French Politics: A Neighbour’s ‘History of the Present’ seminar series 2019-20

The IMCC is delighted to announce a series of public lectures to be held at the University of Westminster in collaboration with our friends in the Centre for the Study of Democracy, and with the support of the French Embassy and the Political Studies Association.

Lectures will take place monthly, normally on a Thursday evening from 5.30 – 7.00 pm, and are free to attend, but booking is essential.

Thursday 26th September – Fyvie Hall, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street
Eric Fassin (University Paris 8 Vincennes – Saint-Denis/LEGS): Introduction

Thursday 10th October – Room UG05, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street
Sophie Wahnich (CNRS/TRAM): “Democracy Taken in Vice: Understanding the ‘Yellow Vests’ Event”

Thursday 14th November – Room UG05
Ninon Grangé (University Paris 8/LLCP): on the state of exception

Wednesday 4th December – Room UG05
Fabien Jobard (CNRS/CESDIP): “Liberal, Authoritarian, or Police State? Defining the French State According to its Police”

Thursday 30th January – Fyvie Hall
Syliane Larcher (CNRS/IRIS): on Afrofeminism and French universalism

Thursday 13th February – Fyvie Hall
Sébastien Chauvin (University of Lausanne/CEG): on LGBTQI struggles and French universalism

March 2020 (TBC)
Norman Ajari (University Toulouse 2 Jean Jaurès/ERRAPHIS): on the racialised man produced as a threat in France

April 2020 (TBC)
Elsa Dorlin (University Paris 8): on violence entailed by the denial of France as postcolonial

Thursday 11th June
Nacira Guénif-Souilamas (University Paris 8/CEFEG): on subjectivities who already live as postcolonial

The events are free and open to all, but please do not forget to book on Eventbrite.

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Georgina Colby on Acker at the ICA, August 3 2019

Saturday 3rd August 2019, 2.00 pm
ICA, The Mall, London SW1Y 5AH

IMCC’s Georgina Colby will speak as part of The Labyrinth: A Convening on the Work of Kathy Acker, along with writer Claire Finch, curator of the Kathy Acker Reading Room Daniel Schulz, and artist and writer Matias Viegener.

The Labyrinth centres on a series of presentations from scholars and those engaged with maintaining and furthering the legacy of Acker’s work, extending her lines of thought from artistic, literary and theoretical perspectives. Drawing on close textual readings, the symposium considers Acker’s output – and its relationship to other literary histories – as an engine for new relations, ideas and possibilities.

Details here

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Deaths at Sea: Migration and Art symposium, Weds 10th July 2019

Wednesday 10th July 2019, 6-9 pm
P21 Gallery, 21-27 Chalton Street, London NW1 1JD

Death at Sea: Migration and Art

Accompanying the exhibition Sink Without Trace, co-curated by our colleague Federica Mazzara and the artists Maya Ramsay.

Speakers include:

Iain Chambers, Oriental University, Naples
Almir Koldzic, Co-Director, Counterpoints Arts
Federica Mazzara, Co-Curator of Sink Without Trace
Maya Ramsay, Co-Curator of Sink Without Trace
Valentina Zagaria, London School of Economics
Artists from the Sink Without Trace exhibition

Book a place here.

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One Hundred Years of Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day, October 26 2019

Saturday 26 October
School of Humanities, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2HW

One Hundred Years of Night and Day

In her diary in 1920, Virginia Woolf wrote: ‘I don’t suppose I’ve ever enjoyed any writing so much as I did the last half of N. & D.’ Her happiness with the novel was characteristically short-lived. In 1932 she wrote that ‘N. & D. is dead.’ Likewise with critics, the novel has moved in and out of favour. Coming as it did after the often surreal subversion of the Bildungsroman that is The Voyage Out, it has been sometimes read by Woolf’s contemporaries and more recent critics alike as a step back towards realist fiction. Famously described by Katherine Mansfield in 1920 as ‘Jane Austen up to date,’ and by critic Randy Malamud in 1989 as ‘a stillborn modernist artefact,’ the question of where this novel exists on the spectrum between realist and modern is one that persists in Woolf criticism, right up to present day. But as well as considerations of its position in the broad narrative of Woolf’s relationship to realism and modernism, Night and Day has provided fertile ground for critics to explore a wide range of ideas presented by its content. Its engagement with Shakespeare, with women’s suffrage, with mathematics, with class; its portrait of London; its silence on the First World War – all have led critics to new and exciting enquiries.

