Leesgroep Lacan

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EXTIMITEIT

De reputatie van Franse psychoanalyticus Jacques Lacan: de Góngora van de psychoanalyse. Dat is een vriendelijke manier om te zeggen; mooischrijverij dat slechts de nietszeggendheid dient te verhullen.
De inzet van deze leesgroep is een geheel andere, Lacan is een cartesiaan, zijn begrippen “claire et distincte”, maar met een cruciale draai: het idee van het onbewuste.
Het werk van Lacan is nog steeds niet goed gelezen, de consequenties ervan, van het duiden van onze huidige cultuur, de cinema- en literatuurinterpretatie, tot aan de klinische praktijk, nog niet in al hun reikwijdte doordacht. Vandaar deze werkgroep. Om aan te sluiten bij het ontginningswerk van Lacans oeuvre.
Daartoe beginnen we bij de basis. Na een korte recapitulatie van Freuds Droomduiding, richten we ons op de lezing van een aantal sleutelteksten van de Ècrits (in het Frans en Nederlandse of Engelse vertaling).
Iedereen die zich serieus in het werk van Lacan wil verdiepen, is voor deze werkgroep uitgenodigd, onder het motto scilicit, oftewel, het is toegestaan te weten.

Organisatie: Johan Schokker en Daan Rutten
Registratie: d.rutten@uu.nl

Course – Computational Literary Studies

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Computational Literary Studies

Prof. dr. Karina van Dalen-Oskam

University of Amsterdam, February-April 2014; for RMA and PhD-students
Registration: osl-fgw@uva.nl

Scholars working in computational literary studies make use of computer software that helps them to analyze digital textual data. Software can support the exploration of a much larger amount of data in systematics way than was possible before. In this course, students will get introduced to the most important current approaches in computational literary studies, ranging from the analysis of style and methods for the verification and attribution of authorship to various forms of ‘distant reading’ and discourse analysis. Case studies will be devoted to the authorship of the ‘Wilhelmus’, stylistic variation in the works of Arnon Grunberg and trends in the titles of novels through the centuries.

The first part of the course explores the new horizons and possibilities as well as the limitations of computational approaches in literary studies. Several computational tools will be demonstrated such as concordance software that can be used for discourse analytical approaches and specialized R-scripts for authorship attribution and stylistic analysis. The questions to be addressed in the first four sessions of the seminar include: How can different authors be distinguished from each other using computational tools? In which ways do their writing styles exactly differ? What are the options for computer-assisted discourse analysis? What kinds of reasoning and logic play a role when computational tools are applied and what are their epistemological implications? How can be evaluate the results of the new methods and techniques?

The second part of the course is optional and more practical. In workshop-like meetings in the UvA computer lab, students will conduct small research projects of their own. In this way, they will learn to use the computational tools themselves and gain practical experience with their possibilities and limitations. The research projects can be devoted to the cases presented in the first part of the course but also be proposed by the students themselves.

Course objectives:

  • Students learn to employ empirical and computational methods in literary studies, including the selection of tools and the reflection on their possibilities and limitations.
  • Students get an overview of international discussions in the fields of computational literary studies and digital humanities and learn to relate their research to these debates.
  • Students learn to reflect on the relation of research questions and digital methods in literary studies.

Program

February 3: Introduction to Computational Literary Studies

Oost-Indischhuis (Kloveniersburgwal 48), VOC zaal

14.00–15.45:

  • Prof. Dr Karina van Dalen-Oskam (University of Amsterdam/Huygens ING): Introduction
  • Prof. Dr Goffe Jensma (Groningen University): Authorship problems around the Oera Linda-book

16.00–16.45: Discussion session (only for students who registered for the course)

February 17: Authorship attribution, verification, and profiling

Bijzondere Collecties (Oude Turfmarkt 129), Nina van Leerzaal

14.00–15.45:

  • Prof. Dr Karina van Dalen-Oskam: Introduction
  • Prof. Dr Els Stronks (Utrecht University): Authorship of the Wilhelmus

16.00–16.45: Discussion session (only for students who registered for the course)
March 3: Computational analysis of literary style

Location: Oost-Indischhuis (Kloveniersburgwal 48), VOC zaal

14.00–15.45:

  • Prof. Dr Karina van Dalen-Oskam: Introduction
  • Joris van Zundert MA (Huygens ING): Formalization and modeling in computational literary studies

16.00–16.45: Discussion session (only for students who registered for the course)

March 17: From style to discourse analysis

Oost-Indischhuis (Kloveniersburgwal 48), VOC zaal

14.00–15.45:

  • Prof. Dr Karina van Dalen-Oskam: Introduction
  • Dr Bram Mellink (Utrecht University): Discourse analysis in the project Reference Cultures

16.00–16.45: Discussion session (only for students who registered for the course)

April 14 & 28 (14:00-17:00): Workshop in the UvA computer lab, PC Hoofthuis 2.10 (only for students who registered for the course)

*

All lectures are open to the general public.

