|
|
Terminals: The Cultural production of Death explores how the positing of death as fundamentally exterior to human power effaces the extent of our participation in the production of death. Terminals investigates how death is shaped in part through attempts to "know" death, and it considers the role played by particular disciplines and institutions of knowledge in the production of death.The purpose of the conference is to contribute to ethical discussions about death by exploring the discursivities and technologies through which death is produced as well as the mechanisms of knowledge and mystification by which our lethal creativity is estranged from us.
Ways of "knowing" death, and ways of finding it unknowable are so important to our conception of the limits death places upon us that it is crucial to approach this subject through interdisciplinary work. Recent work in western philosophy has criticized the way death operates as a limit-concept; we are asked to see how the absoluteness of the boundary between life and death has functioned as a warranty for a host of distinctions (human/animal, masculine/feminine, heterosexual/homosexual) whose social history has been painful and often lethal.
FRIDAY, APRIL 12
| 01:30-01:45 | WELCOME AND OPENING REMARKS | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
MOURNING AND TRAGEDY
| 01:45-02:00 | Julie Carlson, Department of English, UCSB: Staging Death | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 02:00-02:45 | Carol Jacobs, Department of Comparative Literature, SUNY, Buffalo: Dusting Antigone | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 02:45-03:30 | Richard Corum, Department of English, UCSB: Selftermination | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 03:30-03:45 | COFFEE BREAK | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 03:45-04:30 | Eduardo Cadava, Department of English, Princeton University: The Whisper of Gazes: Walter Benjamin in the Image of Franz Kafka | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 04:30-05:15 | Rebecca Comay, University of Toronto: Enjoy your Symecope: Mourning Technology in Proust | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 05:30-07:00 | RECEPTION AT ART MUSEUM | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
SATURDAY, APRIL 13
THE ENDS OF DEATH
| 10:00-10:15 | Elisabeth Weber, Germanic, Slavic & Semitic Studies, UCSB: A World Without Metaphor | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 10:15-11:00 | Robert Jan van Pelt, Department of Architecture, University of Waterloo: From the Secret Reich of Two Million to the Reich Secret | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 11:00-11:45 | Laurence A. Rickels, Germanic, Slavic & Semitic Studies, UCSB: Leave a Message. But Don't Forget to Breathe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 11:45-12:30 | William Haver, Department of History, SUNY Binghamton: Fucking with AIDS: Sovereign Destitution and the Practical Constitution of Being | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 12:30-02:00 | Lunch | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY
| 02:15-02:30 | Victoria Vesna, Art Studio, UCSB: Terminal Identity: The Artist | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 02:30-03:15 | Samuel Weber, Department of English, UCLA: Reading--To the End of the World | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 03:15-04:00 | Fred Moten, Visiting Professor, New York University (Department of English, UCSB): "Death in Cut Time" | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 04:00-04:15 | Coffee Break | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 04:15-05:00 | François Ewald, Fédération francaise des sociétés d'assurances: Life Insurance | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 05:00-05:45 | Wolf Kittler, Germanic, Slavic & Semitic Studies, UCSB: The Tragedy of Maxwell's Demon | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
