Events Archive

This archive lists past events in the MA in Aesthetics and Politics program. Mostly, it is an archive for past events in the Aesthetics and Politics lecture series. But some other events organized in addition to the lecture series are also archived here. Video footage of some of the lectures will be accessible soon. 

Spring 2012 Theory Tuesdays

Warren Neidich

April 24th, 12n-1:30pm, Butler Building (Cube)

Video coming soon...

François Noudelmann

April 17th, 12n-1:30pm, Butler Building (Cube)

Video coming soon...

Stathis Gourgouris

April 10th, 12n-1:30pm, Butler Building (Cube)

Video coming soon...

Birk Weiberg

March 13th, 12n-1:30pm, Butler Building (Cube)

Jaspar Joseph-Lester

February 28th, 12n-1:30pm, Butler Building (Cube)

Kate Elswit

January 24th, 12n-1:30pm, Butler Building (Cube) 

Fall 2011 Theory Tuesdays

Andrea Fontenot

November 15th, 12n-1:30pm, Butler Building (Cube)

Frédéric Worms

November 1st, 12n-1:30pm, Butler Building (Cube)

Christian Hite

September 20th, 12n-1:30pm, Butler Building (Cube)

We apologize for the quality of the recording... 

Spring 2011 Aesthetics and Politics Lecture Series

For more information about the lecture series course, please consult the course website created by Chandra Khan. 

ALI BEHDAD, “The Orientalist Photograph”

February 8th, Tuesday, 7:30 pm, Langley at CALARTS

Ali Behdad is John Charles Hillis Professor of Literature and Chair of English Department at UCLA. He has published widely on a broad range of topics, including travel, immigration, and Orientalist photography. He is the author of Belated Travelers: Orientalism in the Age of Colonial Dissolution (Duke 1995) and A Forgetful Nation: On Immigration and Cultural Identity in the United States(Duke, 2005). He is currently completing a manuscript on Orientalist Photography in the 19th century. 

For the rest of the lecture, click here. 

GAYATRI CHAKRAVORTY SPIVAK, “Double Bind of Translation”

March 17th, Thursday, 6 pm, Ahmanson Auditorium at MOCA Grand Avenue

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is Avalon Foundation Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University, where she used to direct the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society. She specializes in 19th- and 20th-century literature; Marxism; feminism; deconstruction; poststructuralism; and globalization. Her many books include Myself Must I Remake: The Life and Poetry of W. B. Yeats (1974), Of Grammatology (translation with critical introduction of Jacques Derrida, De la grammatologie, 1976), In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics, Selected Subaltern Studies (ed., 1988), Other Asias (2005), and An Aesthetic Education in the Age of Globalization (forthcoming). She is also an activist in rural education and feminist and ecological social movements since 1986.

ANANYA CHATTERJEA, “In Search of Choreographies of Resistance” 

April 19th, Tuesday, 7:00 pm, Langley at CALARTS

Ananya Chatterjea is Associate Professor and Director of Dance at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. She envisions her work in the field of dance as a “call to action” with a focus on the bodily production of knowledge. Her most recently completed choreographic project is Kshoy! Decay!, which launches a quartet of works exploring how women in global communities of color experience and resist violence. She is the author of Butting out! Reading cultural politics in the work of Chandralekha and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and other essays published in the anthology Worlding Dance, and Celebrating India: Dance and Performance.

This event will be preceded by an afternoon performance/presentation co-sponsored by the Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance.

Fall 2010 Aesthetics and Politics Lecture Series

The Fall 2010 lecture series were hosted by Arne De Boever. 

TIMOTHY MORTON, “Hyperobjects”

October 7th, Thursday. 7:30pm, CAFÉ A at CALARTS. 

Timothy Morton is Professor of Literature and the Environment at the University of California, Davis. His interests include ecotheory, philosophy, biology, physical sciences, literary theory, food studies, sound and music, materialism, poetics, Romanticism, Buddhism, and the eighteenth century. He has published nine books, the most recent of which are Ecology Without Nature and The Ecological Thought.

For the rest of the talk, please click here.   

CATHERINE MALABOU, “Plasticity: Looking For New Political Modes of Being”

November 9th, Tuesday. 7:30pm, Ahmanson Auditorium at MOCA Grand Avenue.

For directions, please consult moca.org. 

Catherine Malabou teaches philosophy at the University of Paris X-Nanterre and is Visiting Professor of Comparative Literature at the State University of New York, Buffalo. Her work articulates the notion of plasticity at the crossroads of philosophy and neuroscience. Her publications in English include The Future of Hegel, Counterpath (with Jacques Derrida), What Should We Do With Our Brain?, and Plasticity at the Dusk of Writing. 

For the rest of the talk, please click here.  

BONNIE HONIG, “Antigone, Interrupted: Greek Tragedy and the Future of Humanism”

December 2nd, Thursday. 7:30pm, CAFÉ A at CALARTS.

Bonnie Honig is Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University. She is also Senior Research Fellow at the American Bar Foundation and appointed (courtesy) at Northwestern Law School. She is the author of Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics, Democracy and the Foreigner, and Emergency Politics: Paradox, Law, Democracy. Her current project is about Sophocles’ Antigone.

