CRPLA » Programme of Events 2026-27

13/10 6:15pm-7:45pm: CRPLA Seminar: Alírio Karina (Warwick), 'Truth Objects'

Eileen John — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 14:11:33 GMT

When: 6:15pm - 7:45pm, Tue, 13 Oct '26

Where: A0.23 (Social Sciences Applied Linguistics wing)

Abstract: Drawing upon Barthes’ S/Z and the passing narrative, this essay examines the problem of determinacy and verification as it emerges differently in racial and sexual paradigms. Considering both the racialist and sexualist problems of conjugating surface and essence, it attends to how the difference between race and sex as objects of knowledge is an effect of their co-constitution, with each paradigm offering a partial resolution to the problem posed by the other’s limit. The problem suffered by racialism as a knowledge regime—the lack of a verificatory object or explanatory mechanism—is a problem of its doubled falseness and political necessity, a doubling that requires that sexualism’s imperfect verificatory object be treated as a definition, and one interior to race and sex alike.

27/10 5:30pm-7pm: CRPLA Seminar: Rob Hopkins (Oxford) - 'Holism in pictures and the pervasiveness of style'

Eileen John — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 12:28:25 GMT

When: 5:30pm - 7pm, Tue, 27 Oct '26

Where: S2.77 (the Cowling Room)

Abstract:

Recently, philosophers have begun to explore how pictures are structured—what their various meaningful parts might be, and how the meaning of the whole emerges from the meaning of those parts and the way they are combined. Some undertaking these investigations hope to develop a compositional semantics for pictures parallel to that on offer for language. I am sceptical. My hypothesis is that this is one point at which language and pictures diverge. The various parts of a picture mean what they do, indeed mean anything at all, only given what the other parts mean. As a result, except in rare cases, it is not possible to develop a theory capable of predicting the meaning of a whole picture from knowledge of its parts. Pictures do exhibit structure, but that structure is holistic. This has consequences for aesthetics. It explains how picture-making is permeated by the artist’s technique and style, as writing is not. And it offers a new explanation of a puzzling phenomenon: that even accomplished artists have often copied the work of others.

24/11 5:30pm-7:30pm: CRPLA Colloquium: Capriciousness and Consistency in Artistic Style and Taste

Eileen John — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 16:16:13 GMT

When: 5:30pm - 7:30pm, Tue, 24 Nov '26

Where: A0.23 (Social Sciences Applied Linguistics wing)

Speakers: Matthew Shlomowitz (Composer, Southampton), Karen Lang (Art Historian), and Eileen John (Warwick Philosophy)

02/02 5:30pm-7pm: CRPLA Seminar: Charlotte de Mille (Courtauld)

Eileen John — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 16:23:38 GMT

When: 5:30pm - 7pm, Tue, 02 Feb '27

Where: FAB5.03

12/02 2pm-4pm: CRPLA Book Symposium on Carceral Arts: Global Perspectives on Creativity, Justice and Resistance

Eileen John — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 14:21:56 GMT

When: 2pm - 4pm, Fri, 12 Feb '27

Book launch for Carceral Arts: Global Perspectives on Creativity, Justice and Resistance, editors Anastasia Chamberlen and Ruth Bernatek (forthcoming from Bristol University Press)

https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/carceral-arts

02/03 5:30pm-7pm: CRPLA Seminar: Pierre-Philippe Fraiture (Warwick Modern Languages - French Studies)

Eileen John — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 14:48:18 GMT

When: 5:30pm - 7pm, Tue, 02 Mar '27

Where: FAB5.03

16/03 5:30pm-7pm: CRPLA Seminar: Naomi Vogt (History of Art, Warwick)

Eileen John — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 14:47:46 GMT

When: 5:30pm - 7pm, Tue, 16 Mar '27

Where: S0.19

08/06 5:30pm-7:30pm: CRPLA Colloquium: Rewriting the Word 'God': In the Arc of Converging Lines between Innovative Theory, Theology, and Poetry

Eileen John — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 14:40:10 GMT

When: 5:30pm - 7:30pm, Tue, 08 Jun '27

Where: S0.19

Speaker: Romana Huk (Notre Dame, English); Respondents: Peter Larkin (Poet), Emma Mason (Warwick, ECLS)