Speaker: Andrew Patrizio (History of Art, Edinburgh College of Art)

Title: 'The Ecological Eye: Setting Agendas Across Art History, Theory and Politics'

Respondents: Olga Smith (IAS/Art History), Jonathan Skinner (ECLS), Nick Lawrence, Diarmuid Costello (Philosophy)

Co-sponsored by Warwick Environmental Humanities Network)

Followed by Drinks Reception at 7.30pm

Title: 'Arrogance, Ignorance, and Privilege'

Speaker: Serge Trottein (CNRS/École Normale Supérieure/PSL Research University)

Title: 'Kant and Postmodern Aesthetics'

Round Table Discussion on Inclusivity and Diversity in Philosophy at Warwick

'Find Your Philosophy'

Speaker: Joanna Zylinska (Department of New Media and Communications, Goldsmiths)

Title: 'Artificial Intelligence, Anthropocene Stupidity'

ABSTRACT

'My talk will engage with two defining apocalyptic narratives of our times: the Anthropocene and AI (Artificial Intelligence). Both of these narratives, in their multiple articulations, predict the end of the human and of the world as we (humans) know it, while also hinting at the possibility of salvation. Looking askew at the conceptual and aesthetic tropes shaping them, and at their socio-political contexts, I will be particularly interested in the way in which these two stories about planetary-level threats come together, and in the reasons for their uncanny proximity. Concurring with Marshall McLuhan that art works as a 'Distant Early Warning system' for all kinds of apocalypse, I will suggest that it can also serve as a testing ground for the making and unmaking of such apocalyptic scenarios. And it is in art that I will seek the possibility of envisaging a better and more prudent relationship with technology - and with the world - from within the Anthropocene-AI nexus. The talk will include a presentation of some visual work from my own art practice'.

Speaker: Sameer Bajaj

Title: 'Protesting Injustice: Fairness, Sacrifice and Civility'

Abstract:

Recent democratic movements worldwide have put pressure on traditional views of the permissible ways of protesting injustice in democratic societies. These movements raise the following questions: Must principled disobedience of the law be civil as opposed to uncivil? Is rioting ever a permissible method of protesting injustice? What is the proper place of anger in protest movements? Can counterproductive forms of protest - forms of protest that predictably lead political majorities to respond with greater injustices - ever be justified? In this session, we will discuss these and related questions.

Speaker: Simon Jenkins

Title: 'Reproduction, Surveillance and Discrimination: Potential Effects of Emerging Technologies on Minority Groups'

Speaker: Rachel Bowlby (Department of Comparative Literature, UCL)

Title: 'Unnatural Resources: Changing Arguments and Reproductive Technologies'

Speaker: Naomi Waltham-Smith (Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, Warwick)

Title: 'Homofaunie: Non-Human Tonalities of Listening in Derrida and Cixous'

Speaker: Tom Crowther

Title: Philosophy and Mental Health

Speaker: Josh Robinson (School of English, Communications, Philosophy, Cardiff)

Title: 'Crisis in Theory'

Josh Robinson teaches modern and contemporary critical theory in the School of English, Communication and Philosophy at the University of Cardiff. Most recently, he is author of Adorno’s Poetics of Form, which appeared last year in SUNY’s Contemporary Continental Philosophy series): https://www.sunypress.edu/p-6556-adornos-poetics-of-form.aspx

Crisis in Theory: Beyond the Representational Paradigm

This paper aspires to offer a critical account of a set of assumptions that are widespread in literary and critical theory, both in its historical emergence (as seen primarily through its institutional histories) and in several more recent developments (including the various ‘turns’ that arise from time to time. My focus is on what I term the representational paradigm: in its simplest and broadest formulation, the assumption, explicit or otherwise, within literary studies that works of literature matter insofar as they are representative; that what matters about literary works is their representative character.

This paradigm persists in multiple, not always interdependent (or even necessarily compatible) manifestations, which include: an analytical focus on events represented within works of literature (what might be called a focus on content at the expense of form); a set of analytical procedures that rely on an implicit theory of allegory whereby readings are produced that see elements of a work as representing elements outside it; attempts to reconfigure the canon and/or redesign our curricula such that the works and authors within it are more representative of global society. I outline a tentative taxonomy of these different versions of representationalism, and relate them to a set of shared democratic assumptions about political representation—assumptions which have a tendency to place themselves beyond scrutiny. I argue that while the democratic aspirations expressed at least in progressive versions of representationalism paradigm constitute a commendable alternative to the (not only cultural) conservatism of the tendencies against which they are in many respects a reaction, these underlying assumptions ultimately overlook or even limit the potential of literature’s ways of thinking to contribute to a transformation of our understanding of the political. I thus set out some of the ways in which criticism and theory might move beyond the representational paradigm.

Speakers:

Derek Attridge (English and Related Literature, York)

Esther Leslie (Political Aesthetics, Birkbeck)

Speakers:

Hartmut Rosa (Sociology, Jena University/Max Weber Kolleg Erfurt)

Daniel Hartley (World Literatures, Durham)

Irina Hron (German Studies, Vienna University/Gothenburg University)

Guest Speaker: Hartmut Rosa on the English translation of his publication Resonance.

“Resonance and Alienation. Two Modes of Experiencing Time in an Age of Acceleration”

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/modernlanguages/academic/helmutschmitz/resonance/

German Social Theorist Hartmut Rosa and his publication Resonance.

Speaker: Kate Soper (Philosophy, University of Brighton/London Metropolitan University)

Title: 'The Dialectics of Progress: Towards a Post-Growth Aesthetic and Politics of Prosperity'

Guest Speaker: David Bather Woods

Title: What is the Good of Public Philosophy?

ABSTRACT:

There has been a boom in public philosophy recently, with philosophers taking full advantage of the range of new media as well as continuing with the old. This session is titled ‘What is the good of public philosophy?’ There have been many answers to this question, including enrichment, guidance, self-improvement, entertainment, and citizenry. But as I research this literature, I find few if any linking public philosophy to the goods of university access and participation. In this session, then, I pose a more specific set of question: Does public philosophy support the good of widening participation? Does widening participation need public philosophy? If so, what kind of public philosophy does it need? At first glance, public philosophy does not look essential to widening participation in university philosophy. On further investigation, however, there is a role for philosophers to play in raising awareness of the discipline of philosophy, encouraging and increasing philosophical literacy, and shaping the environment and image of philosophy.

Speaker: James MacDowell (Department of Film and TV, Warwick)

Title: 'Regarding YouTube as Art'

We hope to re-schedule this event. Contact Eileen John (eileen.john@warwick.ac.uk) for more information.

Guest Speakers:

Kate Soper (Philosophy, University of Brighton/London Metropolitan University)

Title: 'The Dialectics of Progress: Towards a Post-Growth Aesthetic and Politics of Prosperity'

James MacDowell (Department of Film and TV, Warwick)

Title: 'Regarding YouTube as Art'

Speaker: Richard Moore

Title: Inequality in Times of Crisis

Please contact Giulia Lorenzi for further details

TBC