Walter Benjamin, Pedagogy and the Politics of Youth

Friday 31 May & Saturday 1 June 2013
Fyvie Hall, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London, W1B 2UW

Provisional programme now announced:

Friday 31^st May

13.15-14.00 Registration

14.00 –14.30 Welcome

14.30-15.30 Antonia Birnbaum (Paris 8), ‘The Life of Students is a Great Transformer’

16.00-17.00 Howard Caygill (CRMEP), ‘Attunement and Interference:
Benjamin’s Hölderlin Reading’

Saturday 1^st June

09.45-10.30 Registration

10.30-11.30 Milan Jaros (Newcastle), ‘Quo Vadis? Knowing and being in the digital age’

12.00-13.00 Élise Derroitte (Louvain), ‘Chockerlebnis and Education: Learning from Modern Experience’

13.00-14.15 Lunch

14.15-15.15 Mike Neary (Lincoln), ‘Student as Producer: a pedagogy of the avant-garde; or, how do revolutionary teachers teach?’

15.30-17.00 Howard Eiland (MIT), ‘Education as Awakening’, with Response by Peter Osborne (CRMEP)

The conference is free, open to all and there is no need to pre-register. Attendance on each day will be allocated on a “first come, first served” basis: the registration desk will be open on Friday 31st May from 13:15 – 14:00 and on Saturday 1st June from 9:45 – 10:30 and will be located in the main entrance hall to the University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London.

Further details: http://benjaminpedagogy.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/conference-announcement/

Help publicise the conference: http://www.facebook.com/events/339458196165504/

Wednesday 20th March, 4.00pm – 5.30pm
Room 106, University of Westminster, 32-38 Wells Street, London W1T

Matthew Charles (University of Westminster)
‘Brecht as Educator’

From our friends at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy. Now Open for Registration:

Romantic Transdisciplinarity: Art and the New
May 8–9 2013
Senate House, University of London, Malet Street (http://goo.gl/maps/Sjkmr)

An International Conference about the transdisciplinary legacies of early German Romanticism in contemporary theory and practice in the arts and humanities. Organised by the CRMEP as part of its AHRC project on Transdisciplinarity and the Humanities in collaboration with the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London

Speakers include:
Howard Caygill (CRMEP, Kingston University)
David Cunningham (English, IMCC, University of Westminister)
Boris Groys (Slavic Studies, NYU)
Claude Imbert (Philosophy, ENS, Paris)
Gertrud Koch (Film Studies, Free University Berlin)
Olivier Schefer (Aesthetics, Panthéon Sorbonne, Paris 1)
Alison Stone (Philosophy, Lancaster University)
Hito Steyerl (artist, Berlin)
Peter Weibel (ZKM, Karlsruhe)

Registration is *REQUIRED* via: http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/activities/item.php?updatenum=2379.
Please note that the fees for the conference – waged £60.00; students & unwaged £20.00; Covers tea/coffee, the reception and lunch for both days.

Enquiries to: crmep@kingston.ac.uk

Walter Benjamin, Pedagogy, and the Politics of Youth
Friday 31st May – Saturday 1st June 2013
Fyvie Hall, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW

Co-hosted by the Institute for Modern & Contemporary Culture (IMCC) and the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP).

Participants:
Antonia Birnbaum (Paris
Howard Caygill (CRMEP)
Matthew Charles (Westminster)
Élise Derroitte (Université catholique de Louvain)
Howard Eiland (MIT)
Milan Jaros (Newcastle)
Mike Neary (Lincoln)
Peter Osborne (CRMEP)

The conference is free and open to all. There is no pre-registration and attendance on the day will be allocated on a “first-come, first-served” basis.

Further Information: http://benjaminpedagogy.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/conference-announcement/

David Cunningham’s reviews of Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi’s latest book, The Uprising: On Poetry and Finance, is currently up as a freebie on the Radical Philosophy website here.

Jon Goodbun’s review of Eden Medina’s fascinating Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile is currently up as a freebie on the Radical Philosophy website here.

Here is the list of the next series of English Literature and Culture research seminars taking place this semester. All welcome.

Seminars are fortnightly on Wednesday afternoons, from 4pm to around 5.30pm, and will be held in room 106 in the University’s Wells Street building.

