The Concept of Educative Experience in Walter Benjamin’s Critical Theory

Walter Benjamin

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Talk by Matthew Charles (University of Westminster)

At the UCL Institute of Education

20 Bedford Way, London, WC1H 0AL

Wednesday, 19^th July 2019

5.00pm – 7.15pm

Room 828

 

Free

Open to All

No booking required

 

Organised by Judith Suissa for the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain (PESGB), London Branch

 

Following a revival of interest in a theory and practice of learning influenced by the critical theory of Walter Benjamin, Matthew Charles (University of Westminster) proposes to examine Benjamin’s philosophy of education through the focus of his concept of educative experience.

 

Matthew Charles

Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities, University of Westminster.

Matthew is the author of a forthcoming book ‘Modernism Between Benjamin and Goethe’, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, forthcoming entries on Walter Benjamin for the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and chapters and articles on critical theory and education in the Sage Handbook of Frankfurt School Critical Theory, Pedagogies of Disaster, New German Critique, Boundary Two, Studies in Philosophy and Education, Pedagogy, Culture and Society and Radical Philosophy. His next book, to be published in Punctum’s Risking Education imprint, is on the ‘educational grotesque’.

See: https://benjaminpedagogy.wordpress.com/2019/06/11/talk-the-concept-of-educative-experience-in-walter-benjamins-critical-theory-wed-19th-july-2019-london/ and https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/events/2019/jun/concept-educative-experience-walter-benjamins-critical-theory

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

How the Commodity Form Dies

Adorno

HOW THE COMMODITY FORM DIES

Stream on Critical Theory: “How the Commodity Form Dies”
Historical Materialism Conference 2014 “How Capitalism Survives”
Eleventh Annual Historical Materialism London Conference – 6-9 November 2014 – Vernon Square, Central London

More than ever the theoretical implications of Marx’s theory of capital haunt the never fully established world order of capitalist production and consumption. Capitalism is always changing, its elementary form, the commodity form, however, survives. Already in the 1930s, Walter Benjamin wrote: “The experience of our generation: that capitalism will not die a natural death.” Today we might add: capitalism even survives its own death. The secret of its undead nature resides in its “sensuous-supra-sensuous” form, the commodity form. But how can a zombie die?

In the last decades, the intertwinement of the commodity form and the shape of time and space has been widely discussed. Scholars like Moishe Postone, Antonio Negri, Fredric Jameson, Michael Heinrich, David Harvey, David McNally, Massimiliano Tomba, Daniel Bensaïd, Stavros Tombazos, Neil Smith et al. have deepened our understanding of capital’s global dynamics of spatialization and temporalization.

This stream draws on this research and expands it to the site of language and symbolic economies: how does the commodity form survive by creating economico-linguistic structures beyond meaning? If we conceive of today’s global capitalism not only as an economic system but also as a global language in the crude sense, we can detect a “commodity language” (Marx), a real-abstract mode of the production of value and signification. Capitalism, however, is transcendentally meaningless.

This stream is interested in new assessments of theories central to Marx and Critical Theory such as critique, society, reification, second nature, natural history, commodification, fetishism, historical time, value, money, exchange, equivalence, ideology, domination, class, capital, social reproduction, epistemology, subjectivity etc.

The stream is particularly interested in (but not limited to) papers that address:

• New perspectives on the contemporary relevance of Marx’s thought for Critical Theory (Heinrich, Bonefeld et al.) which explore the relationship between Marx and the work of early Frankfurt School (Adorno, Horkheimer et al.)
• Productive and elective affinities between Marx, figures from the Frankfurt School and other critical theorists such as Bataille, Bensaid, Althusser, Foucault, Open Marxism, Postone, Heinrich, Kurz, Dieter Wolf, Castoriadis, Illyenkov, Bogdanov, etc.
• Monetary theory of value, state theory and the tradition of “Neue Marx-Lektüre” (from Pashukanis and Rubin to Backhaus and Reichelt)
• The question of “real abstraction” and the unity of commodity form and thought form (Alfred Sohn-Rethel)
• Theories of reification (Lukács)
• Theories of communization and value-form theory
• The intertwinement of capital, time and space
• Symbolic economies of “commodity language” (Marx, Hamacher, Goux, Derrida, Lacan, Lefebvre et al.)
• Adorno and the imagelessness of the political imaginary
• “Capitalist realism” (M. Fisher) and the aesthetic of the commodity form
• The biopolitical regulation of the population both as the collective exposure to a permanent state of exception (Benjamin, Agamben, Esposito et al.) and as the neoliberal condition of individual self-management (e.g. Virno’s “Grammar of the Multitude” or Lazzarato’s “Making of the Indebted Man”)
Stream coordinators: Sami Khatib (Berlin) Chris O’Kane (Seattle)