Registration for RMA and PhD-students: osl-fgw@uva.nl.

Students receive 2 ec for active participation (readings and small assignments) in the first four meetings on Feb 3 & 17 and March 3 & 17 and an additional 2 ec for participation in the workshops on April 14 & 28 and the preparation of a final assignment (= paper of 1500 words).

New Sociologies of Literature

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Fields, Graphs and Networks: New Sociologies of Literature

Period: October 2013 – February 2014
Location: Amsterdam 
Organization: The Netherlands Research School for Literary Studies (OSL)
Contact Person: Alex Rutten
Registration: osl-fgw@uva.nl 

• “There are so many intersections and openings, so many parallel projects of research, so many forms of literary study that rely on sociological thought, and so many forms of sociology that confront the literariness of their own objects and procedures, that the real question today is not whether of even why, but how. How can sociology and literature best take advantage – institutionally as well as intellectually – of their polymorphic and often underacknowledged but nonetheless durable partnership?” – James F. English (2010)

The ongoing international dialogue between literary studies and the social sciences has generated renewed attention for the social contexts that surround and shape literature. Researchers have begun to study the social and institutional dimensions of poetry, novels and criticism, the historical dimensions of readership, and the strategic behaviour of actors in so-called ‘fields’ or ‘networks’. They are confronting questions like “How can we understand and study the self-fashioning of an author or critic?”, “How can we map literary networks?”, “How can our knowledge of an author’s social position contribute to an interpretation of his work?”, “Which books were read in a certain period, and why?” In a broader sense, the link between sociology and the study of literature also raises the ever more pressing issue of the relevance of quantifiable and statistical data for academic disciplines such as literary and cultural studies.

This seminar focuses on new applications of sociologically inspired theories and methods within literary studies. It provides an overview of innovative concepts and methods that can be used to study literature as a social phenomenon. Five guest speakers will elaborate on their research and illustrate methods of analyzing problems that feature an intersection of sociology and literature in a qualitative and/or quantitative manner. Each speaker will introduce a distinct approach and discuss various ways in which his/her methods can be applied within the participants’ research projects.

At the end of the seminar, participants will have acquired the means to address specific literary topics from various sociological perspectives. They will also be equipped with a methodological toolbox that can aid them in using sociological analyses in their own research. 

The seminar consists of five Friday afternoon meetings that will be held between November 2013 and March 2014 at the University of Amsterdam.

Programme:

1 November 2013, 14:00-17:00.
Bungehuis – 0.15, Spuistraat 210, Amsterdam.
Introduction and panel discussion with different speakers.

22 November 2013, 14:00-17:00.
Bungehuis – 1.01, Spuistraat 210, Amsterdam.
Christophe Verbruggen (Ghent University), Social History and the Analysis of Literary Networks

13 December 2013, 14:00-17:00.
PC Hoofthuis – 3.01, Spuistraat 134, Amsterdam
James F. English (University of Pennsylvania), New Sociologies of Literature and Quantitative Relationships

24 January 2014, 14:00-17:00.
Bungehuis – 3.37, Spuistraat 210, Amsterdam
Els Andringa (Utrecht University), Literary Transfer: An Empirical Approach to Polysystem Theory

23 May 2014, 14:00-17:00.
PC Hoofthuis – 3.01, Spuistraat 134, Amsterdam
Bernard Lahire (University of Lyon), The Plural Actor: A Sociological Approach to the Life of Writers

Terra Critica II: Second Workshop of the International Network of the Critical Humanities

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From Three Critiques to Three Guineas and Three Ecologies: grappling with critique beyond negativity and judgment

This 2nd workshop of the network Terra Critica. International Network of the Critical Humanities (http://terracritica.net) takes place on 22 and 23 November 2013 at Utrecht University.

It is organized as an intensive expert seminar, wishing to provide an environment to discuss the relevance of critique in and for the Humanities today, the forms it can take and the challenges it faces.