Wednesday 6th February, 4.00pm – 5.15pm (Joint seminar with Westminster School of Law)
Danny Nicol (Westminster School of Law)
‘Legitimacy and Globalised Law in Doctor Who’

Wednesday 20th February, 4.00pm – 5.15pm
Fran Bigman (University of Cambridge)
‘A Bit of Himself: British Male-authored Abortion Narratives from Waste (1907) to Alfie (1966)’

Wednesday 6th March, 4.00pm – 5.15pm
Allan Stoekl (Penn State University / IMCC)
‘Le Corbusier and the Challenge of a Pascalian Technocracy’

Wednesday 20th March, 4.00pm – 5.15pm
Matthew Charles (University of Westminster)
‘Brecht as Educator’

For fans of Jacques Derrida, David Cunningham’s review of Benoit Peeters’s recently published biography, which appears in the latest issue of Radical Philosophy, is currently up as a freebie on the website. You can read it here: http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/web/grande-biog

Reading Group at Carroll / Fletcher Gallery
Chapter 1 | Organizing for the Anti-Capitalist Transition

December 12^th 2012,7.30pm
Caroll / Fletcher, 56-57 Eastcastle Street, London W1W 8EQ

Chapter 1 is the first session in a series of participatory discussions that will use relevant, accessible texts as a starting point. For this opening meeting, we will be considering David Harvey’s 2009 text Organizing for the Anti-Capitalist Transition. In this essay, Harvey analyses the events that have led to the current economic crisis and maps out the various social movements that are currently challenging capitalism.

The discussion will be initiated by David Cunningham, writer, academic and Principal Lecturer in English Literature and Cultural Theory at the University of Westminster and editor at the journal Radical Philosophy; and Jon Goodbun, writer, academic and Senior Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Westminster. The conversation will be open to the audience and their contributions welcome.

To download David Harvey’s text click here

Booking essential as places are limited: carrollfletcher.eventbrite.co.uk

Refreshments will be provided

t +44 (0)20 7323 6111
e info@carrollfletcher.com
www.carrollfletcher.com

Courtesy of our friends in the Centre of the Study of Democracy …

The Prose of the World:
Capitalism, Democracy and the Novel

Dr David Cunningham, University of Westminster
Tuesday November 6, 17:15-18:45 | Westminster Forum, 5th Floor, Wells Street

UPDATE: Video posted at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR5ktvgFqVc&feature=em-share_video_user

Cultural Politics during the French Occupation
Wednesday 10 October 2012, 6 pm – 8 pm, Room 354
University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW

Organised by our colleagues in the Group for War and Culture Studies at Westminster

Alan Riding, best-selling author and journalist, on “Writing with the Enemy”

Alan Riding, a Brazilian-born Briton, is a former foreign correspondent for The New York Times, most recently as the paper’s arts correspondent for Europe. He is author of Distant Neighbors: A Portrait of the Mexicans and co-author of Essential Shakespeare Handbook and Opera. His latest book is And The Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris. He lives in Paris.

David Drake, Emeritus Reader at Middlesex University, on “Jean-Paul Sartre and les années noires.”

David Drake has written two monographs on French Intellectuals and Politics (both published by Palgrave/ Macmillan). He is currently a UK co-editor of Sartre Studies International and is the author of a biography of Sartre (Haus, 2005). He is Emeritus Reader at Middlesex University, and in 2005, was made a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques.

Entrance free. To reserve a place, please R.S.V.P. Dr Caroline Perret: C.Perret@westminster.ac.uk

From our friends at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP), Kingston University

Workshop – Transdisciplinary Problematics
Anti-humanism and Gender Studies
17-18 May 2012, London

This two-day workshop will examine the notion of a transdisciplinary problematic, via the cases of anti-humanism and gender studies. The first day will approach theoretical anti-humanism from the standpoint of its destructive effect upon disciplinary fields in the humanities and as a radical problematisation of the discipline of philosophy in particular. The second day will focus on gender studies as a transdisciplinary problematic and on the transdisciplinary nature of the concept of gender itself. Topics will include the historical reconstruction of ‘gender’ as a boundary-crossing concept; the relation of its conceptual content to its functioning as a general concept across disciplines; the transformation of the disciplines in the humanities by ‘gender’ and gender studies; and the current productivity of ‘gender’.

