Faculty of Management and Social Communication

We invite you to participate in the multidisciplinary academic conference

"Cultural Studies

and Speculative Realism"

Jagiellonian University, November 6-7

keynote speaker:

Prof. Levi R. Bryant,

the conference is followed by an OOP workshop for MA and PhD students

 run by Levi R. Bryant

The recent decades in the humanities heralded the return to materiality. The ecological crises, tensions within the capitalist system and the exhaustion of post-structuralist energy brought matter back from textual exile, and the compromised outside-text have started calling for a recognition of its existence. The 20th-century critical theory structured its political debate around epistemological issues, tracing veiled violence of bold ontological projects. Materialist tendencies, increasingly present in the 21st-century humanities, reintroduce metaphysics into the realm of political thought, reconfiguring the current debate on the state of critical theory. It seems that no other trend in materialist thought have generated so much controversy as speculative realism (object-oriented philosophy, OOP). Our conference aims to reflect on the extent to which the findings of OOO can reinvigorate the project of cultural studies.

Speculative realism seems to be the most radical and promising attempt to move beyond post-structuralism. The movement has its sources in the works of A. Badiou, Q. Meillasoux, and draws inspiration from e.g. M. Heidegger and, notably, K. Twardowski. Speculative realists (e.g. A. Toscano, G. Harman, L.R. Bryant, I. Bogost, R. Brassier) abolish the fundamental relation which has since Kant organised philosophical debate on human thinking about reality: the subject-world relation. They introduce the concept of the object, which can be a human, Pegasus, an atom, the European Union, a mug or a TV series. Rejecting the philosophy of access, they ask the question of  the essence of the object. Instead of asking "how does our knowledge construct the world / things?", they ask about the things themselves. Thus, their domain is ontology, and they aim to propose a convincing materialist metaphysics.

Therefore, speculative realists recognise the existence of real objects, independent of our will and cognition and propose several explicatory models (Harman's ‘quadruple object' or Bryant's "a perpetual work an object must do to maintain themselves as objects"1). They share common assumptions of necessary existence and simultaneous withdrawal of substance from the domain of the actual world. Rejecting the subject as the dominant category, speculative realists recognise the human as an object, albeit more complex. Anti-humanism of SR thus enables to situate the project within broadly-conceived post-humanities, neighbouring the actor-network theory or STS (science, technology and society studies).

Speculative realists' theoretical aspiration  are indeed high: they intend to formulate a theory which would function as the new standard model. Our conference aims to critically discuss the OOO proposals and harmonise them with cultural studies. We are interested in the following problems:

—  what are the theoretical consequences of the philosophical theses formulated by OOO?

—  speculative realism versus actor-network theory in cultural studies,

—  critical theory and the new materialism;

—  "aesthetics as first philosophy" –  aesthetic experience and the new materialism,

—  speculative realism as the groundwork for a post-humanist theory of culture,

—  criticism of speculative realism - or will OOP turn out to be a theoretical humbug?,

—  OOP and a materialist media theory (media studies; protocol studies, question of agency),

—  OOP and the philosophy of science and technology,

—  OOP as an emancipatory project – continuation or rejection of post-structuralist philosophy.

The conference will be in two parts: the plenary session and workshop-seminar. The plenary session grouped in thematic panels will take place on the first day. The sessions will be held in Polish and English. The second day will be devoted to the OOP workshop for MA and PhD students. The workshop will be run in English by Prof. Levi R. Bryant.

Conference fee:

academics: 200 PLN

PhD students: 100 PLN

Applications deadline: October 11th 2015

Intimation of acceptance of abstract: October 15th 2015

Conference fee to be paid by October 31st 2015

Send your abstract at realizm.spekulatywny@gmail.com

Organisers:

Faculty of Management and Social Communication, Jagiellonian University

Division of the Anth­ropology o f Literature and Cultural Studies, Jagiellonian University

The conference is supported by the Municipality of Krakow

Organising committee:

mgr Michał Gulik, dr Samuel Nowak

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Conference Application Form

name, surname, academic degree

e-mail, phone no.

paper title

abstract (600-1200 characters + 2 biographical entries)

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Workshop application form

name, surname, academic degree

e-mail, phone no.

academic interests (3-5)

MA or PhD thesis title and abstract (600-1400 characters)

teoria kultury wobec realizmu spekulatywnego.pdf