Cutrofello’s objective correlatives: of Hegel and Hamlet

InterCcECT is delighted to present a talk by Andrew Cutrofello, “Two Contemporary Hegelianisms,” Tuesday 19 March, 4pm, Newberry LibraryRoom B82.

Abstract:
Robert Brandom’s and Slavoj Žižek’s appropriations of Hegel seem radically different. Brandom’s Hegelianism takes the form of a semantic holism that is essentially normative and pragmatic. Žižek’s is a version of dialectical materialism that is avowedly perverse and revolutionary in intention. Curiously, however, there are significant parallels in the two philosophers’ conceptions of Hegelian spirit. These are evidenced in their respective readings of T.S. Eliot’s essay, “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” Nevertheless, Brandom’s and Žižek’s Hegels ultimately diverge with respect to the nature of reason and commitment. In my talk I will try to sketch these differences by bringing into play another of Eliot’s essays from The Sacred Wood, namely, “Hamlet and His Problems.” In this essay, Eliot develops his famous conception of the objective correlative, explaining why it goes missing in Shakespeare’s play. Brandom and Žižek, I suggest, have fundamentally different conceptions of Hegel’s “missing” objective correlative.

a few highlights from our calendar, which contains additional details:
8 March Issues in Phenomenology
13 March Gregory Flaxman at U of C
13 March Bill Martin, “Zen Maoism: An improbable Buddhist-Marxist synthesis”
15 March Paola Marrati on Deleuze

Lecture at Shimer College

On Monday, November 12, at 6:30, Shimer College will be hosting a lecture by Peter Temes, who will be discussing his new book The Future of the Jewish People in Five Photographs. More details are available on this poster (PDF), which is handy for e-mailing, printing, and displaying.

History, Fictions, and the Politics of Justice

Chicago-area folks may be interested in “History, Fictions, and the Politics of Justice”, an event in two weeks with Saba Mahmood and Mahmood Mamdani.

Mahmood’s lecture is titled “Azazeel and the Politics of Historical Fiction: Sectarian Dramas Ancient and Modern”; Mamdani’s lecture, “Beyond Nuremberg: The Historical Significance of the Post-Apartheid Transition in South Africa”.

October 25, 4pm

International House Home Room

University of Chicago

Further details here.

Red October

InterCcECT proudly presents Jodi Dean, “The Communist Horizon”  Saturday 27 October, 4:30pm, generously hosted by Gallery 400. Based on her brand new book, the talk urges us to imagine new Octobers.

*theorizing October*

(highlights from our calendar, which contains links and details):

12 Oct Laurence Hemming, “Production: Formerly This Was Called God: Heidegger in dialogue with Marx”

13 Oct Frances Ferguson, “Economic and Sentimental Reasons”

15 Oct Anthony Paul Smith, “Liberating Lived Experience: François Laruelle and the Work of NonPhilosophy”

16 Oct Michael Hardt, “The Right to the Common”

16 Oct Ramin Takloo-Bighash, “History, Theory, and Practice of Prime Numbers”

17 Oct Adam Kotsko,”Agamben on Liturgy and Politics”

17-19 Oct UIC French, “Inequality and Exclusion:The Theory and Practice of Human Rights”

18 Oct Achille Mbembe, “Notes on Fetishism and Animism”

26-28 Oct DePaul Philosophy, “Hegel and Capitalism”

29 Oct Danielle Bergeron,”Psychosis As It Is Lived”

Propose or announce your October aspirations by contacting us , and “like” us on Facebook for frequent links.

the fantasy of democracy, the desire of communism

InterCcECT is delighted to announce a lecture by Jodi Dean, “The Communist Horizon,” Saturday 27 October, presented at Gallery 400 with their generous support.  Based on her book forthcoming in late October, the talk proposes new ideals for communism today.

In preparation, InterCcECT will host a reading group on excerpts from Dean’s recent book Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies, along with selections from the comrade anthology The Idea of Communism.  Join us Thursday 4 October at The Newberry Library, room B82, 3pm.  PDFs available upon request .

*this week in theory*

(highlights from our calendar, which contains additional details):

5 September Graeber’s Debt (History of Capitalism reading group)

5 September Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (German Philosophy reading group)

6 September Leibniz’s Exoteric Philosophy (Lecture by John Whipple)

7 September “Kristeva’s Severed Heads: Sadomasochism and Sublimation” (Lecture by Kelly Oliver)

What’s on your docket? As always, write us  to propose or announce events, and “like” us on Facebook for frequent links.

Homicide cap and trade

It’s becoming clear that the Chicago Police Department’s blanket ban on gang-related homicides is no longer workable. Clearly we need to try a new approach: legalize and regulate, in the interest of harm reduction.

The first step is to provide training to registered gang members in the proper use of firearms. Too many people have died because of a lack of adequate training among gang enforcers, leading to innocents “catching strays.” The city should look to partner with the NRA and private philanthropists to build and staff a shooting range to improve the aim of at-risk youth.

Secondly, once we are assured that only gang members will be killed, we need some way to keep such homicides within tolerable levels. Here I think we need to take a hint from environmental policy: homicide cap and trade. Each registered gang would be given the opportunity to bid on permits that would constitute an annual allowance of homicides. If they do not use all their murders, they can sell the remainders to other participants in the system (which presumably would include the police department itself). Murders in excess of the particular gang’s “cap” would be prosecuted like traditional murders, and other gangs would be incentivized to cooperate with the police investigation in order to maintain their ability to legally murder people — a stark reversal of the current culture of non-cooperation that our short-sighted total murder ban has helped to produce.