Register you abstracts here by 1 June 2014: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/conferences/annual11/submit

 

Communisation

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskpoint.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

On Changing the World – by Michael Lowy

Michael Lowy

ON CHANGING THE WORLD – BY MICHAEL LÖWY

NEW FROM HAYMARKET BOOKS

ON CHANGING THE WORLD: Essays in Political Philosophy, from Karl Marx to Walter Benjamin

BY Michael Löwy

—————————-

This collection of lively and insightful essays – including several translated to english for the first time – cover a wide range of topics and figures too often neglected by the dominant trends in Marxist literature. Löwy offers a unique exploration of the role of romanticism as one of the key sources of the Marxist critque of capitalist civilization. And he shows how Rosa Luxemburg, Antonio Gramsci, and Walter Benjamin all share an understanding of socialism as the only truly human alternative to the modern forms of exploitation and oppression found in a capitalist society. Similar themes are pursued in the engaging essays on religion, utopia, and other topics.

—————————-

“Only the Stalinist gospel of convenient quotations is dead, not Marxist writing. Michael Löwy illustrates the vitality of the latter. His collection of essays, combining scholarship with passion, impresses by its sweep and scope. It ranges from liberation theology to the problem of ‘progress’ in Walter Benjamin. And, since it tackles such issues as utopia and nationalism, the book is also highly topical.”
—Daniel Singer, author, Deserter from Death

—————————-

MICHAEL LÖWY is research director in sociology at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris. He is the author of many books, including Romanticism Against the Tide of Modernity, and Marxism and Liberation Theology.

—————————-

Released March 2013

Trade Paper $19.00 | 210 pages | ISBN: 9781608461899 | Bulk discounts available

Click to buy and for more details: http://goo.gl/Tmrey

For review or desk copies, or to schedule an interview with the author, contact

John McDonald, john@haymarketbooks.org, 773-583-7884, www.haymarketbooks.org

First published at: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/new-from-haymarket-on-changing-the-world-essays-in-political-philosophy-from-karl-marx-to-walter-benjamin-by-michael-lowy

**END**

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales); and at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo (new remix, and new video, 2012)

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

The Religion of Capital

Religion

THE RELIGION OF CAPITAL: SOME UNFAITHFUL REFLECTIONS ON WEBER, BENJAMIN AND AGAMBEN

Seminar by Dr Alberto Toscano (Sociology, Goldsmiths), which is part of RUPE Political Theology seminar series 2013

14 March 2013, 05:30 – 19:30

Richard Hoggart Building, Room 141
Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, London, SE14 6NW

This talk will explore the links between political theology and economic theology that can be gleaned from the writings of Max Weber, Walter Benjamin, Giorgio Agamben and others (among whom Marx’s nephew Paul Lafargue, author of the curious drama ‘The Religion of Capital’). The aim of the exercise will be to ascertain the extent to which a confrontation with the real abstractions of capital can serve to problematise the recent centrality ascribed to political theology in general, and sovereignty in particular, as a matrix for social power in our societies. Or, what the abstract domination of capitalist equivalence as ‘the religion of everyday life’ (Marx) may tell us about the continued function of the sovereign decision.

First published in: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/alberto-toscano-the-religion-of-capital-some-unfaithful-reflections-on-weber-benjamin-and-agamben-goldsmiths-14-march

**END**

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales); and at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo (new remix, and new video, 2012)

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Sixth International Critical Theory Conference

Moishe Postone

SIXTH INTERNATIONAL CRITICAL THEORY CONFERENCE – ROME

CALL FOR PAPERS

6TH INTERNATIONAL CRITICAL THEORY

CONFERENCE OF ROME

Stream on Marx and the Frankfurt School: New Perspectives and their Contemporary Relevance.

