April 23, 2007
What is a problematization?
Inspired by comments Colin and Limor have made over on the VSS blog I wanted to propose for explicit discussion (again) the question: what is a problematization? Rather than re-state the basic question that everyone is asking, let me just quote a part of Colin’s question (Limor’s is along very similar lines):
April 17, 2007
Biopolitics
This paper by Bruce Braun brings Deleuze back into the biopower conversation. Might be worth discussing here. Some critical comments on the piece have been posted on the vital systems security blog.
April 14, 2007
Report on Syllabus Project Meeting 2
Amelia, Limor, Mattias, Alfred, and I met on April 11 to go over the original suggestions for the Anthropology of the Contemporary syllabus. I’ve summarized our discussion in the form of a skeletal syllabus. It was agreed that the syllabus shouldn’t focus on the conceptual issues of the anthropology of the contemporary as a mode of inquiry because that would be more of a graduate level undertaking. Rather, we felt it should focus on “problems.” Part One of the course would introduce the problem as a new approach with more theoretical readings, setting conceptual foundations. Part Two (Contemporary Problems) would focus on specific contemporary problems. Read more »
April 9, 2007
Syllabus Project Meeting Wed @ 10 a.m.
We’ll meet Wednesday at 10. The Gifford Room is booked then so we’ll need to find another venue. Does anyone have suggestions?
Everyone should review the wiki page contributions to date.
April 6, 2007
Biopower Lecture April 16
BIO-POWER AND VITAL POLITICS
Townsend Center, 4.00, April 16th
co-sponsored by the Critical Theory Initiative, Department of
Rhetoric, and the Maxine Elliot Funds
Several strands of political and ethical discussions around the
notion of bio-power have emerged since Foucault’s classical
definition of the term. This lecture will provide a critical
assessment of some of the leading critical theories about life
itself. By stressing, with Deleuze, the bodily materialism and the
vital elements of contemporary politics, the lecture also explores
its necro-political aspects, that is to say the shifting boundaries
between bio-power and the management of new ways of dying.
Rosi Braidotti is Professor of Women’s Studies in the Arts Faculty of
Utrecht University and scientific director of the Netherlands
Research School of Women’s Studies and of the Expertise Centre Gender
and Multiculturalism (GEM). She founded the inter-European university
exchange programme, NOISE, linking 10 universities in different
European countries, which offers a yearly European Summer School. She
has published extensively in feminist philosophy, epistemology,
poststructuralism and psychoanalysis. Her books include Patterns of
Dissonance (Routledge, 1991, Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual
Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory (Columbia University,
1994), Metamorphoses, Toward a Materialist Theory of Becoming (Polity
Press, 2002), and Transpositions: On Nomadic Ethics (Polity Press,
2006).
April 3, 2007
Povinelli 290 Lecture
Elizabeth Povinelli gave a 290 lecture yesterday worth attending. The room was packed and the lecturer (whatever one might think of the piece) presented a serious effort at thought. These two facts alone make the event a red letter day in the Berkeley anthropology department. It seems so little to ask for, but one does have to wonder why there are so few such events in the department throughout the year. Certainly Berkeley could attract people who people at Berkeley want to hear from. But that’s another story…
I wanted to reflect on the talk here because I think it’s relevant to some of the conversations we’ve had in labinar settings and it intersects a good deal with the manuscript of conversations we read between George Marcus and Paul last September. And I also had questions about it that I wasn’t able (or prepared) to ask yesterday and so thought I would do so here. Read more »
April 1, 2007
Syllabus Project Meeting
I’m proposing that we meet Wednesday, April 11, from 10 to 12, to discuss the selections that we’ve been compiling on the wiki. Can everyone come then?
Also, a reminder to add by Friday two potential readings for the syllabus on the syllabus project wiki page. Say why, and provide bibliographic information. Also, please add your schedule restrictions to the group calendar page on the wiki, if you have not already.