CFP: RPA Deadline Extended

Raul Martinez, La Isla, 1970

The deadline for submissions of abstracts for the tenth biennial Radical Philosophy Association conference has been extended to April 16th, 2012.

For the now updated CFP (more specifically, the call for abstracts) see here.

CFP: Radical Philosophy Association

CALL FOR PAPERS

THE TENTH BIENNIAL RADICAL PHILOSOPHY ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE AND THE 3OTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE RPA
  What is Radical Philosophy Today?
Canisius College, Buffalo, New York

October 11-14, 2012

Call for Papers
The Radical Philosophy Association Conference Program Committee invites submissions of talks, papers, workshops, roundtable discussions, posters, and other kinds of conference contributions for its tenth biennial conference, to be held at the Canisius College, Buffalo, New York, October 11-14, 2012.

In the spirit of collaboration, and in the recognition that radical philosophy is often done outside traditional philosophical settings, we invite submissions not only from philosophers inside and outside the academy, but also from those who engage in theoretical and/or activist work in other academic disciplines – such as ethnic studies, women’s studies, social sciences, and literary studies – and from those engaged in theoretical and/or activist work unconnected to the academy.

We especially welcome contributions from those often excluded from or marginalized in philosophy, including persons of Africana, Latin American (Americana), Indigenous, or Asian descent or traditions, glbt persons, persons with disabilities, poor and working class persons.

Conference Theme
“What is Radical Philosophy Today?” The adjective “radical” is used in many different ways politically and philosophically. It is especially important to explore some of these various meanings as the Radical Philosophy Association looks back on thirty years of intellectual and political activism and advocacy on behalf of justice and liberation and forward to the future through and beyond our current crises.

It seems to many that the world faces several deep problems. How does specifically “radical” philosophy help us to understand and address them? For example, capitalism demands and enforces increasing gaps between the wealthy and the middle class and the poor worldwide. Oppressive systems of class, race, gender, heteronormativity, and able-bodiedness continue to function, defining people and their lives in harmful and de-humanizing ways. Violence continues to deform people’s lives and possibilities by permeating our everyday experience and invading our consciousness, making us both less aware of it and thus more accepting of it. 

For these reasons and many more, we invite submissions that answer (or raise) questions about the nature of radical philosophy and its roles in understanding and responding to current crises. 

• What is radical theory? How can radical theory be made more effective in responding to crises? What philosophies/philosophers are radical?
• What is radical practice? What does one have to do/be to be radical? Is being radical important? Do some forms of radical practice need to be criticized?
• What is radical identity? How does one think radically about identities of race, gender, nationality, citizenship, able-bodiedness, sexuality, etc.? What constitutes a radical identity? How do individuals in groups historically labeled or excluded by race, gender, nationality, etc., redefine, refute, or revolt against the western histories of those categories?
• What radical responses are needed to address the crises in economics worldwide? What place does class (and class analysis) have in discussions of radical ideas, radical politics, or radical critiques of the political economy? How does one radically rethink the concept of class in light of current crises?
• How does one think radically about democracy or statehood/nationhood? What is radical political engagement? What does radical philosophy have to say about current protest movements in the US and worldwide?
• What is radical art, radical expression, a radical style? How can such aesthetic categories and concerns contribute to changing/transforming the world?
• What is radical pedagogy? How can teachers help to radically change the world in positive ways?
  

We thus invite submissions for the Tenth Biennial Conference of the Radical Philosophy Association: “What is Radical Philosophy Today?”

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSIONS
In keeping with the spirit of radical thinking embodied by the RPA, we encourage submissions that employ formats and media that challenge the standard conference presentation. For instance, we urge presenters to use formats that allow for greater interaction between participants and audience (e.g. presenting an outline, rather than reading a paper) and that emphasize collective inquiry (e.g. organizing a workshop).

Please note that participants will be selected for at most one presentation (talk, workshop, poster session, etc.) during the conference; submissions should be presented with this in mind. (This limit does not include chairing sessions.)

Please submit all the information requested:

For an individual talk/paper/workshop/poster/performance or other type of individual presentation:

1. Name, address, email, affiliation (independent scholar, activist, educator, etc.), of presenter
2. Nature (talk, workshop, etc.) and title of proposal
3. Abstract of 250-500 words
4. Equipment needs

For a group panel/workshop/poster/performance or other type of group presentation (note: maximum three panel participants not including chair):

1. Name, address, email, affiliation of the group’s contact person and of each participant
2. Nature (panel, workshop, etc.) and title of proposal
3. Abstract of 250-500 words for group proposal
4. Titles and abstracts of 250-500 words for each paper (if applicable)
5. Equipment needs

Panel chairs: If you would be willing to serve as a panel session chair, please indicate this on your submission form. Session chairs are responsible for introducing participants in panel sessions and ensuring that each presenter gets her or his fair share of the available time.