May 6-8^th, 2013

John Felice Rome Center of Loyola University Chicago

Website– http://romecriticaltheory2013.wordpress.com/

 

Recent years have seen a flourishing of new perspectives on the contemporary relevance of Karl Marx’s thought. Very little of this thought has been applied to the relationship between Marx and the work of the Frankfurt School.  Instead, with the notable exception of scholars such as Werner Bonefeld and Moishe Postone, much of the work on Marx and the Frankfurt School in the Anglophone world is still approached through paradigms such as the Marxist Humanist discourse of alienation or of scholarly interpretations established by Jurgen Habermas, Martin Jay and Gillian Rose. This stream aims to bring together the best contemporary scholarship offering new perspectives on the relationship between Marx and the Frankfurt School and to consider the contemporary relevance of this relationship.

Possible topics include:

·      New assessments of the relationship between Marx and major figures from the Frankfurt School including Horkheimer, Adorno, Benjamin, Marcuse, Habermas and Honneth.

·      New assessments of the relationship between Marx and minor figures from the Frankfurt School including: Sohn-Rethel, Kracauer, Kirchheimer, Löwenthal Neumann, Pollack, Wittfogel, Negt, Kluge, Schmidt, Backhaus, Reichelt.

·      Comparative accounts of different figures from the Frankfurt School’s interpretation of Marx.

·      New assessments of theories central to Marx and thinkers from the Frankfurt School such as critique, society, reification, second nature, natural history, commodification, fetishism, value, money, exchange, equivalence, ideology, domination, class, capital, social reproduction, epistemology, subjectivity etc.

·      New assessments of the reception and the influence of the Frankfurt School’s relation to Marx in national and international contexts.

·      Importance that the ideas of Marx and the Frankfurt School have for contemporary theories of capital, crisis, social domination, subjectivity, the state, epistemology, class, critical pedagogy, emancipatory politics, and issues of crisis, social reproduction, ecological catastrophe etc.

·      Criticisms different Marxisms or critical theories might have of thinkers from the Frankfurt School.

·      Criticisms the thinkers from the Frankfurt School might have of Marx and different Marxisms.

·      Productive and elective affinities between Marx, figures from the Frankfurt School and other critical theorists such as Bataille, Bensaid, Althusser, Foucault, Open Marxism, Postone, Heinrich, Kurz, Dieter Wolf, Castoriadis, Illyenkov, Bogdanov, etc.

·      Productive and elective affinities between Marx, figures from the Frankfurt School and other Marxist schools such as Autonomism, Political Marxism, Open Marxism, communisation and value-form theory.

·      Contextualizing the reception of Marx and the Frankfurt School in the work of Martin Jay, Gillian Rose, Jurgen Habermas etc.

 

If you are interested in presenting a paper or organizing a panel (of up to 3 speakers), please submit a 1-2 page abstract by February 28, 2013 (including name and institutional affiliation). Abstracts should be submitted by email to the stream coordinator Chris O’Kane at: theresonlyonechrisokane@gmail.com

Decisions regarding the program will be made by March 2013.

First published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/6th-international-critical-theory-conference-of-rome-6-8-may-2013

 

**END**

 

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales); and at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo (new remix, and new video, 2012)  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: https://rikowski.wordpress.com

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Marx and the Frankfurt School – Call for Papers

Theodor Adorno

MARX AND THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL – CALL FOR PAPERS

CALL FOR PAPERS

6TH INTERNATIONAL CRITICAL THEORY CONFERENCE OF ROME

Stream on Marx and the Frankfurt School: New Perspectives and their Contemporary Relevance

May 6-8, 2013

John Felice, Rome Center of Loyola University Chicago

Recent years have seen a flourishing of new perspectives on the contemporary relevance of Karl Marx’s thought. Very little of this thought has been applied to the relationship between Marx and the work of the Frankfurt School. Instead much of the work on Marx and the Frankfurt School is still approached through paradigms such as the Marxist Humanist discourse of alienation or of scholarly interpretations established by Jurgen Habermas, Martin Jay and Gillian Rose. This stream aims to bring together the best contemporary scholarship offering new perspectives on the relationship between Marx and the FrankfurtSchool and to consider the contemporary relevance of this relationship.

