The Theory Reading Group at Cornell University invites submissions for
its third annual interdisciplinary spring conference

The Time of Materiality

featuring keynote speakers Peter Hallward (Professor of Modern European
Philosophy, Middlesex University) and Catherine Malabou (Professor of
Philosophy, Université de Paris X – Nanterre)

Cornell University
Ithaca, New York
April 5th-7th, 2007

http://www.arts.cornell.edu/trg/conf2007.html

The category of "matter" has long been subject to theoretical debate and
has been determined in diverse and often conflicting ways: it is that
which is outside conceptuality or representation, but also the category
for thinking the fundamental nature of process and production; it is the
banal, lifeless, and inert, but also the site of real political
potential. We propose an investigation into the changing nature of
"matter" by emphasizing the co-implication of matter and time. This
involves thinking past the limit of representation towards conceptions
of matter as temporally inscribed and theories of time as materially
instantiated. The wide range of our inquiry implicates questions about
plasticity and formation, creation and the event, the status of the
future, and the phenomenology of time. The ramifications of a renewed
interest in matter and time extend, furthermore, into aesthetic,
literary, and poetic domains. The task of formulating new conceptions of
time and materiality is therefore crucial for thinking across the
disciplines today.

Suggested paper topics include (but are not limited to):

-the phenomenology of matter, the phenomenology of time
-the status of history, historicity, historicism
-the aleatory: chance, surprise, contingency
-legacy and future of materialism
-temporality and plasticity
-formation, transformation, deformation
-aesthetics/poetics of time and matter
-the future and futurity: a-venir, voir-venir, dialectical futures
-potentiality, possibility, impossibility
-mediation, technology, technicity
-the always-already and the not-yet
-causality and determination
-time and the literary, the time of literature
-genesis and structure, being and becoming
-finitude, negativity, and time
-perception and imperceptibility
-life and evolution
-materialism and technology
-corporeality and immanent time
-philosophies of experience
-poetic matters, artistic matters
-the new phenomenology
-hyle, flux, dynamism
-labor and production; bodies and embodiment
-the relation of history and temporality
-matter and thought: biology, cognition, psychoanalysis, idealism
-theorizations of sound, voice, and call

The deadline for submission of 250-word paper abstracts for 20-minute
presentations is February 16, 2007. Please include your name, e-mail
address, and phone number. Please email abstracts to theory_at_cornell.edu.
Notices of acceptance will be sent no later than February 26, 2007. For
more information about the Theory Reading Group, visit
http://www.arts.cornell.edu/trg

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Received on Sun Feb 11 2007 - 15:24:58 EST