Gracie Fields

Inspired by Ben (who was apparently himself somewhat inspired by me), I'm shutting down this admittedly derelict warehouse of ideas and moving to tumblr pastures.

My new blog will be devoted to one thing and one thing only: bringing an end to that insidious form of lightheartedness so prevalent today (especially among bloggers and twitterererers) which is really a mask for fear, a manifestation of panicky self-preservation.

Or not.

Your Humble Servant,

Bct Zoiwp!!!!

mscp autumn workshop

I will be speaking at this on Friday:

The MSCP is pleased to announce two new regular free events to the MSCP calendar, the Autumn and Spring workshops. The inaugural Autumn workshop on Friday, 8th of May, will be a forum regarding the importance, legitimation and relevance of philosophy today. Is philosophy outmoded? Does it still resemble its traditional forms? What is the relation between genuine thinking and the research output of the university system? Together we shall address such questions and we invite you to participate with your own questions and answers.

Where?
The Gryphon Gallery, 1888 Building,
The University of Melbourne.

When?
11am-5pm
Friday, 8 May 2009

Cost:
Free

on never having been

In an article in the New York Times on genius, David Brooks writes:

[t]he latest research suggests a more prosaic, democratic, even puritanical view of the world. The key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not a divine spark. It’s not I.Q., a generally bad predictor of success, even in realms like chess. Instead, it’s deliberate practice.

Fair enough. But what Brooks doesn't consider is that success -- and genius for that matter -- are not simply positive, static, categories. Whether you have to be puritanical in order to be successful surely depends on the kind of society in which you live. As any good dialectician knows, “there is no category, no valid concept that might not be rendered invalid at the moment when it is cut off from the concrete context to which it really belongs.”

As an aside, next time you're feeling indescribably shitty at something you've just read in the paper or seen on the tv, ask yourself whether the author or journalist has been sufficiently dialectical...

They never have been.

subject and object

It is a rude practice to rip a dialectician's work out of context, but nevertheless:

In the face of nature at rest, a nature from which all traces of anything resembling the human have been eradicated, the subject becomes aware of its own insignificance.

Adorno, 'On Lyric Poetry and Society'

rplnqrzn

Libidinal Philosophy Research Day:

A special event hosted by the Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy

9am - 5pm
Friday, 6 February 2009
The Gryphon Gallery, 1888 Building
The University of Melbourne

Participants and Paper Titles:

James Williams (University of Dundee): "Lyotard's critique of 'the natural': on the simulacrum and the phantasm in Libidinal Economy"

Justin Clemens (University of Melbourne): "Desire in Lacan"

Graham Jones (Independent Scholar): "Dis/figuring Lacan, Re-configuring Lyotard: Discourse, figure, and the libidinal"

Jon Roffe (MSCP; University of Tasmania; LaTrobe University): "Desire in Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus"

Ashley Woodward (MSCP): "Klossowski's Nietzsche and Lyotard's Freud"

***This is a FREE event and all are welcome.