For a video of the first part of the lecture, click below. The rest of the lecture is available through the CalArts library.   

Spring 2011 Guest lecture

Bernard Stiegler

April 12th, 6-9pm, Langley.  

Spring 2011 Theory Tuesdays

Douglas Kearney

April 28th, 12n-1:30pm, Butler Building (BB4). 

We cannot post a video of Doug's talk due to the copyrighted audio-material that was used in the presentation. The video is archived in the CalArts library and can be consulted there. More info about Doug's many projects can be found on his website.   

Norman Klein

March 22nd, 12n-1:30pm, Butler Building (Cube).

  

Nancy Wood

February 22nd, 12n-1:30pm, Butler Building (Cube). 

Matthew McGarvey

January 25th, 12n-1:30pm, Butler Building (Cube).

Fall 2010 Theory Tuesdays

Arne De Boever

November 16th. 12n-1:30pm, Butler Building (Cube).

For the rest of the talk, please click here. 

Chandra Khan

October 12th. 12n-1:30pm, Butler Building (Cube). 

For the rest of the talk, please click here. 

Bruce Bégout

October 5th. 12n-1:30pm, Butler Building (Cube).

For the rest of the talk, please click here. 

Martín Plot

September 14th, 12n-1:30pm, Butler Building (Cube).

For another clip from this talk, please click here. 

Spring 2010 Aesthetics and Politics Lecture Series

Greg Tate

May 4, 2010. At 8:30pm at REDCAT

The longtime Village Voice cultural critic, pioneer of hip-hop journalism, and adventurous music director gives an illuminating talk that locates a crisis today in black creative self-conception and representation—an exigency now being countered by new black theater, Afropunk and young black visual artists. Tracing a history of the recent past, Tate’s incisive analysis connects the depoliticization and disenchantment of black performative expression to the hypercapitalist mass-marketing of black cultural output that boomed in the 90s.

Manuel Castells

April 13, 2010. At 7:30pm at CalArts (Langley)

Manuel Castells is University Professor and the Wallis Annenberg Chair in Communication Technology and Society at the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles. He is Professor of Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, and holds joint appointments in the Department of Sociology, in the School of Policy, Planning, and Development, and in the School of International Relations. He is, as well, Research Professor at the Open University of Catalonia in Barcelona, and Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley, where he was Professor of City and Regional Planning and Professor of Sociology from 1979 to 2003 before joining USC. He is the author of 22 academic books and editor or co-author of 21 additional books, as well as over 100 articles in academic journals. His trilogy The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture was published by Blackwell in 1996-98 in the first edition and in 2000-2003 in its second edition. It has been reprinted in English 18 times, and translated into Spanish (Spain and Mexico), French, Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal), Chinese (in complex characters in Taipei, in simplified characters in Beijing), Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, Korean, Parsi, Croatian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Danish, Lithuanian, Turkish, Polish, and Catalan, and is in the process of translation in Japanese, Ukranian, and Arabic.

Fred Moten

March 9, 2010. At 7:30pm at CalArts (Langley)

Moten’s lecture “Jurisgenerative Grammar: /ForAlto_, / For Black Studies” examines Anthony Braxton and the figure of the black student. It serves as an appendix to “The External World (When a Stranger Appears),” a recent paper regarding Hannah Arendt’s later work. Moten works at the intersection of black studies, performance studies, poetry and critical theory. He is author of Arkansas, In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition, I ran from it but was still in it., Hughson’s Tavern, and B Jenkins.

Brent Hayes Edwards

February 16, 2010. At 7:30pm at CalArts (Langley)

Brent Hayes Edwards is a Professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. His areas of expertise include African American literature, theories of diaspora, the history of colonialism, surrealism, 20th-century poetics, and jazz. He is the author of the award-winning The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism. He is currently working on a cultural history of “loft jazz” in downtown New York in the 1970s.

 

Fall 2009 Aesthetics and Politics Lecture Series

Marc Cooper

December 15, 2009. At 8:30pm at REDCAT

Prolific journalist and cultural critic Marc Cooper, a contributing editor to The Nation and formerly the writer of the LA Weekly’s popular “Dissonance” column, is joined by Norman M. Klein and Martín Plot for a provocative discussion about shifting cultural patterns in a time of crises global and local.

Michael Bielicky

November 17, 2009. At 6:30pm at CalArts (Langley)

Over the past twenty-five years, Michael Bielicky has participated in many international exhibitions, festivals and symposia, presenting projects that experiment with navigation, video-communication, virtual reality and data visualization technologies, often developed in collaboration with ZKM Karlsruhe, Ars Electronica Linz, High Tech Center Berlin-Babelsberg etc. Exhibited in Centre Pompidou, Paris, MOMA New York, National Gallery Prague, Kunsthaus Zurich, ZKM Karlsruhe, Ars Electronica Linz etc.