Possible topics include:

·      New assessments of the relationship between Marx and major figures from the Frankfurt School including Horkheimer, Adorno, Benjamin, Marcuse, Habermas and Honneth.

·      New assessments of the relationship between Marx and minor figures from the Frankfurt School including: Sohn-Rethel, Kracauer, Kirchheimer, Löwenthal Neumann, Pollack, Wittfogel, Negt, Kluge, Schmidt, Backhaus, Reichelt.

 ·      Comparative accounts of different figures from the Frankfurt School’s interpretation of Marx.

 ·      New assessments of theories central to Marx and thinkers from the Frankfurt School such as critique, society, reification, second nature, natural history, commodification, fetishism, value, money, exchange, equivalence, ideology, domination, class, capital, social reproduction, epistemology, subjectivity etc.

 ·      New assessments of the reception and the influence of the Frankfurt School’s relation to Marx in national and international contexts.

 ·      Importance that the ideas of Marx and the Frankfurt School have for contemporary theories of capital, social domination, subjectivity, the state, epistemology, class, critical pedagogy, emancipatory politics, and issues of crisis, social reproduction, ecological catastrophe etc.

 ·      Criticisms different Marxisms or critical theories might have of thinkers from the FrankfurtSchool.

 ·      Criticisms the thinkers from the FrankfurtSchool might have of Marx and different Marxisms.

 ·      Productive and elective affinities between Marx, figures from the Frankfurt School and other Marxists such as Bataille, Bensaid, Foucault, Open Marxism, Althusser, Heinrich, Kurz, Dieter Wolf, Castoriadis, Illyenkov, Bogdanov, etc.

 ·      Productive and elective affinities between Marx, figures from the Frankfurt School and other Marxist schools such as Autonomism, Political Marxism, Open Marxism, communisation and value-form theory.

 

If you are interested in presenting a paper or organizing a panel (of up to 5 speakers), please submit a 1-2 page abstract by February 28, 2013 (including name and institutional affiliation). Abstracts should be submitted by email to the stream coordinator Chris O’Kane at theresonlyonechrisokane@gmail.com

Decisions regarding the program will be made by March 2013.

 

First published at: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/cfp-stream-on-marx-and-the-frankfurt-school-new-perspectives-and-their-contemporary-relevance-1

 

**END**

 

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

 

Glenn Rikowski’s paper, Critical Pedagogy and the Constitution of Capitalist Society has been published at Heathwood Press as a Monthly Guest Article for September 2012, online at:

http://www.heathwoodpress.com/monthly-guest-article-august-critical-pedagogy-and-the-constitution-of-capitalist-society-by-glenn-rikowski/

 

Heathwood Press: http://www.heathwoodpress.com 

The Philosophy of Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin

THE PHILOSOPHY OF WALTER BENJAMIN

Two-Day Conference, Friday December 14 & Saturday, December 15 2012

Goldsmiths College, University of London (Ben Pimlott Building, Lecture Theatre)
INC – Goldsmiths Continental Philosophy Research Group

The work of the German-Jewish critic and philosopher Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) spans a vast array of themes, ranging from the metaphysics of youth to the Paris arcades. His writings on Goethe and Scheerbart; Kafka and Baudelaire, as well as his work on the relationship between art and technology continue to fascinate and polarize in equal measure. His singular intersection of Marxian and Jewish thought is amply evidenced in the extensive correspondence with Ernst Bloch, Theodor Adorno, Bertold Brecht and Hannah Arendt, amongst others. Undoubtedly it is the sheer breadth of Benjamin’s interests that accounts for the enduring concern with his often fragmentary work across academic disciplines. That is to say, Benjamin is no longer a stranger at the Academy. Nevertheless, a central aspect of Benjamin’s work is all-too-often overlooked when his aesthetic and literary works
are treated in isolation.

