Walter Benjamin and the Unclaimed Present

Increasingly a veteran blogger for us, here’s MA student Max Bacharach reflecting on Benjamin’s ongoing relevance …. Walter Benjamin’s enduring, if not growing, appeal, his relevance to many of today’s Big Questions, and the steady stream of literature attributed to, and focused on, him – Verso alone have published two recent editions, with another due …

Funding for MAs in Critical Theory and Cultural Studies

We are very pleased to be able to announce funding possibilities relevant to the MA in Critical Theory and Cultural Studies. About the MA This dynamic and interdisciplinary programme will give you a comprehensive introduction to the critical tradition that shapes today’s human and social sciences, as well as the opportunity to apply theories to contemporary cultural, social and …

Centre for Critical Theory Visiting Speaker: Claire Blencowe (25/11/15)

Wednesday November 25th  A41 Sir Clive Granger Building  5.00 pm Ecological Attunement in a Theological Key: Adventures in Anti-Fascist Aesthetics Claire Blencowe (Warwick) Isabelle Stengers has posed the question of how we are to relate to the climatic and economic catastrophes of our present times in a mode that resists ‘the coming barbarism’ – the barbarism …

End of Summer School: The Three Ecologies

The Centre for Critical Theory is running a three day ‘End of Summer School’ in conjunction with Nottingham Contemporary, at the gallery on the 14th, 15th, and 16th of September, in the late afternoons and evenings. The workshops and seminars scheduled for the event will look at the theories and struggles at the juncture of mental …

Another Speculation? Michel Feher on Neoliberalism and Resistance

PhD student in the Centre for Critical Theory, Josh Bowser, gives his take on a new perspective on neoliberalism: In getting to grips with “neoliberalism”, a recommended first port of call is the published transcripts of Michel Foucault’s 1979 lecture series at the Collège de France titled The Birth of Biopolitics.[i] In those lectures Foucault …

Centre for Critical Theory Research Seminar: Is There a Transnational Queer Studies?

Speaker: Professor Donald Hall (Lehigh University) Time: 4:00 pm, Monday 6 July Place: A3 Highfield House Chaired by Dr Hongwei Bao, Centre for Critical Theory Since its birth in the early 1990s, queer theory and queer studies have circulated globally, by way of conferences, internationally influential essays and books, and other flows of scholarly information. …

Living and Speaking Together: Conference organised by Luce Irigaray and Judith Still

Location: University of Nottingham Date(s): Saturday 20th – Sunday 21st June 2015  Many imagine that building a world culture requires us to use a conceptual and abstract universal language which would be capable of dominating the complexity of the world as it is today. Certainly, this corresponds to the way of reasoning of our past …

Bitter Lizards Part 1: Truth and Lies in Adam Curtis’s Afghanistan

In the first of two posts, our own Max Bacharach (MA in Critical Theory and Cultural Studies) reflects on Adam Curtis’ latest documentary, Bitter Lake …. It is uncontentious, I think, to say that today, documentaries are ubiquitous, as too is hunger for the ‘truth(s)’ they apparently waste no time in serving up. Some resonate …

Isabelle Stengers talk at the Contemporary

For those of you who couldn’t make it to the talk by Isabelle Stengers (also in coversation with professor Sarah Whatmore from the University of Oxford) entitled ‘Provocations of Gaia’ which took place at the Nottingham Contemporary on the 17th of February, please find below the link to the video recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-H1JgxE2mA Enjoy, and feel …

Aesthetics of Crisis: A Lecture and Seminar with Brian Holmes (23/01/15)

Continuing in The Centre for Critical Theory’s ongoing series on ‘Neoliberalism, Crisis and Criticism’, we are pleased to announce ‘Aesthetics of Crisis’, a seminar which will take place 2-5pm in the Meeting Room of the Nottingham Contemporary on the 23rd of January 2015. All are very welcome to attend, but for the purposes of participation, it is expected …