Wednesday, May 21, 2008 Aula Magna Regina International Conference: Beyond Reification – Critical Theory and the Challenge of Praxis May 21-23, 2008
John Cabot University of Rome is hosting the second international conference on Critical Theory, which will be held at its campus in Rome, Italy – Via della Lungara 233.
The conference will examine the relevance of the Frankfurt School by addressing the philosophical tradition of the early stages of Critical Theory – and in particular the works of Walter Benjamin, Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse – as well as the application of their theories to our contemporary society.
In order to reflect the wide range of topics addressed by Critical Theory, the conference will cover different aspects of philosophical reflection on politics, aesthetics, sociology, technology, literature and any other relevant field of study.
Registration for the conference is free of charge.
For further information please contact: sgiacchetti@johncabot.edu
Click here for the flyer.
Coordinator:
Stefano Giacchetti Ludovisi, John Cabot University
Session Chairs:
Lucia Aiello, Brunella Antomarini, Arianne Conty, Luca De Caprariis, David Miller, Vincent Rocchio,
John Cabot University
Keynote speakers:
Andrew Cutrofello, Loyola University Chicago
Andrew Feenberg, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver
Alessandro Ferrara, University of Rome, Tor Vergata
David Ingram, Loyola University Chicago
Giacomo Marramao, University of Rome, Roma Tre
Martin Matustik, Purdue University
Hugh Miller, Loyola University Chicago
Stefano Petrucciani, University of Rome, La Sapienza
Francesco Saverio Trincia, University of Rome, La Sapienza
PROGRAM
Wednesday, May 21
Aula Magna Regina
8.45 – 9.00
Coffee
9.00 – 9.15
Welcome by the President of John Cabot University
9.15 – 10.00 (Chair: Stefano Giacchetti Ludovisi)
David Ingram, Loyola University Chicago “Is There a Human Right to Subsistence? Revisiting Habermas’s Theory of Global Justice in an Age of Globalization”
10.00 – 10.45
Alessandro Ferrara, University of Rome, Tor Vergata “The Nugget and the Tailings. On Axel Honneth’s Reinterpretation of Reification”
10.45 – 11.00
Coffee Break
11.00 – 11.45
Giacomo Marramao, University of Rome, Roma Tre “Messianism Without Delay. Benjamin and Critical Theory”
11.45 – 12.30
Brunella Antomarini, John Cabot University “Walter Benjamin and the Political Task of the Translator”
Aula Magna Regina
15.00 – 15.40 (Chair: Stefano Giacchetti Ludovisi)
Frederik Van Gelder, Institut fuer Sozialforschung J.W. Goethe-Universitaet, Frankfurt “On ‘non-identity’, ‘contradiction’ and ‘reflection’ in Adorno’s Negative Dialectics”
15.40 – 16.20
Stefan Bird-Pollan, Harvard University “Adorno and Kant on the Question of Practical Reason”
16.20 – 17.00
Deborah Cook, University of Windsor, Canada “Through a Glass Darkly: Adorno’s Inverse Theology”
17.00 – 17.30
Coffee Break
17.30 – 18.10 (Chair: Lucia Aiello)
Samir Gandesha, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver “Dialectic and Difference: Two Conceptions of Reification”
18.10 – 18.50
Lars Rensmann, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor “Adorno at Ground Zero: Towards a Critical Theory of Globalization”
Room 3
15.00 – 15.40 (Chair: David Miller)
Brendan Moran, University of Calgary “Politics of Creative Indifference”
15.40 – 16.20
Frances Daly, Australian National University “Reified Life and the Problem of Culture in Ernst Bloch and Walter Benjamin”
16.20 – 17.00
Alastair Morgan, University of Nottingham “Erlebnis and Erfahrung: Critical Theory and the Destruction of Experience”
17.00 – 17.30
Coffee Break
17.30 – 18.10 (Chair: Brunella Antomarini)
Andrea Cortés-Boussac, Sergio Arboleda University, Colombia “Benjamin’s media theory and the world of networking images”
18.10 – 18.50
Andrea Aureli, St. John’s University, Rome “Waiting for the second Coming? The 1970s in Italy as a (non)lieux de mémoire”
Spartacus Room
15.00 – 15.40 (Chair: Vincent Rocchio)
Timo Jütten, University of Sussex “Honneth’s Theory of Reification and the Challenge of Praxis”
15.40 – 16.20
Nicole Pepperell, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia “Fetish and Reification: On Being, versus Appearing to Be, an “Objective” Social Relation”
16.20 – 17.00
Italo Testa, Università di Parma “Adorno on Second Nature, History and Reification”
17.00 – 17.30
Coffee Break
17.30 – 18.10 (Chair: Luca De Caprariis)
Vincent Rocchio, John Cabot University “Critical Theory, Media, & Militarism: A Failure of Praxis”
18.10 – 18.50
Simon Susen, Goldsmiths College, University of London “The Transformation of Culture in Modern Society: Towards a Critical Theory of Symbolic Violence”
Thursday, May 22
Aula Magna Regina
8.45 – 9.15
Coffee
9.15 – 10.00 (Chair: Brunella Antomarini)
Andrew Feenberg, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver “Recovering Meaning in One-Dimensional Society”
10.00 – 10.45
Stefano Petrucciani, University of Rome, La Sapienza “Marcuse, Politics and Critical Theory”
10.45 – 11.00
Coffee Break
11.00 – 11.45
Andrew Cutrofello, Loyola University Chicago “What is One-Dimensional Philosophy?”
11.45 – 12.30
Stefano Giacchetti Ludovisi, John Cabot University “Beyond Domination: Adorno and Political Praxis”
Aula Magna Regina
15.00 – 15.40 (Chair: Stefano Giacchetti Ludovisi)
Steven Vogel, Denison University, Ohio “What is Alienation from Nature?”