Day 1: Anti-humanism
17 May 2012, 10.00–18.00
Bolivar Hall, 54 Grafton Way, London WC1

Introduction: Peter Osborne & Eric Alliez (CRMEP, Kingston University)
Etienne Balibar (Philosophy, University of Paris X/Irvine)
‘Anti-Humanism, and the Question of Philosophical Anthropology’
Respondent: Patrice Maniglier (University of Essex)
Nina Power (Philosophy, Roehampton University/Royal College of Art)
‘Is Antihumanism Transdisciplinary?’
David Cunningham (English, University of Westminster)
‘Intersciences, Philosophy and Writing’
Respondent: Simon Morgan Wortham (English, Kingston University)

Day 2: Gender Studies
18 May 2012, 10.00–18.00
Large Common Room, Goodenough College, Mecklenburgh Square, London WC1N

Introduction: Stella Sandford (CRMEP, Kingston University)
Tuija Pulkkinen (Women’s Studies, University of Helsinki)
‘Disciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity in Gender Studies’
Sara Heinamaa (Philosophy, University of Helsinki)
‘Sex, Gender and Embodiment: A Critique of Concepts’
Elsa Dorlin (Political Science, University of Paris VIII)
title tba
Ken Corbett (Psychotherapy & Psychoanalysis, New York University)
‘The Transforming Nexus: Psychoanalysis, Social Theory and Queer Childhood’
Respondent: Lynne Segal (Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck, London)

The event is free, but registration is essential at the following website: http://workshopthree.eventbrite.com/

Further information and background texts, go to: http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/activities/item.php?updatenum=1962

Other enquiries: S.Sandford@kingston.ac.uk

This is the third public workshop of the AHRC-funded project ‘Transdisciplinarity and the Humanities: Problems, Methods, Histories, Concepts’
2011–2013 (AHRC 914469)

Thursday 5 April 2012, 7pm
Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High Street, London E1
Price: £7.00 / £5.00 concessions (includes free glass of wine).

This season’s Whitechapel Salon organised by the IMCC in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery is on ‘Cultures of Capitalism’.  The fifth salon turns to that social and economic form at the very heart of capitalist cultures: Money. In the light of contemporary crises in financial capitalism, Professor Peter Osborne, Director of the Centre for Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University, and author of books including The Politics of Time, Philosophy in Cultural Theory, and Conceptual Art, will be in discussion with David Cunningham about money, cultural form, and the nature of the ‘real’ today.

Book your ticket at:
http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/shop/index.php/fuseaction/shop.product/product_id/1160

David Cunningham will be speaking in the series of ‘Big Ideas’ pub philosophy talks held at the Wheatsheaf in London on Tuesday 27^th March, 8pm. The topic is: ‘Are Cities Important to Philosophy?’ And here’s the blurb:

Socrates in Athens; Kant in Konigsberg; Hegel in Jena; Russell in Oxford; Carnap in Vienna; Sartre in Paris. Cities, of course, attract cultural production of all kinds to themselves, and the great cities act as magnets for philosophers just as they do for artists, entrepreneurs and chancers. But is there something more to the relationship between philosophy and the city? Has the course of Western philosophy been influenced by its overwhelmingly urban setting?

Further details at: http://bigi.org.uk/events/cities-philosophy/

Thursday 5 April 2012, 7pm
Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High Street, London E1
Price: £7.00 / £5.00 concessions (includes free glass of wine).

This season’s Whitechapel Salon organised by the IMCC in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery is on ‘Cultures of Capitalism’.  The fifth salon turns to that social and economic form at the very heart of capitalist cultures: Money. In the light of contemporary crises in financial capitalism, Professor Peter Osborne, Director of the Centre for Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University, and author of books including The Politics of Time, Philosophy in Cultural Theory, and Conceptual Art, will be in discussion with David Cunningham about money, cultural form, and the nature of the ‘real’ today.

Book your ticket at:

http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/shop/index.php/fuseaction/shop.product/product_id/1160?

