The History of Theory Seminar Series
Posted on | June 23, 2005 |
Semester 2 2005 – Semester 1 2006
Organised by the Centre for the History of European Discourses, University of Queensland
The History of Theory seminar presents a unique opportunity to participate in a series of discussions of the ‘moment of theory’, led by speakers who played an important role in it. The ‘moment of theory’ is a phrase used to characterise the impact that a group of associated theoretical discourses had on a variety of hermeneutic, philosophical, and social scientific disciplines, in the late 1960s and then into the 70s and 80s. Initially the theoretical discourses were characterised as structuralist, but this soon mutated into post-structuralist, which covered a range of associated positions, stretching from transcendental phenomenology, through Derridean deconstruction, to Foucauldian archaeology and genealogy. Recently, some of the participants in this moment have begun to reflect on it — as we can see in works as diverse as Bourdieu’s Pascalian Meditations, Eagleton’s After Theory and Kriegel’s Michel Foucault aujourd‘hui — with varying degrees of affection and regret, sometimes in the biographical register and sometimes with a view to sketching a social or intellectual history. CHED is proposing to advance this process of reflection and reconsideration by inviting a number of leading participants in and/or observers of the moment of theory to present papers on this theme at a dedicated seminar series, to be held over semester 2, 2005, and semester 1, 2006.
Time: Thursdays, 4-6pm
Venue: James Birrell Room at the UQ Staff & Graduates ClubProgram for Semester 2, 2005
Thurs. 28 July: Simon During (Johns Hopkins University), ‘Cultural Studies and the Moment of Theory’.
Thurs. 11 August: Ian Hunter (University of Queensland), ‘Giving Theory a History’.
Thurs. 25 August: Conal Condren (UNSW), ‘English Historiographical Revisionism: The Cambridge School, Intellectual History, and the Very Idea of a Theoretical Moment’.
Thurs. 22 Sept: John Frow (University of Melbourne), TBA
Thurs. 13 Oct: Barry Hindess (ANU), ‘The Althusserian Moment and the Concept of Historical Time’.
Thurs. 3 Nov: David Saunders (Open University and CHED), ‘The Moment of Theory in Critical Legal Studies’.
Program for Semester 1, 2006
Dates and speakers are still being finalised, but the following are confirmed:
Peter Cryle (UQ), ‘Playful Theory: George Poulet’s Phenomenological Thematics’.
Wayne Hudson (Griffith), ‘Theory and Fact: The Case of Religion’.
Genevieve Lloyd (UNSW), TBA
Paul Patton (UNSW), ‘The Moment of Difference’.
Please note that some speakers will be posting their papers on the web-page — thus far, Ian Hunter and Barry Hindess — which participants should download and read in advance.
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