In addition, gangs could earn murder-offset credits by funding after-school programs and engaging in other philanthropic activities likely to lower the murder rate in their communities.

I believe this plan would be a private-public partnership in the best sense, using market forces to regulate a behavior that traditional “Big Government” law enforcement has failed to adequately address. I urge Mayor Emanuel and the City Council to take up this proposal at their earliest convenience.

InterCcECT update: Why We Love Sociopaths, Seminar 3, The Long Twentieth Century

Coming 16 July to an independent bookstore near you: Adam Kotsko discusses his latest work, Why We Love Sociopaths: A Guide to Late Capitalist Television. 57th Street Books, 6pm.

On another channel: our ongoing Lacan group reconvenes Thursday 19 July to explore Chapters 5-7 of Seminar 3: The Psychoses. InterCcECT Salon, Bucktown, 5pm.

As always, consult our calendar for info on companion projects like the History of Capitalism reading group (next up: The Long Twentieth Century), the Levinas reading group (Totality and Infinity), and Forgotten Chicago, and write to us to announce or propose events.

For details, PDFs, and contact info, visit InterCcECT or find us on Facebook.

the material real

In his forthcoming Lacan and the Concept of the Real, Tom Eyers argues that “by rooting our understanding of the Real within the logic of the signifier we may begin to recognise the materiality of the immaterial, and the stubborn opacity of the material itself. Lacan’s claim that it is through the signifier that this materiality is revealed to us should not be taken as a concession to any standard brand of anti-realism or hyper-textualism; on the contrary, Lacan’s aim is to render superfluous any neat separation of the ideal from the material, from the representative to that to which it ostensibly refers.” Psychoanalysis thus makes it possible, in a different idiom than deconstruction, to question philosophical binaries like material / ideal and subject / object.

Eyers puts this “weird materialism” to work in his project to rethink the opposition life / structure in contemporary French thought. “Living Structures: Canguilhem, Deleuze, and the Question of Life”, tomorrow 6pm, Gallery 400.

InterCcECT puts it to work in our ongoing Lacan reading group on Seminar 3: The Psychoses. Next up: Chapters 3 and 4, 5pm 14 June, at our salon in Bucktown.

Questions? Proposals? Other materials? Write us!

Be sure to check our calendar on a regular basis for upcoming events like the 16 July book discussion of Adam Kotsko’s Why We Love Sociopaths.

AAR/SBL 2012: Please Boycott Hyatt

Workers at Hyatt Hotels have asked patrons to boycott their workplaces. In conjunction with a group of religious scholars supportive of labor rights, they have addressed a special plea to participants in AAR/SBL to boycott the Hyatt McCormick Place and Hyatt Regency in conjunction with the conference. They’re asking attendees not to stay at, eat, or attend panels or interviews at those two hotels.

A petition you can sign at the link above will be delivered to the AAR and SBL Boards of Directors in advance of the conference. A strong, early show of support from scholars affiliated with the organizations will allow them to pull conference events from Hyatt early, and prevent them from forcing attendees to choose between attending events and respecting picket lines.

In Chicago, Hyatt has refused to adopt the contract that other major hotels abide by. Nationally, the boycott against Hyatt is based around their use of exploitative subcontracting arrangements, poor working conditions for housekeepers (and lobbying to prevent regulatory improvements), and other reasons explained here.

I have worked alongside the UNITE HERE union in many capacities, as an organizer in my first post-college job, as an ally when I was in local government, and as a member in my college dining hall. In the labor movement at large they are passionate advocates, tactical innovators, and well known for empowering workers as leaders in the union structure and as a “countervailing force” within their own workplaces. I have complained in other venues about dumb boycotts, but this is a principled and effective use of the tactic. (It’s notable, and common to boycotts led by this union, that they are called by workers in the hotels, who go into it knowing that reduced business means short-term sacrifice of their hours and tips in exchange for long-term strength.)

It’s by comment-section felicity that I ended up connected to this community, and I’m grateful to have the soapbox to connect something personally important to me to you. Please sign the pledge and help persuade AAR/SBL to move its conference business out of Hyatt.

Sunday’s sermon: “Where’s the Death Certificate?”

The following is my draft for this Sunday’s sermon for Zion “Goshert’s” UCC, where I am Pastor.  We are a week behind in the lectionary because Easter 2 has been for the last few years a Love Feast, or an unscripted service of testimony and song.  Plus the discussion of OBL seemed to strike the Doubting Thomas story for me.  The Bible readings for the Sunday are Psalm 16:5-11, 1 Peter 1:3-9, and John 20:19-31.

I was sitting in a hospital waiting room with one of our church members one afternoon this past week, while another of our church members was in surgery, and on the flat-screen television set in the waiting room was the unending discussion and reporting of every single detail of Osama bin Laden’s death.  While it is clear that we should be asking about the legality of what happened and about our allegiances with Pakistan at this point, so much of the public curiosity since bin Laden’s death has been centered around photographs taken of his body.  And this is because apparently many Americans don’t believe that he is dead.

And I shouldn’t be surprised, since one of my own family members immediately informed me that he didn’t believe that Osama was dead, either.