Thursday 16 February 2012, 7pm
Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High Street, London E1
Price: £7.00 / £5.00 concessions (includes free glass of wine).

This season’s Whitechapel Salon organised by the IMCC in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery is on ‘Cultures of Capitalism’. Our fourth discussion focuses on future of education under contemporary capitalism, with guest participants Mark Fisher, author of Capitalist Realism, Andrew McGettigan, author of the arts and humanities blog Critical Education, and Andrea Phillips, Reader in Fine Art Practice and Director of Research Studies, Goldsmiths. Chaired by Marquard Smith.

Book your ticket at: http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/shop/product/category_id/22/product_id/1120?session_id=1325609439457568b84811bd9f97bb2cb619476b46

UPDATE: Unfortunately Mark Fisher is unable to participate on this occasion because of illness. Hopefully we’ll be able to get him down again for a future event in the Salon series.

David Cunningham’s review of Jacques Ranciere’s The Politics of Literature, published in the latest issue of Radical Philosophy, is currently up as a freebie on the website. You can read it here: http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/uncategorized/flaubert%e2%80%99s-parrot

David Cunningham’s 2005 essay ‘The Concept of Metropolis: Philosophy and Urban Form’, originally published in Radical Philosophy, has been translated into Portuguese by Luciana Rocha for the Brazilian journal Revista Periferia.

Any Portuguese readers can see it here: http://www.febf.uerj.br/periferia/index.html

Radical Philosophy Conference 2011
Columbia University, New York
Friday 21st October 2011, 9am – 7.30pm.

Radical Philosophy will be visiting New York for its 2011 conference, held in collaboration with Columbia University. The event is free but advance registration is essential: radicalphilosophyrsvp@gmail.com

Sessions:
Postcolonial Worlds ∙ Representing Capitalism ∙
Biocapital and Security ∙ Temporalities of Crisis ∙ Politics of Information ∙

Speakers:
Claudia Aradau; Souleymane Bachir Daigne; Tim Bewes; Antonia Birnbaum; Finn Brunton; Marilena Chaui; David Cunningham; Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui; David Golumbia; Harry Harootunian; Esther Leslie; Rosalind C. Morris; Mark Neocleous; Peter Osborne; Kristin Ross; Kaushik Sunder Rajan; Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Further details including conference programme and abstracts at:
http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/uncategorized/radical-philosophy-conference-2011

Register at: radicalphilosophyrsvp@gmail.com

A plug for the new website for Radical Philosophy. The address remains the same – http://www.radicalphilosophy.com – but as well as updating the way the website looks and works, every single item from the back catalogue has now been added to the online archive, from the first Radical Philosophy published in Spring 1972 through to the very latest issue.

Subscribers continue to have full access to and unlimited downloads from the archive, including all articles, interviews and reviews now available from RP1 to the present. Non-subscribing readers will enjoy free access all the commentaries, obituaries, conference and news reports, plus highlights from back issues and new access to hundreds of items from the expanded archive. A new feature of the website will also allow non-subscribers to purchase and download pdfs of individual items from the archive at an affordable price of £3 for any article or interview and £2 for the reviews sections from recent issues.

When the first issue of Radical Philosophy was published in January 1972, it sought – in the wake of the rise of the New Left and the student movements of the 1960s – to challenge the institutional divisions that it saw as contributing to the impoverishment of contemporary philosophical practice: divisions that existed between academic departments, between teachers and their students, and between the university and society. “Our main aim,” the Editorial Collective declared, “is to free ourselves from the restricting institutions and orthodoxies of the academic world, and thereby to encourage important philosophical work to develop: Let a Hundred Flowers Blossom!”. In the ensuing forty years much has changed about contemporary philosophy, in the UK and elsewhere.  But as testified by recent dossiers on transdisciplinarity, campaign reports on the revitalized student movement, and regular philosophically-informed commentaries on contemporary social and political issues, those problematic disciplinary, pedagogical and social divisions continue to be challenged by those writing in Radical Philosophy.

To access the expanded archive, subscribe to the journal, check out selected content from the latest issue, or download the current free gift from the back catalogue – Jacques Rancière’s ‘On the Theory of Ideology’ (originally published in RP7, Spring 1974) – simply click here.