The second workshop is made possible by the generous financial support from

  • Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICON), Utrecht University
  • Focus Area Cultures & Identities, Utrecht University
  • The Netherlands Research School for Gender Studies NOG
  • The Netherlands Research School for Literary Studies OSL
  • Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis NICA
  • Amsterdam Center for Globalization Studies ACGS
  • Radboud University Nijmegen
  • Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
  • Kattendijk & Drucker Stichting
  • Back to the Book (NWO-Project)

Conveners
Kathrin Thiele (Gender Studies, Utrecht University)
Birgit Kaiser (Comparative Literature, Utrecht University)

Workshop readings

  • Virginia Woolf’s Three Guineas (links below)
  • Félix Guattari’s Three Ecologies (pdf available upon request)
  • Intervention papers (instructions below)

PhD students are invited to participate (upon application) in the expert seminar Terra Critica II. Given the limited number of places, we ask that you send a brief letter of motivation, stating your interest in the topic and its relation to your own research (ca. 200 words). The letter can be sent to B.M.Kaiser@uu.nl and K.Thiele@uu.nl. Please submit it no later than 20 October 2013.

All accepted participants will be notified by 25 October 2013. They are asked to read the materials for the workshop beforehand (Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas; Félix Guattari, Three Ecologies; and intervention papers prepared by all senior participants (distributed one week before the meeting)).

Workshop Information
Building on the first workshop in 2012, this second one continues the discussion and takes place under the heading ‘From Three Critiques to Three Guineas and Three Ecologies: grappling with critique beyond negativity and judgment. It wants to take up the intellectual heritage that critical investigations cannot do without, while at the same time moving to very contemporary concerns and perspectives. The idea behind this thematic choice and of basing our discussion on Virginia Woolf’s Three Guineas (1938) and Félix Guattari’s Three Ecologies (1989) is not only to take up ‘other 3’s’ in critical thinking, after Kant’s three Critiques. It is rather also due to the fact that we see these two texts as promisingly rich for our questions in a double sense:
a) the mode in which critique is practiced here
b) the subject matters these critical interventions raise

As for the mode in which critique is practiced, writing, address, experimentation, speculation, story-telling, fact and fiction, but also rhetoric, dis/affection, pleasure seem to be of importance in both texts.
As for subject matters, education, emancipation, environment, aesthetics, life, death, and capital are major recurring themes in both texts, sometimes more, sometimes less explicit, but important to these critical enunciations in 1938 resp. 1989.

What can we draw from them for terran existence today? What difference do/did these ‘critiques’ introduce for which tomorrows? Which concepts and practices can we distil from them? Which of these can we use to re-examine critique as an ‘affirmative’ practice?
These are some of the questions, themes, and modi that the workshop will explore. Upon the shared terrain of Woolf’s and Guattari’s texts, other thinkers and topics can also be brought in.

Workshop-procedure and intervention paper
Our discussions take place on the basis of these two texts, which everyone has read beforehand. We dedicate one day to each text and will lead our discussion based on the intervention papers by senior participants (PhD’s are not asked to write an intervention paper, but to participate in the preparatory intensive seminar).

! Preparatory Intensive Seminar !
In order to make the most of the expert seminar, participating PhDs are asked to also take part in the preparatory Intensive Seminar Terra Critica: Critique beyond negativity and judgment? on

Thursday, 21 Nov 2013, time: 14.00 to 17.00, location: tba

Issues discussed during Terra Critica I 2012 will be rehearsed and discussed here. You cannot join the workshop without having taken the seminar.

The seminar is conducted by the workshop-conveners, Kathrin Thiele and Birgit Kaiser.

Readings for the Intensive Seminar:

  • Michel Foucault, ‘What is Critique?’ (free download: http://anthroposlab. net/documents/archive/foucault-what-is-critique)
  • Judith Butler, What is Critique?’ (available online: http://eipcp.net/transversal/0806/butler/en)
  • Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas, part 3

Additional suggestion:

  • – Brian Holmes, Escape the Overcode. Activist Art in the Control Society; part ‘Geocritique’ (free download: http://de.scribd.com/doc/146371253/Holmes-Brian-Geocritique)
  • – Ruth Sonderegger/Karin de Boer, Conceptions of Critique in Modern and Contemporary Philosophy, Palgrave 2012 (esp. introduction and chapters 1, 9, 12 and 14)

You are able to earn ECTS for participation in the seminar and workshop, and for writing an essay assignment afterwards.

Additional information on the project Terra Critica: Terra Critica_information

OSL Promovendi-dag

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OSL Promovendi-dag

Datum:Vrijdag 27 september 2013
Aanvang: 14.00 (inloop 13.30)
Borrel: 17.00
Locatie: Universiteit van Amsterdam, Bungehuis 0.15 – Spuistraat 210 Amsterdam.
Deelname gratis: stuur een mail naar OSL-fgw@uva.nl Sprekers worden nader bekend gemaakt.

