Core Group Meeting: November 2013

Terra Critica II
Utrecht University

Terra Critica II

From Three Critiques to Three Guineas and Three Ecologies: grappling with critique beyond negativity and judgment

Our second expert seminar took place on Friday, 22 November and Saturday, 23 November 2013. We continued the discussion from our first workshop in December 2012, discussing the challenges that immanence – an entangled and co-emerging universe – poses to critique.

This year, we decided on two texts as joint basis: Virginia Woolf’s Three Guineas (1938) and Félix Guattari’s Three Ecologies (1989). Not only was this motivated by the wish to take up ‘other 3’s’ in critical thinking, moving critique elsewhere than Kantian critique. But we also chose these texts because they are very rich in terms of the mode in which they practice critique (writing, address, experimentation, speculation, story-telling, fact and fiction, but also rhetoric and dis/affection play important roles), and in terms of the subject matters they raise (education, emancipation, environment, aesthetics, life, war, capital).

Workshop Participants

Ernst van Alphen (U Leiden)
Kiene Brillenburg (UU)
Rosemarie Buikema (UU)
Mercedes Bunz (U of Lüneburg)
Rick Dolphijn (UU)
Annemie Halsema (VU)
Peta Hinton (ICI Berlin)
Birgit Kaiser (UU)
Sybrandt van Keulen (UvA)
Leonard Lawlor (Penn State)
Jacques Lezra (New York University)
Timothy O’Leary (U of Hong Kong)
Esther Peeren (UvA)
Anne Sauvagnargues (Parix X)
Melanie Sehgal (Viadrina U Frankfurt Oder)
Kathrin Thiele (UU)
Iris van der Tuin (UU)
Veronica Vasterling (RU Nijmegen)
Doro Wiese (UU)

Most participants contributed a position paper to the workshop. They can be retrieved by clicking on the individual names above.

Workshop Programme

Day One: Friday, November 22

9.45 Coffee

10.15-10.30 Welcome and introduction to the workshop

Birgit M. Kaiser and Kathrin Thiele

10.30-12.30 Session 1 : …(st)uttering

Intervention papers for this session: Leonard Lawlor, Kathrin Thiele, Veronica Vasterling
Opening statement by Jacques Lezra
Moderator: B. Kaiser

12.45-14.15 Lunch break

14.30-17.00 Session 2 : experimenting…

Intervention papers for this session: Mercedes Bunz, Peta Hinton, Birgit M. Kaiser, Iris van der Tuin
Opening statement by Ernst van Alphen
Moderator: K. Thiele

Day Two: Saturday, November 23

10.00-10.30 Coffee

10.30-12.30 Session 3 : …caring

Intervention papers for this session: Rosemarie Buikema, Rick Dolphijn, Timothy O’Leary, Doro Wiese
Opening statement by K. Thiele
Moderator: K. Thiele

12.45-14.00 Lunch break

14.00-16.00 Session 4 : experiencing…

Intervention papers for this session: Sybrandt van Keulen, Esther Peeren, Melanie Sehgal 
Opening statement by Anne Sauvagnargues
Moderator: B. Kaiser

16.00-17.00 Session 5: Planning session (open to anyone interested)

Future events and projects

The workshop was made possible by the generous support from the Institute for Cultural Inquiry ICON, Utrecht University; the Research Focus Area Cultures & Identities, Utrecht University; The Netherlands Research School for Gender Studies NOG; The Netherlands Research School for Literary StudiesOSL; the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis NICA; Amsterdam Center for Globalization Studies ACGS; Radboud University Nijmegen; Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam; Kattendijke Drucker Stichting; ‘Back to the Book’ (NWO-Project).