One hundred years after its initial publication, this one-day symposium in the heart of London seeks to encourage work that considers Night and Day and its innovations, breaking away from readings of the text as a mis-step to consider the rich, unusual, and sometimes difficult ideas that the novel offers.

Funding is available to contribute towards speaker travel costs. Lunch will be provided.

Please send abstracts of 150-250 words for 20 minute papers to rosie.reynolds@my.westminster.ac.uk by 31stJuly 2019.

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Now online: recordings of CRMEP/IMCC Public Lectures on Philosophy, Politics and Culture 2019

Delighted to say that podcast recordings of the IMCC Public Lectures and Exchanges on Philosophy, Politics and Culture, held in collaboration with the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, held at Westminster between January and March 2019 are now available online.

17 January 2019 – Lecture No 1:
Professor Catherine Malabou (CRMEP, Kingston) –  Is Science the Subject of Philosophy? Miller, Badiou and Derrida

24 January 2019 – Lecture No 2:
Dr Lucy Bond (IMCC, Westminster)/Professor Howard Caygill (CRMEP, Kingston) – Is Memory the Basis of History (After Trump)?

7 February 2019 – Lecture No 3:
Professor Stella Sandford (CRMEP, Kingston) – Reason in Reverse – Kant and Freud on Faults 

28 February 2019 – Lecture No 4:
Dr Radha D’Souza (Westminster Law School)/Professor Peter Hallward (CRMEP, Kingston) – What’s Wrong with Human Rights?

14 March 2019 – Lecture No 5:
Professor Étienne Balibar (CRMEP, Kingston) – Towards a Socialist Cosmopolitanism

28 March 2019 – Lecture No 6:
Dr David Cunningham (IMCC, Westminster)/Professor Peter Osborne (CRMEP, Kingston) – The Poetics of Contemporary Art

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Contested Identitities in Costa Rica seminar, May 2nd 2019

Thursday 2nd May 2019, 1.00 – 2.00 pm
Room 201, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London

Contested Identities in Costa Rica
Liz Harvey-Kattou (School of Humanities, University of Westminster)

Costa Rica is a country known internationally for its eco-credentials, dazzling coastlines, and reputation as one of the happiest and most peaceful nations on earth. Beneath this façade, however, lies an exclusionary rhetoric of nationalism bound up in the concept of the tico, as many Costa Ricans refer to themselves. This paper, based on the monograph of the same name, will begin by considering the idea of national identity, what this constitutes, and the idealised nature of the tico identity. It will argue that the tico encompasses a Eurocentric, patriarchal, heteronormative stance based on colonial ideals. It will go on to outline two key periods in Costa Rican history where the normative construct of who or what counts as tico has been challenged – the ‘sociological revolution’ of the 1970s and the ‘digital revolution’ of the 2010s. It will discuss the creation of radical literature and film in these two time periods, analysing the ways in which Costa Rican authors and filmmakers have used the soft power of creative production to question social norms and weave Afro-Costa Rican, feminist, youth, and LGBT+ cultures and identities into the fabric of the nation.

Organised by our friends in the Latin American Studies at Westminster group.

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Sink Without Trace, June 13 – July 13 2019

Thursday 13th June 2019, 6.00 pm
P21 Gallery, 21- 27 Chalton St, Kings Cross, London, NW1 1JD

Sink Without Trace: Exhibition on Migrant Deaths at Sea

Our friend and colleague Federica Mazzara will be launching her book  Reframing Migration: Lampedusa, Border Spectacle and Aesthetics of Subversion, on June 13th at the P21 Gallery in London at 6pm in the context of the exhibition Sink Without Trace, on migrant death at sea, that she has co-curated with artist Maya Ramsay. The book launch is part of a series of events related to the exhibition, including a final symposium with guest speakers including Iain Chambers and Valentina Zagaria. Full details and registration here.

Full details about the exhibition and venue here.

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MPhil/PhD Scholarships in the Institute

The School of Humanities at the University of Westminster, in which the IMCC is based, is offering two studentships – including a fee waiver of home/EU fees* and stipend of £16,777 per annum for three years full-time study – to commence in either September 2019 or January 2020.

The School of Humanities, based in the University’s historic Regent Street building, offers a vibrant, multidisciplinary research environment. There is a well-established PhD programme and you can study in, or across, a wide range of disciplines, including Contemporary Chinese Studies, English Language, English Literature, French and Francophone Studies, History, Linguistics, Museums and Heritage, Translation Studies, Visual Culture and Cultural Studies.

We welcome applications for doctoral projects which span two or more areas of expertise.

