think to yourself 'fuck, health is a fragile thing, like an empty bird's egg held in a vice with the handle a hair's breadth away from turning the wrong way'? When you remember that it's not only impossible to do all the things you wanted to do, or didn't want to do but had to, because when you're ill it's impossible to do anything at all? When you can't sleep because you're coughing so much, or being sick, or your head hurts too much to do anything but moan? WELL REMEMBER THAT WHEN YOU'RE BETTER YOU IDIOT! Thanks.
Love, a weird combination of your super-ego and your conatus xx
p.s. It is ok to watch Gossip Girl when you're unwell, but try not to mention it to your adult friends, they'll be appalled no matter how rubbish you were feeling.
Love, a weird combination of your super-ego and your conatus xx
p.s. It is ok to watch Gossip Girl when you're unwell, but try not to mention it to your adult friends, they'll be appalled no matter how rubbish you were feeling.
26 January 2010
fetishism of the bourgeoisie
Current government policy: 'we can't let the people who fucked up the country leave! if we spend more on education we might lose the bankers! If we spend more on education then people in hospitals will die - is that what you want, you bastard academic?!'
Is this hatred for the public servant a sex thing?! Are public workers simply not hottt enough?! If we rebrand the left/people who give a shit about something slightly bigger than their uptight pot o'gold, will people stop fetishising the super-rich? Having a bunch of mediation in your bank is historically surely one of the most obscure kinds of appeal there is: money is the utopian promise of a future that never comes - ha, perhaps we should be trying to get capitalists to be utopian in a different way...the communism of capitalism indeed.
Middle managers have learnt to speak the language of the bleeding-heart liberal without the politics: 'we know you're a good worker, we value you so much, you make such a valuable contribution' yet 'well, we all know that the budget is tight, I know it's hard but we have to make cuts, blah blah blah'. The murkiness and compromise of current political language is an admission that those that talk in that way have compromised their basic capacity to be human, to talk about anything at all. It's not even moral, it's biological.
UPDATE: Evan says: 'yes, it is a sex thing. Which is why we're busy trying to make communism sexier than capitalism for the first time in a long while, at least autonomia wore fitted trousers and Kollontai gave Eros wings and a haircut.'
Is this hatred for the public servant a sex thing?! Are public workers simply not hottt enough?! If we rebrand the left/people who give a shit about something slightly bigger than their uptight pot o'gold, will people stop fetishising the super-rich? Having a bunch of mediation in your bank is historically surely one of the most obscure kinds of appeal there is: money is the utopian promise of a future that never comes - ha, perhaps we should be trying to get capitalists to be utopian in a different way...the communism of capitalism indeed.
Middle managers have learnt to speak the language of the bleeding-heart liberal without the politics: 'we know you're a good worker, we value you so much, you make such a valuable contribution' yet 'well, we all know that the budget is tight, I know it's hard but we have to make cuts, blah blah blah'. The murkiness and compromise of current political language is an admission that those that talk in that way have compromised their basic capacity to be human, to talk about anything at all. It's not even moral, it's biological.
UPDATE: Evan says: 'yes, it is a sex thing. Which is why we're busy trying to make communism sexier than capitalism for the first time in a long while, at least autonomia wore fitted trousers and Kollontai gave Eros wings and a haircut.'
birkbeck institute for the humanities: forthcoming events
* Rethinking Childhood/Children in the 21st Century - 2 day conference
Thursday 4th February & Friday 5th February Registration and all other details http://www.bbk.ac.uk/bih/news/childhood
* Ignes Sodre - Imparadised in Hell: Idealisation, Erotisation and the Return of the Split-off
Wednesday 10th February 8.30pm - 10pm Room B35 Birkbeck Main Building
Free public lecture - no registration
* After Human Rights? Panel Discussion
Speakers: Conor Gearty (LSE), Costas Douzinas (Birkbeck), Adam Weiss (AIRE Centre - Advice on Individual Rights in Europe)
Co-Chairs: Leah Bassel & Engin Isin
Friday 26th February 6pm - 8pm Room B36 Birkbeck Main Building
Free - open to all - no registration
* Slavoj Zizek - "On the Idea of Communism - A Year After"
Monday 1st March 2.30pm Room B34 Birkbeck Main Building
Public Lecture - Registration - essential
* Etienne Balibar - “Cosmopolitanism and secularism. Working Hypotheses”
Thursday 6th May 2.30pm Room B33 Birkbeck Main Building
Public lecture - Free - open to all - no registration
For more information on all these events please visit here.
Thursday 4th February & Friday 5th February Registration and all other details http://www.bbk.ac.uk/bih/news/childhood
* Ignes Sodre - Imparadised in Hell: Idealisation, Erotisation and the Return of the Split-off
Wednesday 10th February 8.30pm - 10pm Room B35 Birkbeck Main Building
Free public lecture - no registration
* After Human Rights? Panel Discussion
Speakers: Conor Gearty (LSE), Costas Douzinas (Birkbeck), Adam Weiss (AIRE Centre - Advice on Individual Rights in Europe)
Co-Chairs: Leah Bassel & Engin Isin
Friday 26th February 6pm - 8pm Room B36 Birkbeck Main Building
Free - open to all - no registration
* Slavoj Zizek - "On the Idea of Communism - A Year After"
Monday 1st March 2.30pm Room B34 Birkbeck Main Building
Public Lecture - Registration - essential
* Etienne Balibar - “Cosmopolitanism and secularism. Working Hypotheses”
Thursday 6th May 2.30pm Room B33 Birkbeck Main Building
Public lecture - Free - open to all - no registration
For more information on all these events please visit here.
24 January 2010
charlotte roche's wetlands: us paperback edition
If you're in America, you haven't already bought the hardback and you fancy reading Charlotte Roche's book, then if you buy the paperback edition of Wetlands (Grove Press), it'll contain the interview by me with Charlotte that was originally published by Salon. It's a slime sensation!
on being cared for
Is there any greater single act of everyday parental love than offering to sew up the holes in the pockets of your coat?