Ter inluiding van het nieuwe academische jaar nodigt de OSL al haar promovendi uit voor de OSL Promovendi-dag. Tijdens deze middag staat het ontmoeten van andere OSL-promovendi en hun onderzoek centraal. Daarnaast geven twee korte ‘State of the Art’ lezingen aanleiding tot een discussie over de stand van zaken in de literatuurwetenschap.

Programma OSL promovendi-dag 2013

13.30     Binnenloop
14.00     Welkom door OSL (prof. dr. Thomas Vaessens)
14.10     Voorstelrondje aio’s
14.40     Woord van de promovendiraad (Alex Rutten)
14.50     Onderzoekers aan het woord:

– dr. Sarah Beeks (Universiteit Antwerpen)
– Tom Idema (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen)

15.30     Pauze
15.45     State of the Art: ‘Verdwijnpunten van de geesteswetenschappen’ Gesprek met dr. Joost de Bloois (Universiteit van Amsterdam)
16.30     Afsluiting en borrel (in Café het Paleis, Paleisstraat 16)

Public lecture by Ato Quayson (University of Toronto)

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Lecture-series – New Directions in Literary Postcolonial Studies

Public lecture by Ato Quayson (University of Toronto)

Date: Monday, 7 October, 2013
Time: 12.00-14.00
Location: Sweelinckzaal, Drift 21, Utrecht

Convenors:
Birgit M. Kaiser (Dept of Comparative Literature) and Emmanuelle Radar (Dept of French)
Hosted by the Postcolonial Studies Initiative, PCI Utrecht University and the Center for the Humanities , CfH, Utrecht in cooperation with ICON (formerly OGC), Utrecht.

Lecture Postcolonialism and the Diasporic Imaginary 

While the two fields of Postcolonial and Diaspora Studies overlap in interests and even methods, it is very rare that they are actually brought into serious conversation. Prof. Quayson’s lecture will demonstrate, first, that this impasse is due to the fact that while Postcolonial Studies is dominated by the epochal relation of the nation-state (its colonial formation, its post-colonial anxieties, and the manner of its uneven insertion into transnational and global realities), Diaspora Studies has been concerned primarily with the experience of spatial discontinuities in various guises (multiple and simultaneous identification with the homeland and hostnation, the unheimlich of home, post-memories of exile, etc.). Prof. Quayson will then proceed to illustrate the differences between the two fields with reference to methodological nationalism and the diasporic imaginary, elaborating its three essential components of place, nostalgia, and genealogical accounting.

Together with the lecture, Ato Quayson will also be teaching a masterclass for advanced MA and PhD students on Literary spaces and Spatial Theories in Postcolonial Literature. The masterclass will take place on Friday, 4 October 2013 (16.00-18.30 at Utrecht University). For more information, please email: OSL-fgw@uva.nl

Ato Quayson is Professor of English and Director of the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies at the University of Toronto, where he has been since August 2005. He did his BA at the University of Ghana and took his PhD from Cambridge University in 1995. He then went on to the University of Oxford as a Research Fellow, returning to Cambridge in September 1995 to become a Fellow at Pembroke College and a member of the Faculty of English where he eventually became a Reader in Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies.

Prof. Quayson has published widely on African literature, postcolonial studies and in literary theory. His book publications include the Blackwell Companion to Diaspora and Transnationalism Studies, ed.with Girish Daswani (in press, New York: Blackwell, 2013); The Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature, ed., 2 volumes. (Cambridge University Press, 2012); Labour Migration, Human Trafficking and Multinational Corporations (with Antonela Arhin; New York: Routledge, 2012); Fathers and Daughters: An Anthology of Exploration, ed., (Oxford: Ayebia Publishers, 2008); Aesthetic Nervousness: Disability and the Crisis of Representation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007); African Literature: An Anthology of Theory and Criticism (with Tejumola Olaniyan; Oxford: Blackwell, 2007); Relocating Postcolonialism (with David Theo Goldberg; Oxford: Blackwell, 2002).
He also wrote the Introduction and Notes to the Penguin Classics edition of Nelson Mandela’s No Easy Walk to Freedom (London: Penguin, 2002) and is General Editor of the Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry. Prof. Quayson has just completed a book on the urban history of Accra told from the perspective from a single street, forthcoming with Duke University Press under the title of Oxford St., Accra; Urban Evolution, Street Life and Itineraries of the Transnational (in press, 2014).                                                              

The lecture is part of the lecture series New Directions in Literary Postcolonial Studies, organized by Birgit M. Kaiser and Emmanuelle Radar with the Postcolonial Studies Initiative PCI and the Center for the Humanities (Utrecht University), together with the Research Institute for History and Culture OGC, and the Netherlands Research School for Literary Studies OSL.

