10 Years of Theory
Kathleen Stewart and 3CT Fellow Lauren Berlant
3CT Co-Director Lisa Wedeen
3CT Co-Director Lisa Wedeen, Victoria Bernal, and 3CT Fellow Joseph Masco
3CT Co-Director Lisa Wedeen, Victoria Bernal, and 3CT Fellow Joseph Masco
3CT Fellow Dipesh Chakrabarty
3CT Fellow William H. Sewell, Jr.
Kathleen Stewart and 3CT Fellow Lauren Berlant
3CT Fellow William Mazzarella
On the occasion of 3CT’s 10th anniversary, we reflect once more on the contemporary as an imaginative projection and a site of struggle, where the question of what can be shared matters to so many. How do we create concrete and conceptual infrastructures of the present that are at once vital and textured, given different foci and disciplinary divides? Exploring histories, gesturing toward virtual and actual political and economic frameworks, this conference aims to prompt comparison and theoretical innovation.
This event is co-sponsored by the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society
THURSDAY, FEB 25
4:30pm — Introductory Remarks
Lisa Wedeen, University of Chicago
Roundtable: Theorizing the Contemporary, 2005-2015
Moishe Postone, University of Chicago
Bill Sewell, University of Chicago
Jean Comaroff, Harvard University
John Comaroff, Harvard University
Remarks:
Cathy Cohen, University of Chicago
Linda Zerilli, University of Chicago
Jim Chandler, University of Chicago
Q&A
6:30pm — Reception
FRIDAY, FEB 26
9:00am — Breakfast
9:30am — Introductory Remarks
Lisa Wedeen, University of Chicago
Panel One: Environmental Subjectivities and Ethnographic/Literary Imaginaries
Kaushik Sunder Rajan, University of Chicago
“Constitutions of Biomedical Subjectivity: Pharmocratic Structures and Sensibilities in ‘Bhopal’/‘India’/‘the Global South’”
Gabriele Schwab, University of California, Irvine
“The Nuclear Imaginary: Precarious Subjectivities in Chernobyl’s Aftermath”
Mike Fischer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“Fukushima, SARS, and Avian Flu: Global Theory from the East”
Q&A
11:00am — Coffee break
11:15am — Panel Two: Logics of Imminent Danger
Joe Masco, University of Chicago,
“The Crisis in Crisis”
Victoria Bernal, University of California, Irvine
“The Spectre of Cyberwar, Constructions of Cybersecurity and the Disappearing Citizen”
Lisa Wedeen, University of Chicago
“On Uncertainty in Syria”
Respondents:
Patchen Markell, University of Chicago
Bill Brown, University of Chicago
Q&A
1:00pm — Lunch
2:00pm — Panel Three: Immanence and Transcendence
Andreas Glaeser, University of Chicago
“The Political Transcendent”
William Mazzarella, University of Chicago
“Ecstatic Life and Social Form”
Respondent: Manu Goswami, New York University
Q&A
3:10pm — Coffee break
3:20pm — Closing Keynote: Worlds and Now
Lauren Berlant, University of Chicago
“Affectivity | Receptivity”
Katie Stewart, University of Texas, Austin
“Matter Poems”
Q&A
5:00pm — Reception with Ian Kiaer Endnote, Ledoux exhibition
