Between Urgency and Abstraction

MA Cultural Studies Conference 2014 / Goldsmiths, University of London

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Keynote I - Dr. Benjamin Noys (University of Chichester), 'Separation, Fusion, Mediation' 

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Keynote II - Dr. Julia Ng (Goldsmiths), 'Differentiated Unities' 

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Keynote III - Dr. Julian Henriques (Goldsmiths), 'Technology, Subjectivity, Cultural Studies' 

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Panel II - Aesthetics of Urgency: Between Figure and Abstraction 

00:00:00 - Introduction

00:00:58 - Sophie Hoyle (MFA, Goldsmiths), ‘Collapse: Contemporary Artists’ Works Exploring Global Divisions of Labour’

00:19:32 - Mariska Versantvoort (MA Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths), ‘From Flâneur to Cynic: Political Engagement in Benjamin and Late Foucault’

00:34:40 - Rebecca Eng (MA Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths), ‘The Lumpen Aesthetic’

00:51:24 - Neda Genova (MA Contemporary Art Theory, Goldsmiths), ‘Interventions on a Wall: Abstraction and Everyday Protest in Sofia’

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Panel III - Ontopower, Intersectionality and (In)Difference 

00:00:00 Introduction 

00:02:10 Barbara Neukirchinger (PhD Sociology, Bangor University), 'Critical Theory, Poststructuralism and the Intersection of Gender and Disability​'

00:19:30 Sacha Kahir (Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty), 'Ontological Syndicalism: Disability Rights Activism and Metapolitics'

00:34:08 Stephanie Figgins (MA Postcolonial Culture and Global Policy, Goldsmiths), 'Queering the Whistle: Race, Gender, Sexuality, and the Snowden Leaks'

00:52:05 Ramon Sahib Johnson (PhD Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths), 'Technologies of Difference: A Technoaesthetic Perspective on Black Study'

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Workshop I - Collective Creativity 

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Workshop II - Goldsmiths Solidarity Network 

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BETWEEN URGENCY AND ABSTRACTION :

CULTURAL STUDIES AFTER STUART HALL

Conference organised by the MA Cultural Studies programme /

Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London

Wednesday 25th  -  Thursday 26th June, 2014

“Against the urgency of people dying in the streets, what in God’s name is the point of cultural studies? … At that point, I think anybody who is into cultural studies seriously as an intellectual practice, must feel, on their pulse, its ephemerality, its insubstantiality, how little it registers, how little we’ve been able to change anything or get anybody to do anything. If you don’t feel that as one tension in the work that you are doing, theory has let you off the hook.”              –  Stuart Hall

We may allow Stuart Hall’s recent death to mark an opportunity for reflection on the history of the field of cultural studies, its inherited imperatives and future trajectories. Hall called for a direct engagement between the academy and the social world ‘outside’ of it, imagining cultural studies as the site of this interaction – and hence a site of both contestation and radical politics. Compared to fields such as sociology, this imperative was reflected in a methodological freedom that has been the basis of cultural studies’ flourishing; and the crisis of identity which seems to continually confront it. Is this freedom a threat to cultural studies’ raison d’être and character, once located in the sense of political urgency inherited from Hall, or does it now encompass a more abstract reading of the political as rhetorical and aesthetic production? Is this move away from its Marxist roots a denaturing of cultural studies, or a necessary move with the times? And what does the shift in cultural studies tell us about the shift in contemporary politics more generally?

This conference will explore the terrain of cultural studies after and beyond Stuart Hall by interrogating its contemporary orientation, aims, and (anti-) methodologies. From its right to risk and experimentation, to its imperative to bring knowledge outside of institutions, we seek to explore the past, present and future iterations of the field in order to reaffirm its contemporary relevance as both an academic field and a political force. 

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SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Wednesday, 25th of June

RHB 256 (2nd floor Richard Hoggart Building, Goldsmiths) until 15:30

09:00 - 09:15 TEA / COFFEE AND WELCOME

09:15 – 10:45  PANEL I : ‘Rethinking Cultural Studies’

Oana Parvan (PhD Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths), ‘Against Cultural Studies as an Enterprise'

Desmond Hok-Man Sham (PhD Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths), ‘On (Ir)relevancy of Cultural Studies with East and Southeast Asia’

Frederiek Pennink (MA Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths), ‘Benjamin and the Smart City’

11:00 – 12:00 KEYNOTE I

Dr. Julian Henriques (Goldsmiths), 'Technology, Subjectivity, Cultural Studies'

12:15 – 13:15 PERFORMANCE PRESENTATION: ‘Reflections on Radical Creativity and Space’

Hosted by Collective Creativity

13:15 – 14:00 LUNCH 14:00 – 15:30 KEYNOTE II

Dr. Benjamin Noys (University of Chichester), ‘Separation, Fusion, Mediation’

Ian Gulland Lecture Theatre (Whitehead Building, Goldsmiths)

15:30 – 16:30 AFTERNOON TEA

16:30 – 20:30 FILM SCREENING : ‘In Search of UIQ’ / ‘Facs of Life’

‘In Search of UIQ’ (72 minutes) / ‘Facs of Life’ (115 minutes), Silvia Maglioni and Graeme Thomson (Terminal Beach) - with introduction by   Dr. Simon O’Sullivan (Goldsmiths)

Thursday, 26th of June

All RHB 309 (3rd floor Richard Hoggart Building, Goldsmiths)

09:30 - 10:00  TEA / COFFEE AND WELCOME

10:00 – 11:30 PANEL II : ‘Aesthetics of Urgency: Between Figure and Abstraction’

Sophie Hoyle (MFA, Goldsmiths), ‘Collapse: Contemporary Artists’ Works Exploring Global Divisions of Labour’

Mariska Versantvoort (MA Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths), ‘From Flâneur to Cynic: Political Engagement in Benjamin and Late Foucault'

Rebecca Eng (MA Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths), 'The Lumpen Aesthetic'

Neda Genova (MA Contemporary Art Theory, Goldsmiths), ‘Interventions on a Wall: Abstraction and Everyday Protest in Sofia’

11:30 – 12:00  MORNING TEA

12:00 - 13.30 WORKSHOP I: ‘The University as a Site of Political Struggle’

Hosted by Goldsmiths Solidarity Network

13:30-14:30 LUNCH 14:30 – 16:00 KEYNOTE III

Dr. Julia Ng (Goldsmiths), 'Differentiated Unities'

16:00 – 16:30 AFTERNOON TEA 16:30 – 18:00 PANEL III : ‘Ontopower, Intersectionality and (In)Difference

Barbara Neukirchinger (PhD Sociology, Bangor University), ‘Critical Theory, Poststructuralism and the Intersection of Gender and Disability​’

Stephanie Figgins (MA Postcolonial Culture and Global Policy, Goldsmiths), ‘Queering the Whistle: Race, Gender, Sexuality, and the Snowden Leaks’

Sacha Kahir (Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty), ‘Ontological Syndicalism: Disability Rights Activism and Metapolitics’

Ramon Sahib Johnson (PhD Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths), ‘Technologies of Difference: A Technoaesthetic Perspective on Black Study’