Conference: Philosophy after Nature, 3-5 September, Utrecht

 

Fresh off the presses, and with the digital ink still wet (or non-existent) on their new website, comes a ridiculously exciting joint Annual Conference of the Society for European Philosophy and Forum for European Philosophy, held at Utrecht on 3-5 September and entitled "Philosophy after Nature". While the call for papers remains wide, encompassing "all areas of contemporary European philosophy"), conference organisers are keen for contributions and panels which address the titular theme of the event - "Philosophy after Nature",

"in the sense of being in pursuit of nature's consequences. We invite perspectives on critique, science, ecology, technology and subjectivity as bound up with conceptions of nature and experiments with various positions in contemporary thought."

Confirmed plenary speakers currently include eminent figures Françoise Balibar, Rahel Jaeggi, Mark B. N. Hansen and (most enviably for this reporter) Michel Serres. Abstracts are due by 17 May 2014, which leaves plenty of time to produce presentation and panel proposals. The conference website currently lacks content, but the CFP can be found at the Society for European Philosophy website. Academics, graduate students and independent scholars are all welcome to submit.

Conference: Authority & Political Technologies 2014, 2-3 June, Warwick

Recently announced conference event "Authority & Political Technologies 2014: Power in a World of Becoming, Entanglement & Attachment" is aiming for a reinvigoration of post-structuralist theory at its intersection with the social sciences in early June this year at the University of Warwick. The Institute for Advanced Study gives this intriguing statement of intention:

"the issues that post-structuralist theory placed on the critical social science agenda have become more vital than ever - be that the concern for the complex and dispersed nature of power and agency; the imbrication of power and economics with knowledge and science; rethinking the relation between equality and difference; the political/contested/changing nature of embodiment, biology and ecology; or the efforts of states and others to establish and exercise power over life itself. We maintain that now is the time, not to reject post-structuralist perspectives, but to reinvigorate and transform those traditions through empirical and political work that is creatively engaged with current problems."

No less ambitiously, the conference promises a thrillingly line-up of excellent keynote speakers - Louise Armoore, William Connolly, Christian Borch, Costas Douzinas, Amade M'charek, Luciana Parisi and AbdouMaliq Simone - which guarantees provocative discussion on the conference topics from diverse academic perspectives within the humanities.

Abstract submission is open until 10 March, with suggested themes raging from biopolitics and religion to necropolitics and authority. Further information can be found on the conference website along with the online abstract submission form.

Conference: Luce Irigaray Circle Conference: Topologies of Sexual Difference, Melbourne 10-12 December 2014

Model and image by Steven Stahlberg

After a prolonged absence, Ky is back (with profuse apologies) to present the recently announced Luce Irigaray Circle Conference: Topologies of Sexual Difference. Taking place (perhaps quite aptly) in Antipodean Melbourne over three days from 10-12 December 2014, the conference seems particularly positioned so as to engage with Irigaray's work in relation to growing academic interest in posthumanism, new materialisms, sensory studies and critical geographies.

"In order to think and to experience sexual difference, Irigaray suggests that the Western tradition's conception of space and time could be reconsidered. There are at least three senses of topologies we seek to address: as the places in which bodies are and become, as ideal spaces of conceptualization, and as the designation of specific contexts."

Confirmed keynotes include American-based scholars Elizabeth Grosz and Pheng Cheah, with further keynotes to be announced at a later date. The conference intends to embrace a diverse variety of humanities-based disciplines and will include an exhibition of visual art.

Organisers are currently seeking abstracts and exhibition proposals. As an extra incentive for current PhD candidates or recent graduates, the Irigaray Circle is also sponsoring the 6th annual Karen Burke Memorial Prize for the best submitted paper. More information and email contacts can be found at the Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy.

Exhibition & Events: The Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret, London

Tucked away up the stairs of a little English Baroque church in Southwark, London lies the historic Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret, the oldest operating theatre in Europe. Built into the herb garret of St Thomas's Hospital over 180 years ago and rediscovered in 1956, this little handful of rooms crammed full of Victorian medical oddities is a modest but fascinating counterpart to the Surgeons' Hall Museum in Edinburgh.

Like that museum, the Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret also hosts a packed schedule of lectures and events on a variety of medicine-related topics, including the history of pathology, after-death photography and the operated body in film and literature. A detailed list of their events for the next two months can be found on the museum website, along with detailed histories of St Thomas's, Guy's and Evelina Children's Hospitals in London, resources for the history of medicine, a digital catalogue of the objects on display at the museum, and more.

Thanks go to the blog post on Penny Dreadful Delights for giving us the opportunity to know about this obscure but special space.

Conference: Matter, Life and Resistance, 1-2 July 2013, Canterbury

The Centre for Critical Thought at the University of Kent in Canterbury has announced a two-day conference entitled Matter, Life and Resistance, taking place in Canterbury on 1-2 July 2013. Located within the general field of political theory, the event seeks to explore the crossover, feedback and influence (both historically and in current trends) of theories of materialism, vitalism and resistance within the discipline. The lineup of keynote speakers features Samantha Frost, whose work engages with the body, biology, feminism and new materialisms; and Sjoerd van Tuinen, prolific scholar specialising on Deleuze and Sloterdijk.

 

Proposals are still wanted, with suggested areas for contributions including, inter alia: reinterpreting the history of political thought, particularly the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century materialists; connecting a poststructuralist conceptualisation of of life, matter and resistance with biology and the neurosciences (ontogenesis, transductive relations, plasticity, synaptogenesis); and the consequences of speculative materialism in political theory. The deadline for abstracts is set for 5 May 2013. More details can be found on the Matter, Life and Resistance conference blog.