The Critical Lede has announced a brand new interview with member of the CCSR Advisory Board Lawrence Grossberg about his new book Cultural Studies in the Future Tense. In the interview Dr. Grossberg discusses the problem of reductionism in much of current cultural studies work, how to remedy it with radical contextuality, culture as both transcendent and particularizing and much more. The interview can be heard by going to http://bit.ly/gHpYG4 and clicking the podcast tab on the top of the page. It can also be accessed for free by searching The Critical Lede on iTunes. The Critical Lede is a weekly podcast focused on critical/cultural communication scholarship.
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Radical Foucault – An International Conference
The Centre For Cultural Studies Research at the University of East London will be hosting a major international conference on September 8th-9th, 2011 which will re-assess Michel Foucault’s contribution to radical thought and the application of his ideas to contemporary politics. What does it mean to draw on Foucault as a resource for radical politics, and how are we to understand the politics which implicitly informs his work?
Keynote speakers will be Stuart Elden, Professor in the Department of Geography, Durham University, one of the founding editors of Foucault Studies and Mark Kelly, Lecturer in Philosophy, Middlesex University, author of The Political Philosophy of Michel Foucault (Routledge, 2009). Please see full call for papers here.
The Politics of Pain – Keep Calm & Carry On?
On December 8th 2010 CCSR held a seminar on the implications of ideas of shared ‘pain’ which have become so central to the coalition government’s discourse of austerity. Speakers were Kate Pickett (co-author of The Spirit Level), Michael Rustin (of UEL and Soundings), and Jeremy Gilbert. Matthew Reisz, writing in the THE, noted how the event coincided with students taking to the streets ‘ahead of last week’s tuition-fees vote’ and the occupation of part of UEL’s campus. An Audio Recording of the seminar is available here and a copy of Jeremy’s paper ‘Sharing the Pain’ is available here.
New CCSR Publication
Creaturely Poetics: Animality and Vulnerability in Literature and Film by Anat Pick
Simone Weil once wrote that “the vulnerability of precious things is beautiful because vulnerability is a mark of existence.” With these words, she established a relationship among vulnerability, beauty, and existence that transcends the boundaries separating the species. Her conception of a radical ethics and aesthetics could be characterized as a new “poetics of species,” that forces us to rethink the significance of the body, both human and animal. Exploring the “logic of flesh,” or how art and culture use the body to mark species identity, Anat Pick reimagines a poetics that begins with the vulnerability of bodies, not the omnipotence of thought.
Offering a powerful alternative to more personalist visions of morality, Pick proposes a “creaturely” approach based on the shared embodiedness of humans and animals and a postsecular perspective on human-animal relations. She turns to literature, film, and other cultural texts that prioritize the inhuman and challenge the familiar inventory of the human (consciousness, language, morality, and dignity). She reintroduces Weil’s crucially important work and its elaboration of themes such as witnessing, commemoration, and collective memory, and she moves away from assumptions about animal “otherness” and nonhuman subjectivities. Pick identifies the “animal” within all humans, emphasizing the corporeal and its issues of power and freedom. In her creaturely view, powerlessness is the point at which both aesthetic and ethical thinking must begin.
Politics of Debt – Podcast now available
A full audio recording is now available of the first of our series of seminars examining the meaning of Debt, Pain and Work in the era of austerity and coalition politics.
The Politics of Debt
The Politics of Debt: Concepts and experiences of debt have become central to the management of contemporary capitalism, to understandings of its consequences and to social experience at every scale. National debt, personal debt, ecological debt are key issues for understanding contemporary culture and politics. But what exactly is debt? Can we manage without it? Are current levels of personal, national, corporate and ecological debt sustainable; and what are the origins of this most fundamental concept?
The 1930s, Photography & Virginia Woolf
Professor Maggie Humm of CCSR has been invited to give the opening talk: ‘The 1930s, Photography and Virginia Woolf’s Flush’ in The Photographers’ Gallery London new series: ‘Writing Photography’. The series is in collaboration with the Journal of Photography and Culture with journal authors speaking about their articles and research.
New Seminar Series: Debt, Pain, Work
Focusing on the themes of debt, pain, and work, the coalition government has attempted to build a new common sense around the need for deep public sector spending cuts, the curtailment of strategic health authority and local governmental influence in the provision of health and education, and the sweeping shift from public sector to private sector delivery. This academic year the Centre for Cultural Studies Research at UEL is holding three linked seminars on the themes of Debt (13 October), Pain (December 1) and Work (date to be confirmed) in order to interrogate the substance of the government’s strategy. Each event will be held at UEL’s Docklands Campus in East London, and will feature speakers from a range of activist, journalistic and research backgrounds.
Handel Kashope Wright interview
CCSR Co-director Mica Nava recently conducted a public interview with Handel Kashope Wright, Canada Research Chair of Comparative Cultural Studies, David Lam Chair of Multicultural Education, Director of the Centre for Culture, Identity and Education and Professor in the Educational Studies Department at the University of British Columbia, Canada. Professor Wright is also on the CCSR Advisory Board. The interview was conducted as part of the Learning Lab series, sponsored by FOMACS and the British Council in Ireland. The Director of FOMACS, Aine O’Brien, is also a member of the CCSR Advisory Board. Video of the interview can be viewed here.
Tim Lawrence at Coventry University’s Symposium on Experimental Music
On 25 September, 2010 CCSR committee member Tim Lawrence will deliver a keynote, ‘Experimental, Pluralism, Minor Deviations and Radical Change’ at Coventry University’s Symposium on Experimental Music.