theory

In the conclusion of The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon points to the limits of the European humanist subject (“Man”) and the ways in which its definition has involved violent actions and exclusions. He calls for a non-Eurocentric project to invent a “new man” that requires an expansion and reconsideration of humanity. This task of imagining and bringing into being a new human seems to involve a delicate double bind: humanity must be claimed in the name of those excluded from its purview; the claim to be human, however, may unwittingly reinforce the transparency and self-evidence of the very category that needs to be interrogated, thus further marginalizing alternative versions of humanity.

Rhetorics of Scientific Objects

Application deadline: 1 October 2016 at: http://associationdatabase.com/aws/RSA/pt/sp/institute_application

Workshop to be held 25-27 May in Bloomington Indiana

Workshop Leaders:

John Lynch, University of Cincinnati
Lisa DeTora, Hofstra University

The dominant methodologies for engaging with horror fiction and cinema are often limited by a reliance on interpretation and critique, and by a linguistic constructivist frame that has barred any serious discussion of “the real” within this genre as an ontological possibility. In other words, most current methods for reading horror reduce its elements to mere symbols or signifiers of broader, more abstract notions of the social, the political, the psychological, or the linguistic. This panel, therefore, seeks to explore the possibilities of theoretical engagement with horror fiction in this post-linguistic and post-critique era of realism, materialism, and the nonhuman.