Earlier speakers in the series were Emily Apter (NYU) in June 2011 and Réda Bensmaïa (Brown) in October 2012.

Masterclass with Ato Quayson (University of Toronto)

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Masterclass with Ato Quayson (University of Toronto)

Date: Friday, 4 October, 2013
Time: 16.00-18.30
Location: Ravesteynzaal, Kromme Nieuwegracht 80, Utrecht

Literary spaces and Spatial Theories in Postcolonial Literature

The masterclass for advanced RMa students and PhD students will look into the general intersections between Spatial Theory and Literary Space with special emphasis on postcolonial literature. Ato Quayson has just completed a book on the urban history of Accra told from the perspective from a single street for Duke UP (forthcoming), coming out of his work on how to apply spatial theory (such as Henri Lefebre’s The Production of Space) to the understanding of space in literature. Prof. Quayson has been approaching the question with a focus that is more literary critical than sociological, thus less interested in questions of marketing, the global market place of judgement, etc. and primarily concerned with how we detect and describe space when we see it as either a thematic or a description in literature.

The background readings for the masterclass are:

  • Quayson, Ato. 2012a. “Introduction: Postcolonial Literature in a Changing Historical Frame.” In The Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature, Vol. 1., edited by Ato Quayson, 1-29. Cambridge; Cambridge University Press.
  • Quayson, Ato. 2012b. “Periods vrs Concepts: Space Making and the Question of Postcolonial Literary History.” PMLA, 127(2): 349-356.
  • Lefebre, Henri, Chapters 1 and 2 of Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time, and Everyday Life. New York: Continuum International, 2004.
  • Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1986. “The Bildungsroman and its Significance in the History of Realism”, in Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Austin: University of Texas Press, 10-59.
  • Moretti, Franco. 1987. “Bildungsroman and Symbolic Form,” in The Way of the World: The Bildungsroman in European Culture, London: Verso, 3-13. 

In order to register for the masterclass, please email: OSL-fgw@uva.nl

Ato Quayson is Professor of English and Director of the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies at the University of Toronto, where he has been since August 2005. He did his BA at the University of Ghana and took his PhD from Cambridge University in 1995. He then went on to the University of Oxford as a Research Fellow, returning to Cambridge in September 1995 to become a Fellow at Pembroke College and a member of the Faculty of English where he eventually became a Reader in Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies.

Prof. Quayson has published widely on African literature, postcolonial studies and in literary theory. His book publications include the Blackwell Companion to Diaspora and Transnationalism Studies, ed.with Girish Daswani (in press, New York: Blackwell, 2013); The Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature, ed., 2 volumes. (Cambridge University Press, 2012); Labour Migration, Human Trafficking and Multinational Corporations (with Antonela Arhin; New York: Routledge, 2012); Fathers and Daughters: An Anthology of Exploration, ed., (Oxford: Ayebia Publishers, 2008); Aesthetic Nervousness: Disability and the Crisis of Representation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007); African Literature: An Anthology of Theory and Criticism (with Tejumola Olaniyan; Oxford: Blackwell, 2007); Relocating Postcolonialism (with David Theo Goldberg; Oxford: Blackwell, 2002). He also wrote the Introduction and Notes to the Penguin Classics edition of Nelson Mandela’s No Easy Walk to Freedom (London: Penguin, 2002) and is General Editor of the Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry. 

Together with the masterclass, Ato Quayson will also be giving a public lecture on Postcolonialism and the Diasporic Imaginary (as part of the lecture series New Directions in Literary Postcolonial Studies, organized via the Postcolonial Studies Initiative PCI and the Center for the Humanities (Utrecht University), with support from the Research Institute for History and Culture OGC and the Netherlands Research School for Literary Studies OSL. Earlier speakers in the series were Emily Apter (NYU) in June 2011 and Réda Bensmaïa (Brown) in October 2012.