15.40 – 16.20
Eric Sean Nelson, University of Massachusetts Lowell “Can Nature be Reified? Animals, Environments, and the Frankfurt School”
16.20 – 17.00
Johan Frederik Hartle, University of Rome, Roma Tre “Reification and Living Labour. Reconsidering the Marxist challenge”
17.00 – 17.30
Coffee Break
17.30 – 18.10 (Chair: Brunella Antomarini)
Brian O’Connor, University College Dublin “Immanent Critique and its Norms”
18.10 – 18.50
Noel Boulting, Noboss “Can an Advocate of Critical Theory Solve the Problem of Rationality in Marx’s Philosophy?”
Room 3
15.00 – 15.40 (Chair: David Miller)
Jennifer Holt, Vanderbilt University “Nihilistic Praxis: Benjamin and Adorno on Mutilated Thinking”
15.40 – 16.20
Patrick Ahern, Vanderbilt University “Decayed Bodies, Redeemed Past: Adorno, Benjamin, and the Deformation of Happiness”
16.20 – 17.00
Idit Dobbs-Weinstein, Vanderbilt University “A praxis oriented by the debt to the past: Benjamin’s and Adorno’s critique of teleology”
17.00 – 17.30
Coffee Break
17.30 – 18.10 (Chair: Luca De Caprariis)
James Sorrell, University of Nebraska Medical Center “Critical theory and narratives of non-identity: engendering emancipation in psychotherapy”
18.10 – 18.50
Radu Neculau, University of Windsor, Canada “Critical Theory and the Challenge of Crowd Psychology”
Spartacus Room
15.00 – 15.40 (Chair: Vincent Rocchio)
Michael McGettigan, Loyola University Chicago “Philosophy as Psychology of Weltanschauungen: Horkheimer and the Revenge of Positivism”
15.40 – 16.20
Wojciech Malecki, University of Wroclaw, Poland “Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Eclipse of Reason… But Were Afraid to Ask Dewey”
16.20 – 17.00
Claudie Hemel, Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin “The fate of fear in the Dialektik der Aufklärung”
17.00 – 17.30
Coffee Break
17.30 – 18.10 (Chair: Arianne Conty)
Gillian Howie, University of Liverpool “The Economy of the Same: identity, exploitation and equivalence”
18.10 – 18.50
Rocio Zambrana, New School for Social Research, New York “Speculative Dialectics as Critique: A Hegelian Alternative to Normative Paradigms of Critique”
Friday, May 23
Aula Magna Regina
8.45 – 9.15
Coffee
9.15 – 10.00 (Chair: Stefano Giacchetti Ludovisi)
Hugh Miller, Loyola University Chicago “The Matter of Painting: On the Place of the Sensuous Concrete in Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory”
10.00 – 10.45
Lucia Aiello, John Cabot University “Allegories of Praxis: Adorno and Dickinson’s Poetics of Possibility”
10.45 – 11.00
Coffee Break
11.00 – 11.45
Francesco Saverio Trincia, University Of Rome, La Sapienza “The Reification of Democracy. Politics and Critical Theory”
11.45 – 12.30
Martin Matustik, Purdue University “Radical Evil and the Scarcity of Hope”
Aula Magna Regina
15.00 – 15.40 (Chair: Brunella Antomarini)
Paul North, New York University “The Ideal of the Problem: Walter Benjamin’s Art-Critical Theory”
15.40 – 16.20
Brian Elliott, University College Dublin “Benjamin, Surrealism and the Situation of the Object”
16.20 – 17.00
Beppe Sebaste, Writer “An ethics of prose. Walter Benjamin’s epistolary exchange”
17.00 – 17.30
Coffee Break
17.30 – 18.10 (Chair: Stefano Giacchetti Ludovisi)
Arianne Conty, John Cabot University “Profane Illuminations: Walter Benjamin and the Practice of History”
18.10 – 18.50
Milan Jaros, Newcastle University “Benjaminian legacy for developing novel practices of knowledge recognition and acquisition in the post-mechanical age”
Room 3
15.00 – 15.40 (Chair: Luca De Caprariis)
Ian Angus, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver “The Contemporaneity of Heideggerian Marxism: Reflections on Marcuse’s Early Essays”
15.40 – 16.20
Duston Moore, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne “Marcuse’s Surreal Metaphysics: The Rehabilitation of Plato’s Forms”
16.20 – 17.00
Valentina Martina, Università della Calabria “The concept of labour in Herbert Marcuse”
17.00 – 17.30
Coffee Break
17.30 – 18.10 (Chair: Vincent Rocchio)
Iain Macdonald, University of Montreal “Cold, Cold, Warm: Autonomy, Maturity and Intimacy in Adorno”
18.10 – 18.50
Wesley Phillips, Middlesex University, London “What is Melancholy about the Melancholy Science?”
Spartacus Room
15.00 – 15.40 (Chair: Lucia Aiello)
Anders Johansson, University of Gothenburg, Sweden “The Nature of Art: An Adornian Critique of Contemporary Idealism”
15.40 – 16.20
Andy Hamilton, Durham University “Adorno and Political Art”
16.20 – 17.00
Benjamin Frymer, Sonoma State University “The challenge of aesthetic education: estrangement and emancipation in late capitalism”
17.00 – 17.30
Coffee Break
17.30 – 18.10 (Chair: Lucia Aiello)
C. McQuillan, L. Caryer, J. Miller, Emory University “Philosophical Commitments: The Role of Philosophy in Critical Theory”
18.10 – 18.50
Andrew Pierce, Loyola University Chicago “Aesthetic Mediation and the Politics of Technology”