The manifest content of Benjamin’s writing is never merely incidental: rather, it is shot through with a burgeoning philosophical project – from the ‘Programme of the Coming Philosophy’ (1917) to the ‘Theses on the Concept of History’ (1940). In this regard it appears that recent anniversary of Benjamin’s birth in 1892 warrants a re-appraisal of this legacy by asking the question: how can the various strands of Benjamin’s work be engaged to illuminate the unfolding of his philosophical position, and – vice versa – how does Benjamin’s philosophy illuminate other aspects of his thought?

This conference aims, then – on the one hand – to explore Benjamin’s thought in relation to the various philosophical traditions that inform his project (Leibniz, Kant, Schlegel, Lukács etc.), and – on the other hand – to ask how these influences continue to operate between the lines even where Benjamin is not explicitly concerned with the philosophical canon? In short: how are we to understand the philosophy of Walter Benjamin?

Inquries: sebastian.truskolaski@gmail.com
www.walterbenjamin2012.blogspot.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/events/545304922151388/?ref=ts&fref=ts

THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO ALL!

Programme:

Day One: Friday, 14 Dec

10:00 – 10:45, Howard Caygill (CRMEP, Kingston) ‘Keynote Address’
10:45 – 11:30, Paula Schwebel (Potsdam) ‘Benjamin’s Monadology: From Idealism to Historical Materialism’
11:30 – 12:15, Blair Ogden (Oxford) ‘Walter Benjamin’s Philosophical Conception of Happiness’
12:15 – 13:00, Jonathan Gray (Royal Holloway) ‘Hamann and Benjamin on the Concept of Experience’
13:00 – 14:00, LUNCH
14:00 – 14:45, Djordje Popovic (Minnesota) ‘Theology of Hell: Continuity of Thought in Walter Benjamin’
14:45 – 15:30, John Merrick (CRMEP, Kingston) ‘Benjamin’s Non-Hegelian Dialectics’
15:30 – 16:15, Jan Urbich (Jena/Weimar) ‘Under Cover: Hegel’s Logic in Walter Benjamin’s Epistemo-Critical Preface’
16:15 – 16:45, COFFEE BREAK
16:45 – 17:30, Elise Derroitte (KU Leuven) ‘The Critic is the New ‘Philosopher of the Spirit’. Comparing Benjamin and Fichte’s Conceptions of Critique’
17:30 – 18:15, Sami Khatib (FU Berlin/Jan Van Eyck) ‘Teleology Without End – Walter Benjamin’s Methodological Nihilism’
18:15 – 19:00, Scott Ritner (New School) ‘The God of Negation – Divine Intervention in the Thought of Walter Benjamin, Georges Bataille and Simone Weil’

Day Two: Saturday, 15 Dec

10:00 – 10:45, Lea Barbisan (Paris, Sorbonne) ‘Körper – Leib – Gestalt: Benjamin’s Phenomenology of the Body’
10:45 – 11:30, Lucie Mercier (CRMEP, Kingston) ‘Walter Benjamin on Translation: a Strategic Hermeneutics of History?’
11:30 – 12:15, Hanping Chiu (Tamkang, Taipei) ‘Translation as Expression: Reinventing Benjamin’s Language Philosophy’
12:15 – 13:00, Florian Telsnig (Vienna) ‘The Monadological Tendency in Benjamin’s Philosophy of the Name’
13:00 – 14:00, LUNCH
14:00 – 14:45, Leena Petersen (Sussex) ‘Poetics of the Space in-Between’
14:45 – 15:30, Phil Homburg (Sussex) ‘Symbol, Sign and Fetish: Walter Benjamin and the Post-Kantian Concept of the Symbol’
15:30 – 16:15, Maria Andrade (Universidad de los Andes) ‘Exiled Between Romantic Absolute and Baroque Allegory’
16:15 – 16:45, COFFEE BREAK
16:45 – 17:30, Ben Noys (Chichester) ‘Emergency Brake: Benjamin and the Critique of Accelerationism’
17:30 – 18:15, Tom Allen (Independent) ‘Fixed Manifestations: Benjamin, Blanqui and the Caption of History’
18:15 – 19:00, Christian Garland (FU Berlin) ‘Redeeming the Past in the Present: Benjamin’s Messianic Materialist Philosophy of History’