To discuss informally where your research idea might fit within our specialisms, or for queries about any aspect of the application process, please contact Dr Helen Glew h.glew@westminster.ac.uk in the first instance.

For details on how to apply, please visit our How to apply page. Please follow these links to apply for the programme most appropriate to your research. Note that the programme appears as MPhil on UCAS, however there is an option on the form to request PhD via MPhil, which is the standard route:

The Studentship title is Humanities studentship. The closing date for applications is 5pm on 17th May. Interviews will be held during the week beginning 17th June.

*Please note that while overseas fee paying students may apply, the fee waiver would be at the home/EU rate and successful applicants will need to pay the difference in the tuition fee if assessed as overseas.

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Revolution and Resentment in Gissing and James seminar, Weds 3rd April 2019

Wednesday 3 April 2019, 5.00 pm
Room UG04, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B

 

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Race, Occidentalism/Orientalism and Sino-centrism in Wang Chong’s adaptation of Heiner Müller’s Hamletmachine

Thursday 4th April 2019, 5.00-6.30 pm
UG05 Lecture Theatre, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street

Race, Occidentalism/Orientalism and Sino-centrism in Wang Chong’s adaptation of Heiner Müller’s Hamletmachine (2009) and his multi-lingual show Revolutionary Model Play 2.0 (2015)
Mary Mazzilli (University of Essex)

Dr Mary Mazzilli is Lecturer in the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies at Essex. Prior to that, she worked at Goldsmiths, University of London in the Theatre and Performance Department (2015-2016) and in 2012-2014, was a post-doctoral fellow at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her monograph Gao Xingjian’s Post-Exile Plays: Transnationalism and Postdramatic Theatre is published by Bloomsbury Methuen Drama.

Organised by our friends in HOMELandS, the Contemporary China Centre and Language Acts and Worldmaking.

Register via Eventbrite page here.

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Poetics of Contemporary Art, March 28th

Thursday 28th March, 6.00 pm
Fyvie Hall, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B

Poetics of Contemporary Art
Peter Osborne (CRMEP) and David Cunningham (IMCC)

The final in our series of six public lectures and exchanges on philosophy, politics and culture is a discussion of the Poetics of Contemporary Art with Peter Osborne, Director of the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Kingston, and David Cunningham, Deputy Director of the Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture.

All the events have been recorded. We will be posting links soon!

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Multisensory engagement and the transcultural object seminar, March 20th

Wednesday 20 March 2019, 5.00 pm
Room UG04, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B

 

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Etienne Balibar on Socialist Cosmopolitanism,Thurs 14th March

Thursday 14 March 2019, 18:00 – 20:00 pm
Fyvie Hall, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B

Towards a Socialist Cosmopolitanism
Etienne Balibar (CRMEP, Kingston University)

The fifth in a series of six Public Lectures on Philosophy, Politics and Culture, co-organised by the IMCC with the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy.

Etienne Balibar is Anniversary Chair Professor in Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University and a Visiting Professor at the Department of French and Romance Philology at Columbia University. A contributor to Louis Althusser’s seminal Reading Capital (1965), he is author of Spinoza and Politics (1985), The Philosophy of Marx (1993), Violence and Civility (2010), Citizen Subject (2011) and Equaliberty (2014), among many other works. His most recent book, Secularism and Cosmopolitanism: Critical Hypotheses on Religion and Politics, was published in English translation by Columbia University Press in 2018.

Chaired by Elinor Taylor (IMCC).

The event is free, but booking via eventbrite is essential. You can book here.

Details on the rest of the series can be found here.

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Reassessing the writings of Patrick Brontë: ‘Liberal Toryism’, post-war politics, and the question of literary value, March 6th 2019

Wednesday 6th March 2019, 5:00 pm
Room UG04, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London

 

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Cultural Representations of the Female Telephone Operator seminar, February 20th

Wednesday 20th February 2019, 5:00 pm
Room UG04, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London

 

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The Socrates of Prague, film showing, March 11th, Regent Street Cinema

Monday 11 March 2019, 18:30 pm
Regent Street Cinema, 307 Regent Street, London W1B

The Socrates of Prague

In 1977, in Prague, a city at the heart of Europe, the philosopher Jan Patočka became the unlikely spokesperson for Charta 77 — a proclamation signed by a number of dissidents and issued to the communist authorities that pointed out the flagrant disregard of the norms of freedom and legality by the Communist authorities in the then Czechoslovakia. As a result of this principled action Patočka famously suffered the same fate as his hero Socrates, collapsing and dying after a lengthy interrogation by the secret police, at the age of 69. It is largely to Patočka that we owe Vaclav Havel’s famous call for ‘Living in Truth’ and the need for both civility and civil society. As a philosopher Patočka therefore played an important part in laying the foundations for the non-violent overthrow of Communism in Czechoslovakia in 1989, the so-called ‘Velvet Revolution’.