Mailing Address for Submissions:

Please submit paper, workshop, poster, and other proposals as an email attachment (.doc) to rpa2012meeting@gmail.com.  NOTE: Please do NOT submit complete papers.

DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS (UPDATED): APRIL 16, 2012

For further information, contact members of the Program Committee:

Melissa Burchard: mburchar[at]unca.edu (chair)

Tommy Curry: t-curry[at]philosophy.tamu.edu

Gertrude Postl postlg[at]sunysuffolk.edu
Devin Shaw: devinzshaw[at]gmail.com

Sarah Tyson: sarah.tyson[at]vanderbilt.edu

Scott Zeman: scott.zeman[at]vanderbilt.edu

The local organizer of the conference is Tanya Loughead:
tanya.loughead[at]canisius.edu

Thoughts on the RPA Conference

I am finally caught up with most of the things I needed to do when I returned to Ottawa, so now I've got a chance to record a few impressions about the Radical Philosophy Association conference that took place last week at the University of Oregon, Eugene. 

What I liked: The vibe is always welcoming. It's possible to converse and befriend other participants without, in most cases, observance of the distinctions that hold in most academic settings. It's possible to see some very sharp panels, such as the one Sean participated in, or 'The World as Concept,' which included presentations by Stuart Elden, Marie-Eve Morin, and Peter Gratton. If you look to the right, you will see that I've added Stuart's blog Progressive Geographies to our 'Friends, Comrades, Allies' links, and you might have noticed that Peter's blog Philosophy in a Time of Error has been there for a while. I'd add Marie-Eve as well if she blogged, but to my knowledge she does not. If you're not familiar with Stuart Elden's work, I'd highly recommend checking out  (aside from his books, obviously) his walkthrough of his recent project The Birth of Territory (see here). And for the moment, Peter has an account up about their panel. I finally had a chance to meet Peter in person, and there's a very strong likelihood that we will be co-authoring a paper in the future so that phrases like 'I agree completely with Peter...' and 'as Devin said about Rancière...' become redundant. Hell, after enough talk about Jean-Luc Nancy between Marie-Eve and Peter I even considered  working up a paper about Nancy, Coleridge, and Schelling on tautegory, myth, and being-in-common.

What I didn't like: A majority of the panels I attended were above average, but I was taken aback by the plenary by Bat-Ami Bar On. Let's turn this one over to Peter for a moment because (see, here we go:) I agree completely with him:

Her claim was that, while she felt at home with these “radicals,” she could do so while (1) arguing that leftists need to just understand how tough Obama has it in that darn war on terror, (2) leftists don’t engage in policy discussions (despite the fact that they, uh, do all the time and no link is even necessary), and (3) that she supposedly does, despite her only references being the widely read National Security Estimate and Bob Woodward’s recent book on Obama.

What's worse is that several audience members expressed, during the Q & A, a general agreement with her. At the RADICAL PHILOSOPHY ASSOCIATION! It's one thing to be browbeaten everywhere else because we radicals "don't take anything seriously," but at the RPA? It's the last place I would expect the plenary to condescend to us about our so-called irresponsibility. Sorry, but anti-imperialism is not only a serious position, but it's also the only correct position. But, you might say, what about the "six to twelve" places that might explode at any moment across the world (the number grew as the talk went on)? Why not put down the Bob Woodward book and ask why these situations might explode? Isn't that why we were there?

What I learned: I still have to work on my paper about Agamben and Benjamin. I now have a good idea of what I want to say (here), but I had the realization after presenting that I no longer have a paper about Agamben, rather it's a reinterpretation of Benjamin. Which means it has now moved from the Agamben section of my next project, to the section on Benjamin. Due to being over-prepared for a short panel, I had to skip much of the material, and I'm afraid I might have, from the audience's perspective, lost the thread. I received two or three very supportive comments, but also heard two serious misunderstandings, for which I am mostly willing to take the blame. By the time I get back to the RPA in 2012, I should be able to present something that actually fits in a twenty minute time slot.