 

First published in: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/the-philosophy-of-walter-benjamin-conference-goldsmiths-london-dec-14-15-2012

 

*****END*****

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Glenn Rikowski’s MySpace Blog: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski/blog

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

The Philosophy of Walter Benjamin – Second Call for Papers

Walter Benjamin

THE PHILOSOPHY OF WALTER BENJAMIN – Second Call for Papers

2nd Call for Papers: ‘The Philosophy of Walter Benjamin’

One-Day Conference, December 14th, 2012 – Goldsmiths College, University of London
InC – Goldsmiths Continental Philosphy Research Group

The work of the German-Jewish critic and philosopher Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) spans a vast array of themes, ranging from the metaphysics of youth to the Paris arcades. His writings on Goethe and Scheerbart; Kafka and Baudelaire, as well as his work on the relationship between art and technology continue to fascinate and polarize in equal measure. His singular intersection of Marxian and Jewish thought is amply evidenced in the extensive correspondence with Ernst Bloch, Theodor Adorno, Bertold Brecht and Hannah Arendt, amongst others. Undoubtedly it is the sheer breadth of Benjamin’s interests that accounts for the enduring concern with his often fragmentary work across academic disciplines. That is to say, Benjamin is no longer a stranger at the Academy. Nevertheless, a central aspect of Benjamin’s work is all-too-often overlooked when his aesthetic and literary works are treated in isolation. The manifest content of Benjamin’s writing is never merely incidental: rather, it is shot through with a burgeoning philosophical project – from the ‘Programme of the Coming Philosophy’ (1917) to the ‘Theses on the Concept of History’ (1940). In this regard it appears that recent anniversary of Benjamin’s birth in 1892 warrants a re-appraisal of this legacy by asking the question: how can the various strands of Benjamin’s work be engaged to illuminate the unfolding of his philosophical position, and – vice versa – how does Benjamin’s philosophy illuminate other aspects of his thought?

This conference aims, then – on the one hand – to explore Benjamin’s thought in relation to the various philosophical traditions that inform his project (Leibniz, Kant, Schlegel, Lukács etc.), and – on the other hand – to ask how these influences continue to operate between the lines even where Benjamin is not explicitly concerned with the philosophical canon? In short: how are we to understand the philosophy of Walter Benjamin?

We ask potential speakers to submit abstracts of no more than 200 words to  sebastian.truskolaski@gmail.com by September 30th. The full programme will be announced in due course.

For updates check www.walterbenjamin2012.blogspot.com

 

Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/cfp-the-philosophy-of-walter-benjamin-goldsmiths-14-december  

 

**END**

 

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

 

 

The Philosophy of Walter Benjamin Conference

Walter Benjamin

THE PHILOSOPHY OF WALTER BENJAMIN CONFERENCE

Call for Papers:

‘The Philosophy of Walter Benjamin’

One-Day Conference, December 14th, 2012 – Goldsmiths College, University of London

InC – Goldsmiths Continental Philosophy Research Group

The work of the German-Jewish critic and philosopher Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) spans a vast array of themes, ranging from the metaphysics of youth to the Paris arcades. His writings on Goethe and Scheerbart; Kafka and Baudelaire, as well as his work on the relationship between art and technology continue to fascinate and polarize in equal measure. His singular intersection of Marxian and Jewish thought is amply evidenced in the extensive correspondence with Ernst Bloch, Theodor Adorno, Bertold Brecht and Hannah Arendt, amongst others. Undoubtedly it is the sheer breadth of Benjamin’s interests that accounts for the enduring concern with his often fragmentary work across academic disciplines. That is to say, Benjamin is no longer a stranger at the Academy. Nevertheless, a central aspect of Benjamin’s work is all-too-often overlooked when his aesthetic and literary works are treated in isolation. The manifest content of Benjamin’s writing is never merely incidental: rather, it is shot through with a burgeoning philosophical project – from the ‘Programme of the Coming Philosophy’ (1917) to the ‘Theses on the Concept of History’ (1940). In this regard it appears that recent anniversary of Benjamin’s birth in 1892 warrants a re-appraisal of this legacy by asking the question: how can the various strands of Benjamin’s work be engaged to illuminate the unfolding of his philosophical position, and – vice versa – how does Benjamin’s philosophy illuminate other aspects of his thought?