The Socrates of Prague film explores the life and thought of this extraordinary man with several students and friends who in the 1960s and 70s witnessed Patočka’s intellectual and political efforts, and shared with him the intense desire for a social and political renewal after the dramatic end of the Prague Spring in 1968. The main film is in English and is 17 minutes long. It will be shown along with another short film about Jan Patočka made by the Patočka Archive in Prague (and shown with English subtitles). The event will also feature short talks by Franceso Tava, Senior Lecturer at the University of the West of England in Bristol; Nicolas de Warren Nicolas, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Penn State University; and Graham Henderson, who is leading on the publication of a selected edition of Patočka’s work in English translation, due to be published by Bloomsbury in 2020.

Hosted by the Rimbaud and Verlaine Foundation, it is being held in partnership with, and supported by, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Westminster. It is also being supported by the Czech Centre in London and by the Patočka Archives in Prague.

This event is free of charge but please RSVP in advance to info@rimbaudverlaine.org to reserve a place. These will be allocated on a strictly first come, first served basis. Please reserve your place now to avoid disappointment!

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Difference Festival, February 25th to March 1st 2019

There are a whole host of fantastic events organised by IMCC members and affiliates that are happening as part of the Difference festival at the University of Westminster, focusing this year on the idea of the ‘radical’.

Monday 25th February, 6.00 -8.00 pm
Regent Street Cinema

Hold me like before: radical trans representation on film

Join us for a screening of this independent Costa Rican film Hold Me Like Before (Abrázame Como Antès, 2016; in Spanish with English subtitles). Taking place at the historic Regent Street Cinema, the documentary-style film is followed by a Skype Q&A with director Jurgen Ureña and a panel discussion on transgender representation on film and on the radical way the director went about the filmmaking process. Led by Liz Harvey-Katou, Senior Lecturer in Spanish Language and Culture, with Margherita Sprio, Reader in Film and Visual Culture.

Book your place

Tuesday 26th February, 12.30 – 2.00 pm
Foyer, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street

Picpoetry radical jam

Discover the visual poet in you with picpoet’s radical way of seeing and feeling the world around you through role-play. Take a walk around the university, discover unexplored angles and new ways of thinking and being. Radicalise the ‘Lawscape’ by exploring how norms allow us to move in certain ways and impede us in others. Take quick pictures and write instant texts that capture your own position with regards to what you see. With an opportunity to win modest but fun prizes. Led by Law and Theory Professor Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, the picpoet.

Book your place

Wednesday 27th and Thursday 28th February, 12.30 – 2.00 pm
Old Gym and Foyer, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street

Banner up! a radical take-over

As you walk through into our Regent Street entrance, drop by and become an activist in our two-day ‘take-over’ using our workshops and activity stations set up there. Make a cartoon or a political placard in our workshops, or your own badge at our activity station. Your creation will feature in our installation of placards and banners to celebrating this year’s Difference Festival radical theme. Led by students and alumni of our MA Museums, Galleries and Contemporary Culture with the Cartoon Museum and Peter Ride, Principal Research Fellow, School of Humanities and IMCC.

Book your place

Wednesday 27th February, 12.00 – 1.00 pm
Soho Poly Theatre Basement (meet in Foyer), University of Westminster, 4-12 Little Titchfield Street

Radical voices: poetry matters   

Drawing on previous radical Soho Poly Project experiments disrupting time and space with our lunchtime theatre, found sounds and ghost gigs projects, we return to Poetry Matters and the history of poetry at the Polytechnic offering two radical takes. First, Mike Garry, Writer in Residence at Westminster Law School, offers his own radical take on poetry. Second, we offer a further radical take, again disrupting time and space and streaming this lunchtime performance live. Expect surprises. Organised by Guy Osborn, Professor of Law and Matt Morrison, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing, working with Anna McNally, Senior Archivist.

