Event overview
Lecture 2: Visual Cultures Public Programme Spring 2018 - A Fearless Look at the Unspeakable
Through an unusual coincidence, two fundamental 20th-Century texts, by Heidegger and Wilfred Bion, address the question of thinking by considering the figure of the mother. This paper examines the relation between thought and the mother, and whether thought can take place without her. With the advent of non-human forms of information processing, such as AI, what will be the fate of thinking itself – Is there a future for thinking?
Vincent W. J. van Gerven Oei is a philologist and co-director of punctum books. He is co-editor of Dotawo, the imprint of the Union for Nubian Studies. He also directs projects for the arts section of The Department of Eagles and is editor of the New World Summit.
The event is free and no booking is required. All are welcome!
Series convenors Jean-Paul Martinon & Jorella Andrews
A Fearless Look at the Unspeakable
During this five-week programme of talks, we will dare to address what is often considered either obsolete and therefore unworthy of philosophical and art-theoretical debate or, more radically, as anathema and therefore vigorously to be opposed: 'faith', not in the sense of a belief in the doctrines of a religion, but as an effort to persevere in the face of what cannot readily be verbalised. The aim for this series of talks is not to resuscitate and/or revisit old theological turns in western thought or return to a transcendental narrative against the prevailing materialist and immanentist status quo of today, but to hazard a look at how we interact with what stubbornly presents itself as already beyond words and is therefore consistently dismissed as unreal, fictitious, hypothetical, irrational, dangerous, or false. The argument for this series is that contemporary forms of incredulity with respect to faith are historically, culturally, and ideologically embedded within modern logocentric paradigms. We argue instead for the urgency of entering a broader field of awareness and endeavour in which 'faith' is understood as part of a number of perceptual, corporeal, and ritualistic ways of engaging with what knows no proper rationalization.
Dates & times
Date | Time | Add to calendar |
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18 Jan 2018 | 5:00pm - 7:00pm |
Accessibility
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