This conference aims, then – on the one hand – to explore Benjamin’s thought in relation to the various philosophical traditions that inform his project (Leibniz, Kant, Schlegel, Lukács etc.), and – on the other hand – to ask how these influences continue to operate between the lines even where Benjamin is not explicitly concerned with the philosophical canon? In short: how are we to understand the philosophy of Walter Benjamin?

We ask potential speakers to submit abstracts of no more than 200 words to: sebastian.truskolaski@gmail.com by September 30th. The full programme will be announced in due course.

Originally published at: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/cfp-the-philosophy-of-walter-benjamin-goldsmiths-london-14-december-2012

***END***

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Glenn Rikowski’s MySpace Blog: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski/blog

Introduction to Antiphilosophy – Boris Groys

Communisation

INTRODUCTION TO ANTIPHILOSOPHY – BORIS GROYS

NEW TITLE FROM VERSO:

INTRODUCTION TO ANTIPHILOSOPHY

By BORIS GROYS

Philosophy is traditionally understood as the search for universal truths, and philosophers are supposed to transmit those truths beyond the limits of their own culture. But, today, we have become sceptical about the ability of an individual philosopher to engage in ‘universal thinking’, so philosophy seems to capitulate in the face of cultural relativism.

In INTRODUCTION TO ANTIPHILOSOPHY, BORIS GROYS argues that modern ‘antiphilosophy’ does not pursue the universality of thought as its goal but proposes in its place the universality of life, material forces, social practices, passions, and experiences – angst, vitality, ecstasy, the gift, revolution, laughter or ‘profane illumination’ – and he analyses this shift from thought to life and action in the work of thinkers from Kierkegaard to Derrida, from Nietzsche to Benjamin.

Ranging across the history of modern thought, INTRODUCTION TO ANTIPHILOSOPHY endeavours to liberate philosophy from the stereotypes that hinder its development.

———————————

Praise for THE COMMUNIST POSTSCRIPT:

‘Groys has claimed a defining role in the reception of the Russian avant-garde … The Communist Postscript presents Groys’s attempt to advocate the communist idea against its own historic assumptions.’ – RADICAL PHILOSOPHY

 ‘A timely intervention in present debates about the legacy of communism [and] a provocative addition to Groys’ brilliantly paradoxical body of work.’ – ART REVIEW

Praise for ART POWER:

“The range of topics canvassed in Art Power is impressive. … All of these subjects have been comprehensively treated elsewhere, but rarely with Groys’ penetrating eye for the unexpected upshot of such developments.” – FRIEZE

“This magisterial overview situates contemporary art – its aesthetic strategies, institutions and drives -within the deeper context of the Modernist revolution, urbanism, new technologies, and the post communist era. Groys’ combines revelatory analysis with philosophical questions that go to the heart of cultural production today.” – IWONA BLAZWICK, Director, WHITECHAPEL GALLERY

‘Persuasive … provocative … By probing unacknowledged, repressed, or otherwise unexamined relationships that hover in the background of art-world conversation, Art Power recombines categories, reconfigures assumptions, and, in the end, reimagines what art writing can be.’ – BOOKFORUM

Praise for THE TOTAL ART OF STALINISM

‘This is not just a book but an event … The Total Art of Stalinism is an intellectual landmark’ – ART BULLETIN

‘One of the most astute commentators on the art scene today’ –  NEW LEFT REVIEW

———————————

BORIS GROYS is Professor of Aesthetics, Art History, and Media Theory at the Center for Art and Media Technology inKarlsruhe, and since 2005, the Global Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Science, NYU. He has published numerous books including THE TOTAL ART OF STALINISM, ILYA KABAKOV: THE MAN WHO FLEW INTO SPACE FROM HIS APARTMENT, ART POWER, and THE COMMUNIST POSTSCRIPT.