Book your place

Wednesday 27th February, 1.30 – 3.00 pm
Soho Poly Theatre Basement (meet in Foyer), University of Westminster, 4-12 Little Titchfield Street

The radical in popular culture: alternative theatre in Westminster, a virtual tour

Take a virtual visit of sites and venues in the borough of Westminster to discover why it became a centre of innovative theatre. Tour includes: Inter-Action’s Ambiance lunchtime theatre club in Queensway, their staging of Britain’s first Black Theatre and their time at the Almost Free Theatre in Rupert Street, scene of Britain’s first women’s theatre season in 1974 and first gay theatre season in 1975; the ground-breaking Soho Poly (later the Soho Theatre); the ILEA’s Cockpit Theatre; and the ICA’s controversial socialist theatre season. Find out also about the Cartoon Archetypal Slogan Theatre (CAST), and writing initiatives such as Foco Novo and Joint Stock. Led by our guest Susan Croft, playwright, historian and curator, and Unfinished Histories; organised by Guy Osborn and Matt Morrison, with Anna McNally.

Book your place

Wednesday 27th February, 6.00 – 9.00 pm
Fyvie Hall, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street

Radical film: voyeurism in documentary filmmaking on migration

Together with a screening, we invite you to sit at our Long Table and take part in discussions with filmmakers, protagonists, curators and activists sharing their work and radical strategies to resist voyeurism in film-making on forced migration. Explore our positions as storytellers, curators and media consumers, think about the responsibilities of those who create visual narratives based on another’s experience and engage with some of those to whom these stories belong. Everyone is welcome to take a seat at the Long Table, breaking down hierarchies of ‘spectator’ and ‘expert’; come and go between table and audience and help the conversation outside on leaving the table. Led by Alternative Fictions, a collective of visual anthropologists and documentary makers, and Migration Collective; organised by Federica Mazzara, Senior Lecturer in Intercultural Communication, and Lily Parrot, School of Law and co-founder of Migration Collective.

Book your place

Thursday 28th February, 6.00 – 8.00 pm
UG04, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street

Radical curation: race, memory and activism in heritage practice

Join us as we bring together activists, heritage professionals and academics developing new strategies to counter the naturalisation of racial injustice. This roundtable and Q&A examine the challenges of representing and commemorating black and minority histories. Together, we explore ways to bring marginalised pasts to public attention and make hidden histories visible. Followed by a drinks reception. Led by Lucy Bond, Lecturer in English Literature, School of Humanities and IMCC, and Jessica Rapson, Lecturer in Cultural and Creative Industries, King’s College London, with activists and heritage professionals from Tate, Museum of London, Black Cultural Archives, Black History Walks and the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent (OWAAD).

Book your place

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Stella Sandford on Reason in Reverse, February 7th 2019

Thursday 7 February 2019, 18:00 – 20:00 pm
Fyvie Hall, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B

Reason in Reverse: Kant and Freud on Faults
Stella Sandford (CRMEP, Kingston University)

The third in a series of six Public Lectures on Philosophy, Politics and Culture, co-organised by the IMCC with the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy.

Stella Sandford is Professor in Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University. She is author of Plato and Sex (2010), How to Read Beauvoir (2006) and The Metaphysics of Love (2000), as well as co-editor of Further Adventures of the Dialectic of Sex: Critical Essays on Shulamith Firestone (2010).

Chaired by Leigh Wilson (IMCC).

The event is free, but booking via eventbrite is essential. You can book here.

Details on the rest of the series can be found here.

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Dennis Duncan, Nitpickers vs Windbags: Weaponizing the Book Index, February 6th

Wednesday 6th February 2019, 6:00 pm
Room UG04, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London

Dennis Duncan
“Nitpickers vs Windbags: Weaponizing the Book Index”

 

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Is Memory the Basis of History (After Trump)?, IMCC and CRMEP exchange, Thursday 24th January 6pm

Thursday 24 January 2019, 18:00 – 20:00 pm
Fyvie Hall, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B

Is Memory the Basis of History (After Trump)?
Lucy Bond (IMCC) & Howard Caygill (CRMEP, Kingston University)

The second in a series of six Public Lectures on Philosophy, Politics and Culture, co-organised by the IMCC with the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy.

Lucy Bond is Senior Lecturer in American Literature and Culture at the University of Westminster. She is author of Frames of Memory After 9/11 (2015), co-editor of The Transcultural Turn (2014) and Memory Unbound (2016), and co-author of the forthcoming Trauma in the Routledge New Critical Idiom series.

Howard Caygill is Professor of Philosophy at Kingston University. Among other works, he is author of Kafka: In Light of the Accident (2017), On Resistance: A Philosophy of Defiance (2013), Levinas and the Political (2002) and Walter Benjamin: The Colour of Experience (1998).

Chaired by John Beck (IMCC).

The event is free, but booking via eventbrite is essential. You can book here.

Details on the rest of the series can be found here.

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