The lecture will take place on Monday, 7 October 2013 (12.00-14.00 at Utrecht University). For more information, please email: B.M.Kaiser@uu.nl

Graduate seminar on Gilles Deleuze and cultural studies

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Graduate seminar on Gilles Deleuze and cultural studies

Academic year 2013-2014
Tuesday afternoons, 14.00-17.00
Location: Stijlkamer van Ravensteijn , Kromme Nieuwe Gracht 80, Utrecht University.
Organised by: the OSL (Netherlands Research School for Literary Studies) with the Centre for the Humanities at Utrecht University
Convened by: Professor Rosi Braidotti and Dr. Rick Dolphijn (Utrecht University)
ECTS: 7.5
Registration: osl-fgw@uva.nl (details: see below)

With guest speaker Prof. Gregg Lambert ( Syracuse University)

The seminar consists of eight sessions in English which will run throughout the academic year 2013-14 in Utrecht. Research masters and PhD students, as well as staff members, are welcome to participate. Students can get credits for their participation by attending regularly (attendance will be registered) and writing a final paper. Each session of the three-hour seminar will consist of an in-depth reading of a text by Gilles Deleuze (with or without Felix Guattari), sometimes alongside secondary texts by other theorists or philosophers. This year the Deleuze seminar will focus primarily on his philosophy of literature as developed in Deleuze’s last book publication: Essays Critical and Clinical to which we will add additional primary texts, notably Kafka and The Exhausted: Beckett. Starting with his ideas on literature and life we will focus every session on a major author of the recent past and see in what way Deleuze conceptualizes this authors writings and thus introduces us to a radically new theory of language. We will also be referring to selected sections of the Abécedaire  and other visual material.

Participants are expected to acquire the literature themselves, but wherever possible we will make pdf files available.

SESSION 1: INTRODUCTION (Braidotti and Dolphijn)

September 17, 2013

Reading Material:
Essays Critical and Clinical :
The Introduction by Daniel W. Smith
Chapter 1. Literature and Life (CC)
Chapter 2. Introduction Rhizome (ATP)

Please consult L’ Abécédaire:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpmn5eHe-EA 
(L of Literature; D for Desire and Q for Question)

SESSION 2: GUEST LECTURER Prof. Gregg Lambert (Syracuse University, USA)

October 1, 2013

Reading Material:
Essays Critical and Clinical:
Chapter 8. Whitman.
Chapter 9. What Children Say
Chapter 13. He Stuttered

Dialogues (with Claire Parnet) : ‘On the Superiority of Anglo-American Literature’.

SESSION 3: VITALIST WRITERS VIRGINIA WOOLF (Braidotti)

October 29, 2013

Reading Material:
A Thousand Plateaus: Chapter 10, section:  ‘Memoirs of a Molecule’ (p.272-286)
The Deleuze Reader: Chapter 2: ‘On Becoming”; Chapter 16: ‘On Desire’.
The Deleuze Dictionary: Entries on : ‘Woman’; ‘Writing’; ‘Chaos’; ‘Percept + Literature’.

Deleuze’s class on Virginia Woolf:
http://www2.univ-paris8.fr/deleuze/article.php3?id_article=401

SESSION 4: MELVILLE (Dolphijn and Braidotti)

December 3, 2013

Reading Material:
Essays Critical and Clinical:
10. Bartleby; or, The Formula (CC)
The Deleuze Reader: Chapter 6; Chapter 7 and Chapter 8.
The Deleuze Dictionary: Entries on : ‘Lines of Flight’; ‘Lines of Flight+Politics’. Literature’.

Please consult L’ Abécédaire:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DskjRer95s
(V for Voyage)

SESSSION 5:  KAFKA (Braidotti and Dolphijn)

January 21, 2014

Reading Material:
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari: Kafka, Towards a Minor Literature
 The Deleuze Dictionary: Entries on : ‘Capture’;’Capture+Politics’. 

Please consult L’ Abécédaire:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DskjRer95s
(S for Style)

SESSION 6: ARTAUD (Dolphijn)

February 11, 2014

Reading Material:
Essays Critical and Clinical:
15. To Have Done with Judgment (CC)
The Deleuze Dictionary: Entries on : ‘Body’; ‘Bodies without Organs’; ‘Lines of Flight’.
A Thousand Plateaus:
6: November 28, 1947: How Do You Make Yourself A Body Without Organs?

Listen to Artaud’s Pour en finir avec le jugement de Dieu:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXy7lsGNZ5A

SESSION 7: D.H. LAWRENCE (Braidotti and Dolphijn)

March 18, 2014

Reading Material:
Essays Critical and Clinical:
6. Nietzsche and Saint Paul, Lawrence and John of Patmos (CC)

What is Philosophy?
Conclusion: From Chaos to the Brain

SESSION 8: SAMUEL BECKETT

May 13, 2014

Reading Material: 
18. The Exhausted (CC)
The Deleuze Dictionary: Entries on : ‘Ethics’.