Getting Ready for the RPA: On Agamben and Benjamin

I'll admit that I didn't write much for The Notes Taken over the month of October. Instead, most of my time, outside of teaching, that I would spend writing was consumed by preparing job applications and preparing my paper for the upcoming Radical Philosophy Association meeting at the University of Oregon in Eugene. Take a good look at the schedule (PDF), and you will see that our own Sean Moreland is giving a talk on "Visceral Re:Visions: Genre and the Syntax of Violence in Haneke's Funny Games and Laugier's Martyrs" (Friday's 2:00-3:30pm session) our friend Mark Raymond Brown will be presenting on "A Remedy for Violence: The Necessity of Healthcare Reform in the US" which I swear has something to do with Sartre (during Saturday's 10:30am-12:00pm session), and I will be giving a paper on Giorgio Agamben, Walter Benjamin, and the critique of violence (during Saturday's 2:00-3:30pm session). At the moment the paper doesn't have a title (I've changed it several times), but I'm leaning toward "Anomic Violence: Toward a Benjaminian Critique of Agamben."

I read a less organized draft of my paper at the end of October at CSU Stanislaus. While it must have been confusing for the audience, as I jumped from Fredric Jameson to Agamben to Georges Sorel to Benjamin's "Critique of Violence," many of their questions helped me clarify why exactly (1) I was interested in this early essay of Benjamin's, and (2) why I need to cut the long sections on sovereignty and the state of exception out of the paper. 

Let's start with (2): Agamben is best known for returning sovereignty to the forefront of political thought. I know, because the first article I managed to publish applied Agamben's critique of the state of exception to the war on terror and its localization in Guantanamo Bay. I started writing the paper in early 2003 and it finally saw the light of day as "The Absence of Evidence is Not the Evidence of Absence: Biopolitics and the State of Exception" in Philosophy Against Empire, Today, Vol. 4, edited by Tony Smith and Harry van der Linden (Philosophy Documentation Center, 2006). Since then I've found that Agamben's critique brings with it a large amount of philosophical "history of metaphysics" baggage that he inherited from Heidegger, not to mention his extensive use of Schmitt. Back in 2006, the last few pages of the article dealt with the absence of the concept of event or the act as a moment of subjectification in Homo Sacer. But I found I needed to say more about what I found so off-putting.

To get the current paper down to a manageable size, I've cut all the exegetical talk about sovereignty and assumed that my audience will be familiar with it. The exegetical discussions were adding too much weight to the presentation. All you get now is my central problem with Homo Sacer: Agamben accepts from Schmitt that the sovereign has a monopoly on the capacity to decide and the capacity for violence. This is important because Agamben's State of Exception rejects the sovereign monopoly on violence (there are passages in HS that hint at this, but Agamben doesn't pursue the consequences); the whole of the 'gigantomachy concerning a void' that he stages between Schmitt and Benjamin turns on the possibility of anomic violence, or, since violence is a cipher for human action, praxis (and subjectification) with no relation to law.

Which leads to (1): the task is now to show how Benjamin's concept of divine violence is one of the many figures he proposes for anomic praxis. Unlike Agamben, I think this kind of praxis and subjectification leads through Benjamin's work on aesthetics, as well as some of his theological debates with Gershom Scholem (which are really just debates about aesthetics and politics anyway).

Thus I've found my way back to something like the framework of my Schelling book, when I didn't really expect to: investigating how artistic production is presented as an alternative to law (which for Schelling was Kant's and Fichte's categorical imperatives) as a model for free human praxis. With Benjamin, the problem will be very different, given that his work on aesthetics is so closely connected to anarcho-syndicalist  (Sorel again!) and Marxian politics, although for the moment, it sets the course for how I will be approaching his work in the future (although Marx's critique of 'creativity' as found in the "Critique of the Gotha Program" hangs over part of this investigation).

And here we all thought I was joking when on my profile I wrote that I am "working on a book about the convergences and divergences of history, politics, and art in the work of Walter Benjamin, which is a loose sequel to Freedom and Nature in Schelling's Philosophy of Art."

CFP: Radical Philosophy Association Conference 2010

Call for Papers: 2010 Radical Philosophy Association Conference at University of Oregon

THE NINTH BIENNIAL RADICAL PHILOSOPHY ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE:
Violence: Systemic, Symbolic, and Foundational

University of Oregon in Eugene , Oregon
November 11th-14th, 2010

Deadline Extended to April 1, 2010.

Call for Papers
The Radical Philosophy Association Conference Program Committee invites submissions of talks, papers, workshops, roundtables discussions, posters and other kinds of conference contributions, for its ninth biennial conference, to be held at University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon on November 11-14, 2010.

