Conference: A Feeling for Things - Jane Bennett, 4-5 October, London



Birkbeck (University of London) offers
another fantastic two-day event in early October, "A Feeling for Things: A Conversation around the work of Jane Bennett". The evening of 4 October will feature a public lecture by Jane Bennett, some of whose work we have already featured on this blog here and here. This will be followed by a full-day workshop on 5 October. Drawing upon academics from a variety of backgrounds - Eileen Joy, João Florêncio, Jussi Parikka, Nigel Clark, Milla Tiainen, Lisa Baraitser and Michael O’Rourke - the event promises to be both a fascinating conversation between politics and philosophy, and a likely crowd-puller.

The public lecture will offer insight into Bennett's current research. The workshop on 5 October seeks to investigate the possible resonances and feedback between the politics of Bennett's work and a variety of other disciplines:

"This two day event makes the writing of Jane Bennett a vibrant matter for discussion across the fields of philosophy, psychosocial studies, political theory, cultural studies, literary theory, visual theory and performance studies among others. In particular, the focus will be on how Bennett’s explorations of vitalism, anthropocentrism, agency, biopolitics and new materialisms contribute to the emerging and fraught conversations between feminist and queer theory, Object Oriented Ontology and Speculative Realism."

Registration to the workshop on 5 October costs £20 for students and Birkbeck staff, £40 for all other attendees, with attendance at the public lecture mandatory for all workshop participants. Links to registration are provided on the event webpage. The public lecture on 4 October is free but booking is required - registration to this is handled through Eventbrite.