Tuesday, December 29, 2009

BETTER QUESTIONS seminar series

'Better Questions' seminar series in Seomra Spraoi beginning 20th January 2010

Better Questions is an initiative that has emerged out of conversations between people engaged in either social movement practices in Dublin and/or thought on radical social change. Our point of convergence is our recognition that we must develop better questions about the world around us in order to change it. This seminar series draws on a wide variety of critical theoretical perspectives to explore contemporary forms of power and possibilities for resistance.

The talks will take place fortnightly in Seomra Spraoi from 6.30pm (for directions see seomraspraoi.org).


Wednesday 17th of February, 6.30pm: Jacques Ranciere and Alain Badiou

Paddy Bresnihan
Alessandro Zagato

Despite the cynicism and melancholy of a decadent left, Jacques Ranciere and Alain Badiou persist in imagining the possibility of an entirely different state of affairs. Central to their thought is the conviction that emancipation does not derive from objective conditions – that politics no longer has an historical homeland. It is rather the becoming of a radically new subjectivity, heterogeneous to the determinism of places and functions.

Jacques Rancière (born Algiers, 1940) is a French philosopher and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris (St. Denis). He first came to prominence in 1968 when he co-authored Reading Capital with the Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser.

Alain Badiou (Rabat, 1937) teaches philosophy at the Ecole Normale Superieure and the College International de Philosophie in Paris. In addition to several novels, plays and political essays he has published a number of major philosophical works. After a long political militancy in the Maoist far left, in 1985 Badiou founded L'Organisation Politique, a post-party organization concerned with direct popular intervention.

Upcoming Seminars:


Wednesday 3rd of March
Roundtable on Praxis

More information to follow on the seminar listed above.

7 comments:

  1. Really find this interesting and would love to be able to post up video stream, podcast or even text of seminars after theyve happened in http://themutation.com. Im from http://www.mutantspace.ie which is currently buiild an arts co-op based on the gift economy principle - trying to create our own creative economy that is NOT based on monetary exchange...check us out and join up...Im already putting your dates up but some sort of connection would be good

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  2. would also appreciate it if you could include mutantspace.ie on your blog/link list

    thanks

    Moray

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  3. Thanks to everybody who came along to Ronit Lentin's seminar on Race and State, which took place on Tuesday, 19th of Jan. Ronit's paper is available at www.ronitlentin.net, and we hope to have an audio recording available soon.

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  4. Ronit Lentin's talk on Race and State is now available as an audio-download:

    www.indymedia.ie/article/95577

    Thanks to Andrew for recording/uploading the audio.

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  5. Thanks to everyone who contributed to the last seminar on Community Development. An audiofile of the talk is available here: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/95699

    Thanks to Andrew for recording, editing and uploading the audio file.

    A paper developing the themes of my talk will be available in the future.

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  6. Just found you through an Equal L email and will spend some time reading your blog and thinking. M.

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  7. follow the link below to read an article on courage by Alain Badiou, published some days ago in Le Monde and translated by Alberto Toscano

    http://theorydiscussiongroupnuim.blogspot.com/

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