———————————

ISBN: 9781844677566 / $26.95 / £16.99 / Hardback / 272 pages

———————————–

For more information about INTRODUCTION TO ANTIPHILOSOPHY, or to buy the book visit:

http://www.versobooks.com/books/1052-introduction-to-antiphilosophy

 

**END**

 

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Anthropological Materialism and Materialism of Encounter: Reinterpreting our Present in the Wake of Walter Benjamin and Louis Althusser

ANTHROPOLIGICAL MATERIALISM AND MATERIALISM OF ENCOUNTER: REINTERPRETING OUR PRESENT IN THE WAKE OF WALTER BENJAMIN AND LOUIS ALTHUSSER

Call for Participation

German-French summer school, organised by the DFH Saarbrücken 2012

Anthropological Materialism and Materialism of Encounter: Reinterpreting our Present in the Wake of Walter Benjamin and Louis Althusser

A Cooperation of the University of Potsdam and the University Paris-Sorbonne (ParisIV)

Location: University of Potsdam, Institute of Philosophy, Am Neuen Palais 10 (Building 9, Room 1.14), 144469 Potsdam

Date: July 16. – 20. 2012

This cross-cultural and interdisciplinary summer school aims to foster an innovative dialog between the philosophies of Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) and Louis Althusser (1918-1990). After the self-confident liberalism of the 1980s and 90s proclaimed the post-histoire and the end of all utopias, it is today all the more necessary to debate the real frontiers of the global social and political order from a non-dogmatic and unorthodox materialist point of view. To approximate such a materialist perspective, this summer school seeks to interrogate and compare Walter Benjamin’s “anthropological materialism” and Louis Althusser’s “materialism of encounter”. We cordially invite young academics – primarily graduate and Ph.D. students from France and Germany– to propose their research projects or to act as respondents to plenary lectures from a series of renowned Althusser and Benjamin scholars from the fields of philosophy, philology, psychoanalysis, art history, and political theory.

Further Information: http://anthropologicalmaterialism.hypotheses.org/

Organisation:

Prof. Hans-Peter Krüger (Potsdam)
Prof. Gérard Raulet (Paris)
Dr. Marc Berdet (Paris/Potsdam)
Dr. Thomas Ebke (Potsdam)

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Reason, Power, and History: The Philosophical Foundations of Critical Theory

Eternity

REASON, POWER, AND HISTORY: THE PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CRITICAL THEORY

Graduate Society for Philosophy at Emory’s 2012 Conference: Reason, Power, and History: The Philosophical Foundations of Critical Theory

Date: March 30-31, 2012
Submission Deadline: February 25, 2012

Keynote Speaker: Amy Allen, Dartmouth College

Critical Theory stands at the intersection of philosophy and the social sciences, and its concern with reason, power, and history has made it a versatile theoretical tool for both social and scientific inquiry. Since its inception in the 20th Century with the Frankfurt School, Critical Theory has developed a rich and complex relationship with the Western philosophical tradition, constantly reshaping its own relation to it and re-evaluating the discourses of history, reason and power from which it emerged.

This genealogy compels us to inquire into the history of the concepts and methodology of Critical Theory even as we engage in its practice. This conference aims to promote such inquiry through the engagement of questions such as: How do we understand the methodological significance of Critical Theory for the social sciences and philosophy? What are the implications of Critical Theory for discourses concerned with reason, power, and history? What is the genealogy and history of Critical Theory’s central concepts? How does Critical Theory allow us to investigate the intersections and divergences of reason, power, and history?

Papers from all philosophical perspectives are encouraged. Papers should be sent as .pdf, .docx, .doc, or .rtf files, and should not exceed 15 double-spaced pages. Papers should be submitted prepared for blind review, with all personal information included in the body of the e-mail and not
in the document itself.

E-mail submissions to Rebekah Spera at: rspera@emory.edu.

Additional information will be made available at:

http: //www.students.emory.edu/gpse/ & http://www.facebook.com/EmoryPhilosophy

 

**END**

 

‘I believe in the afterlife.

It starts tomorrow,

When I go to work’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

 

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a new song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski