23 November 2016

5-7pm, DTH 109, Goldsmiths University of London

 

 

The work of Gilles Deleuze has been a great source of inspiration for those interested in the nature, meaning and practice of invention and experimentation. Aside from the conceptual resources that his philosophy affords for rethinking these themes, Deleuze’s work also has much to tell us about the manner in which invention and experimentation involve an interplay of metaphysical, socio-political, scientific and aesthetic dimensions. In this session we will discuss a number of these intersections, including the ‘evental’ nature of invention, the creative capacity of repetition, and the claim that ‘invention has no cause’. Efforts will also be made to excavate key influences on Deleuze’s thoughts about experimentation, including the essayist/poet Charles Péguy and the important philosopher of biology and informatics Raymond Ruyer.

Craig Lundy is a Senior Lecturer in Social Theory at Nottingham Trent University. The majority of Craig’s research has been concerned with processes of transformation – an interest that he has pursued through cross-disciplinary projects that explore and make use of developments in complexity studies, socio-political theory and 19th/20th century European philosophy. He is the author of History and Becoming: Deleuze’s Philosophy of Creativity (2012), Deleuze’s Bergsonism (forthcoming) and co-editor with Daniela Voss of At the Edges of Thought: Deleuze and Post-Kantian Philosophy (2015), all published by Edinburgh University Press.

Jon Roffe is a Vice-Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of New South Wales, whose work is currently focused on the nature of money. The co-editor of a number of books on twentieth century and contemporary French philosophy, he is the author of Badiou’s Deleuze (Acumen 2012), Abstract Market Theory (Palgrave 2015) and Lacan Deleuze Badiou (EUP 2014) with AJ Bartlett and Justin Clemens. He has two forthcoming books on Deleuze: Gilles Deleuze’s Empiricism and Subjectivity (EUP 2016), and The Works of Gilles Deleuze (re-press 2017).


This is a Centre for the Invention of Social Process (CISP) seminar. To subscribe or unsubscribe to CISP please mail:  Cisp@gold.ac.uk

A one day workshop at CISP/Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London

Tuesday September 20th 2016, 10-5pm

Room RHB 137a

Organised by Michael Guggenheim, Dan Neyland, Alex Wilkie

Recent Science and Technology Studies (STS) work on experiments has provided a basis for rethinking the terms, practices and consequences of experimentation. This has opened up opportunities to question, for example, experimental controls, provocative containments, training and professional practice. This work has also broadened the traditional STS focus on scientific laboratories to also include economic, social scientific and commercial experimentation, exploring new territories of experimentation and their attendant means of reproducing the world.

At the same time, scholars in STS, Sociology, Anthropology and Design have pursued experiments not just as an object of study, but also as something to do. Here we find, for example, experiments with algorithmic walks, expertise and issues. An earlier critique of experiments as artificial and interventionist has given way to a new embracing of material staging of situations and problems.

Social researchers have come to acknowledge we can learn precisely because of the non-naturalism of experiments. Experiments have become legitimate forms to intervene in the world, and to invent new worlds.  In this way STS scholars have begun to think again about the realities in which they participate. In this workshop we will feature recent experimenters within STS with scholars who have analysed experiments in specific fields.

Wednesday 31st May 2017 | 4-6pm RHB 137A, Richard Hoggart Building, Goldsmiths, University of London

Brian G. Henning, Professor, Philosophy and Environmental Studies, Gonzaga University

In the opening decade of this new millennium, long-simmering conflicts have exploded into a rolling ball of fear, hostility, and violence. Dogmatism in its various forms seems to be on the rise as the rhetoric and reality of compromise and consensus building is replaced with the vitriol of moral superiority and righteousness. Given a world fraught with such conflict and tension, what is needed is not a moral philosophy that dogmatically advances absolute moral codes. More than ever, what is needed is an ethic that is dynamic, fallible, and situated, yet not grossly relativistic. What is needed, I suggest is a moral philosophy grounded in Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy of organism. A moral philosophy inspired by, though not dogmatically committed to, Whitehead’s organic, beauty-centered conception of reality.

Discussant: Martin Savransky, Director of Unit of Play, Goldsmiths, University of London

Chaired by Professor Marsha Rosengarten, Co-Director Centre for Invention and Social Process

Wednesday 19th May 2017 | 2-5.30pm RHB 137A, Richard Hoggart Building, Goldsmiths, University of London

This year marks 50 years of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories- Palestinian West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, and over 100 years of the dispossession of Palestine and Palestinians across historic Palestine. A situation that demands attention yet is more often than not staged through media reporting as compromising only of two opposing sides and without hope. In this seminar we forge a discussion with Palestinian scholars whose entire lives have been subjected to the Occupation and whose experience of studying in the UK as part of a British Council initiative ‘Higher Education Scholarship Palestine’ (HESPAL) furnishes new possibilities for their future and that of their country Palestine.

Speakers:

Karam Abughazale, HESPAL scholar, Sussex University

Ashjan Ajour, HESPAL scholar, Goldsmiths

Sahahr Alshobaki, HESPAL scholar, Kings College

Alessia Bergmeijer, Goldsmiths Palestine Society

Sufian Fannoun, HESPAL scholar, University of Chester

Afnan Jabr Alqadri, HESPAL scholar, Saint Mary University

Merna Kassis, British Council Palestinian Territories

Maram Khaled, HESPAL scholar, Birmingham University

David Oswell, Professor in Sociology, Goldsmiths

Annie Pfingst, Visiting Research Fellow, Sociology, Goldsmiths

Marsha Rosengarten, Professor in Sociology, Co-Director CISP, Goldsmiths

Juhayna Taha, HESPAL scholar, Edinburgh University and the British Council