Please consult L’ Abécédaire:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DskjRer95s
(J for Joy)

For all information regarding this seminar please contact : OSL-fgw OSL-fgw@uva.nl  or:  cfh@uu.nl .

Registration: Please send an e-mail, including a biographical text of up to 100 words stating your affiliation and motivation for the seminar, to Eloe Kingma, osl-fgw@uva.nl.
Deadline for registration September 1st.

 

Seminar met Stefan Hertmans

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Wat winnen we wanneer we verliezen?

Humanisme en de snelle samenleving
Een seminar met Stefan Hertmans

Datum: 19 september 2013
Tijd: 13.00-17.00 uur
Locatie: Academiegebouw, Domplein 29, Utrecht
Info en aanmelding:  www.uvh.nl/stefanhertmans

  • Universiteit voor Humanistiek Utrecht
  • Departement Nederlands/Moderne Letterkunde, Universiteit Utrecht
  • Departement Religiewetenschap, Universiteit Utrecht

Stefan Hertmans is dichter, romanschrijver, essayist en compromisloos intellectueel. In België is hij een vooraanstaande verschijning op de scène van het politieke debat, van kunst, cultuur en filosofie. Maar ook in Nederland oogst zijn werk vanaf zijn debuut in 1981, veel lof. In juni ging in Amsterdam Jan Fabre’s  spraakmakende opera Tragedy of a Friendship in première, waarvoor Hertmans het libretto schreef. En in augustus verschijnt Hertmans’ nieuwe roman, Oorlog en terpentijn.

Tijdens dit seminar gaan Utrechtse humanistici, letterkundigen en religiewetenschappers met hem in gesprek over zijn boek De mobilisatie van Arcadia (2011) en het onlangs verschenen essay ‘Het verlorene’ (2013). Hertmans opent met zijn lezing ‘Wat winnen we wanneer we verliezen? Humanisme en de snelle samenleving’ om daarna met panel en publiek in gesprek te gaan.

Sinds de Oudheid is Arcadië de symbolische benaming voor een utopische plek waar de dagelijkse gang van zaken wordt onderbroken. In Arcadië heerst rust, stilte, volmaaktheid, maar ook passie, verleiding en extase. De mens gaat voor even op in een gelukzalige maar ook spannende wereld waarin het rationele en het irrationele in evenwicht zijn. In de moderne kunst en literatuur wordt het Arcadisch verlangen door de eeuwen heen steeds weer bezongen, meestal uit nostalgie. Want we zijn de mythische voorstelling van zo’n plek ‘waar alles anders is’ in de moderne cultuur verloren. Of toch niet? Hertmans onderzoekt hoe wij vandaag met de Arcadische droom omgaan. Ieder kan nu telkens zijn eigen Arcadië scheppen, zijn eigen kick- en piekervaringen maken, maar daardoor valt de utopische plek steeds meer samen met het gewone leven. Als alles extase is, is niets meer extase. De stilte van die vreemde plek wordt gemobiliseerd tot iets wat altijd en overal beschikbaar is. En daarmee verliezen we terwijl we winnen, stelt Hertmans: dat onoplosbare dilemma wijst hij aan in het werk van Galenus, in de poëzie van de middeleeuwse hoofse cultuur, bij Kierkegaard, Houellebecq en Sloterdijk…

Stefan Hertmans

Programma

13.00-13.15   Welkom en opening door moderator Laurens ten Kate (Humanistiek Utrecht)

13.15-14.00   Lezing ‘Wat winnen we wanneer we verliezen?’ door Stefan Hertmans

14.00-14.15   Vragen en discussie

14.15-14.45   Pauze

14.45-16.00   Ronde-tafelgesprek met Stefan Hertmans en panel, bestaande uit

  • Hans Alma (cultuurpsycholoog, Humanistiek Utrecht)
  • Johan Goud (filosoof en religiewetenschapper, Universiteit Utrecht)
  • Wilbert Smulders (neerlandicus en literatuurwetenschapper, Universiteit Utrecht)
    O.l.v. Laurens ten Kate

16.00-17.00   Publieksgesprek

17.00-18.00   Borrel

Toegang € 25.- incl. koffie/thee en borrel met hapjes. Info en aanmelding:  www.uvh.nl/stefanhertmans
Studenten en medewerkers van de drie organiserende instituten en leden van de Onderzoeksschool Literatuurwetenschap hebben vrij toegang. Aanmelding is verplicht.