In the spirit of collaboration, and in the recognition that radical philosophy is often done outside traditional philosophical settings, we invite submissions not only from philosophers inside and outside the academy, but also from those who engage in theoretical work in other academic disciplines – such as ethnic studies, women's studies, social sciences and literary studies-and from those engaged in theoretical work unconnected to the academy.

We especially welcome contributions from those often excluded from or marginalized in philosophy, including people of color, glbt persons, persons with disabilities, poor and working class persons.

Conference Theme
With the US engaged in imperial wars around the globe and amidst the collapse of the most recent mode of global capitalism, we at the Radical Philosophy Association have found reflection on violence both timely and imperative. The theme for our upcoming Ninth Biennial Conference will, therefore, be “Violence: Systemic, Symbolic, and Foundational”. Unmistakably, violence shapes our social world. Oppressive systems are founded in and maintained through violent action. Capitalism demands and enforces conditions of starvation, brutalization, and alienated experience. Patriarchy thrives on the threat and reality of physical and sexual assault and pervasive psychological debasement. Racist and colonial structures demand occupation, enslavement, and incarceration. The systemic violence of capitalism permeates quotidian existence to such a degree that we are inured to its effects and only become aware of it when we are awaken to it by the exceptional violence of state terror or the terrorism of the powerless.

Violence penetrates deeply into our contemporary consciousness and it permeates our everyday experience. From 'torture flicks' to 'first-person shooter' video games, from sexual fantasies to nightmares, our psychology is informed by violence. Further, many believe that violence is the only or most effective means of overcoming the systems and oppositions that shape our social world. From reactionary violence perpetrated in the name of religious and ethnic identity to liberatory violence undertaken with the intent of creating just and legitimate social structures, violence is seen as a means to 'radical' political ends.

For these reasons we invite submissions that answer questions about the nature of violence and its role in our social world. What is violence? What kinds of violence are there? How do systems of oppression perpetuate or institute violence? What role does violence play in human psychology and social structures? How do we represent violence and what do these representations make possible or impossible? Is non-violence a form of violence? Is revolutionary violence legitimate? Under what conditions is it legitimate? Does the recourse to violence for political ends perpetuate the cycles of violence? What are the differences between violence and political power? Does the birth of the new social order require a violent upheaval?

We, thus, invite submissions for the Ninth Biennial Conference of the Radical Philosophy Association: “Violence: Systemic, Symbolic, and Foundational”.


GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSIONS
In keeping with the spirit of radical thinking embodied by the RPA, we encourage submissions that employ formats and media that challenge the standard conference presentation. For instance, we urge presenters to use formats that allow for greater interaction between participants and audience (e.g. presenting an outline, rather than reading a paper), and that emphasize collective inquiry (e.g. organizing a workshop).

Please note that participants will be selected for at most one presentation (talk, workshop, poster session, etc.) during the conference; submissions should be presented with this in mind. (This limit does not include chairing sessions.)

Please submit all the information requested:

INDIVIDUAL TALK/PAPER/WORKSHOP/POSTER SESSION/OTHER PRESENTATION
Name
Address
Affiliation-or independent scholar, activist, educator, etc.
Title of proposal
Nature of proposal (talk, workshop, other)
Abstract of 250-500 words only
Equipment needs

GROUP SESSION
(Note: Due to the length of sessions, we will only consider panels of NO MORE THAN three persons.)

Name of panel contact person, and of each panel member
Address of all panel members, including email
Affiliation-or independent scholar, activist, educator, etc.-for each
Title of panel proposal
Nature of proposal (talk, workshop, other)
Abstract of 250-500 words only
Titles of individual papers
Abstract of 250-500 words for each paper (if relevant)
Equipment needs

CHAIRING A SESSION
If you would be willing to serve as a session chair, please indicate this on your submission form. Session chairs are responsible for timing presentations, and ensuring that each presenter gets her or his fair share of the available time.

DEADLINE
All submissions must be submitted electronically by March 1, 2010 . UPDATE: April 1, 2010.

Submissions should be in an email attachment (.doc) sent to rpa2010meeting@gmail.com (send abstracts not completed papers)

For further information, contact the conference Program Committee:
Eduardo Mendieta, Chair: emendieta@notes.cc.sunysb.edu
Jack Green Musselman: jackgm@stedwards.edu
Brandon Absher: brandon.absher@gmail.com
Jessica E. Peters: jessicaepeters@gmail.com
Alex Pienknagura: apienknagura@gmail.com
Maurice Hamington: mhamingt@mscd.edu