Karen Piper

October 20, 2009. At 6pm at CalArts (Langley)

Karen Piper's research focuses on globalization, colonial/neo-colonial discourse, and the rhetoric of "development." With a Master's degree in Environmental Studies and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature (University of Oregon, 1996), she has always pursued interdisciplinary projects focusing on resource scarcity and distribution.  Her first book, Cartographic Fictions: Maps, Race, and Identity (Palgrave Macmillan 2006), looks at the evolution of mapping technology in the British colonies--from triangulation to GIS--as a way to gain distance and control over local populations.  Her second book, Left in the Dust: How Race and Politics Created a Human and Environmental Tragedy in L.A., examines the environmental justice issues surrounding water pollution and scarcity in Los Angeles. Currently, she is a visiting research professor at Carnegie Mellon, where she is working on a book about World Bank rhetoric regarding water privatization, including in India, South Africa, Bolivia, and Iraq, as well as the mass protests movements emerging around the world against the privatization, or corporate control, of water.  She has also published in journals and books including Cultural Critique, the American Indian Quarterly, MELUS, and Postcolonial Literatures: Expanding the Canon. She received the Sierra Nature Writing Award, a National Endowment of the Humanities grant, and a Huntington fellowship.

Spring 2009 Aesthetics and Politics Lecture Series

Samuel Weber

May 14, 2009. At 8:30pm at REDCAT

Introduced and moderated by Sande Cohen and James Wiltgen. Professor Weber studied with Paul de Man and Theodor W. Adorno, whose book, Prisms, he co-translated into English. The translation of, and introduction to Theodor Adorno's most important book of cultural criticism helped define the way in which the work of the Frankfurt School would be read and understood in the English-speaking world. Professor Weber has also published books on Balzac, Lacan, and Freud as well as on the relation of institutions and media to interpretation. In the 1980s he worked in Germany as a “dramaturge” in theater and opera productions. Out of the confrontation of that experience with his work in critical theory came the book, Theatricality as Medium, published in 2004 by Fordham University Press. In 2005 he published Targets of Opportunity: On the Militarization of Thinking, also at Fordham. His most recent book is Benjamin's -abilities, published by Harvard UP. That book, as well as several others, are currently being translated into Chinese and will be published by Beijing University Press. His current research projects include “Toward a Politics of Singularity” and “The Uncanny.”

Adam Berg

March 31, 2009. At 8pm at REDCAT (lounge)

A conversation with CalArts’ faculty, philosopher, and visual artist Adam Berg. Introduced and moderated by Douglas Kearney and Martín Plot. Followed by a reception in honor of Adam Berg’s book release. 

Hans Haacke

February 10, 2009. At 8:30pm at REDCAT

German born visual and political artist Hans Haacke in conversation with CalArts’ faculty, historian and writer Norman Klein and Lacma curator Stephanie Barron. 

Alain Badiou

February 6, 2009. At CalArts at 6pm (Main Bldg – F200).

Alain Badiou was a student at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in the 1950s. He taught at the University of Paris VIII (Vincennes-Saint Denis) from 1969 until 1999, when he returned to ENS as the Chair of the philosophy department. He continues to teach a popular seminar at the Collège International de Philosophie, on topics ranging from the great 'antiphilosophers' (Saint-Paul, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Lacan) to the major conceptual innovations of the twentieth century. Much of Badiou's life has been shaped by his dedication to the consequences of the May 1968 revolt in Paris. A leading member of Union des jeunesses communistes de France (marxistes-léninistes), he remains with Sylvain Lazarus and Natacha Michel at the center of L'Organisation Politique, a post-party organization concerned with direct popular intervention in a wide range of issues (including immigration, labor, and housing). He is the author of several successful novels and plays as well as more than a dozen philosophical works. 

Fall 2008 Aesthetics and Politics Lecture Series

Ashley Hunt

December 9, 2008. At 7pm, at REDCAT

Please join us for a discussion and tour of the exhibition 9 Scripts from a Nation at War with Ashley Hunt, Martin Plot and current students in the CalArts MA in Aesthetics and Politics program. 

Jeffrey Goldfarb

November 11, 2008. At 7pm, at REDCAT

Noted media, cultural, and political sociologist Jeffrey Goldfarb visits REDCAT for a post-election conversation with CalArts’ Martín Plot. The Michael E. Gellert Professor of Sociology at the New School for Social Research, Goldfarb weighs in on the transition between the Bush administration and the newly elected president, and the cultural and political meanings it may hold. 

Ernesto Laclau

October 16, 2008. At 8:30pm at REDCAT

Argentine political theorist Ernesto Laclau, one of the most influential thinkers of our time, is on hand to expound on his latest works and their relationships with contemporary political processes in a conversation with fellow political theorist Martín Plot. 

Spring 2006 Event

Christopher Hitchens and Andrew Arato

April 4, 2006. At 8:30pm at REDCAT

What did the invasion of Iraq do to Iraq? What did the invasion of Iraq do to America? Cultural critic and Vanity Fair columnist Christopher Hitchens debates political theorist Andrew Arato of the New School for Social Research on the war in Iraq and its impact on the present and future of America. Introduced by Martín Plot of the CalArts School of Critical Studies and moderated by Stacy McGoldrick of Cal Poly Pomona.