Dit seminar werd mede mogelijk gemaakt door financiële ondersteuning van de landelijke Onderzoeksschool Literatuurwetenschap en de Stichting Woudschoten.

Op vrijdagavond 20 september organiseert de Internationale School voor Wijsbegeerte te Leusden ‘Utopia op je bord!’ : een diner pensant met Stefan Hertmans. Voor meer informatie zie: www.isvw.nl

Hermes Seminar – New Worlds, New Literatures, New Critiques

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New Worlds, New Literatures, New Critiques

Hermes Consortium Seminar at the University of Wisconsin – Madison
June 9-14, 2013

Throughout the course of human history, interactions between civilizations, empires, nations, and communities have initiated cultural changes and exchanges. Literature—in the form of oral, written, visual, or performance “texts”—has been at the heart of human interactions. In the moments of “globalization” of the world through violent conquests, imperialism, mercantilism, and colonialism, all the way to modern day interaction between nation-states through multinational commerce, the “worlding” of the world has initiated and facilitated the “worlding” of literature.

The expansion of European colonialism in Asia, Africa, and the Americas between the 16th and late 19th centuries further impacted the production, circulation, and distribution of literature. To be sure, violent moments of imperialism, mercantilism, colonialism, and even the current economic globalization have often led to the suppression of many literary and linguistic traditions. This unevenness and imbalance has created productive tensions as well, which have revealed the inherent hybridity of genres and forms. The transformation of the European Bildungsroman in the Americas, Asia, and Africa, modernist poetry in India, Brechtian Theater in Iran, Afro-Brazilian Jazz, and anime Ramayana exemplify such exchanges, whereby local aesthetic traditions were either renewed, or impacted and contributed to the “newness” of hitherto unfamiliar literary and artistic genres and forms. Such changes also impacted literary and artistic criticism, from the transnational reception of the heroic epic in Northern and Western Europe in the middle ages, to the transformation in (North-) American and European Literary theory in the second half of the twentieth century brought about, in part, by the arrival of migrant intellectuals from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. These changes must be looked at as more than a proliferation of schools and movements. The impact of European modernist thought on developments in comparative literature, intersections between the Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory and Postcolonial Studies, and conversely the use of “Rasa”- theory to conceptualize and evaluate “Performance,” interventions of race and ethnic theory in evaluating modern music, photography, and cinema are just a few examples of developments of new critical vocabularies.

The second half of the 20th century witnessed an unprecedented escalation of migration and amplification of technological, financial, and commercial interdependence between nations. These processes inaugurated many new modes of inquiry in the humanities and the social sciences. On the one hand, the rise of new nation-states following processes of decolonization led to post-colonial examinations of the concept of the nation, on the other, the development of regional entities such as the European Union triggered transnational perspectives on national cultural heritages.

The 2013 Hermes Consortium Conference at the University of Wisconsin – Madison aims to focus on aspects of literary intersection, literary conglomeration, and literary innovations that are initiated and facilitated by historical phenomena of trans-national, trans-regional and/or global impact. At the center of the conference is a working idea of a “world literary/artistic criticism,” understood not merely as a finished collection of literary/artistic vocabulary from around the world, but an invitation to trace worldwide literary and artistic interactions and critical vocabularies that are developed to understand literary and artistic production. What new aesthetic and artistic forms come into being as a result of newer interactions? What happens with literary and artistic criticism—in the public sphere arena of magazines, newspapers, e-zines, but also in the academy? How do local political, historical, and market realities shape, and are in turn shaped by transformations in literature and art? These are just a few questions that will be discussed in the conference. Paper topics might include but are not limited to transnational, comparative evaluations of:

  • Forms of the Heroic Epic
  • Globalized “Bildungsroman”
  • Legacies of Realism: from Social to Magical Realist
  • Localizing the Fourth Wall: Indigenizing the Alienation Effect
  • Transformations in Short Stories: American Short Story, the German Kurzgeschichte, the “Nai Kahani” in Hindi Literature
  • Multilingual Rap: European Migration and Transformation of an American Genre
  • Hybridization of Poetical Forms across Borders
  • Translation and Transformation across Languages, Media, and Culture

Applications by e-mail containing name, institutional address, e-mail address, 200 word abstract of doctoral project, and 300 word abstract of proposed paper must be sent no later than February 22, 2013 to: director@global.wisc.edu.  Fees for the 2013 seminar in Madison will be $350 USD.  A small number of scholarships will be available to select candidates.