'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.
