"Concept and Form: the CAHIERS POUR L'ANALYSE and Contemporary French Thought," Middlesex University, May 21-22, 2009.

Hosted by the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy. The Cahiers pour l’analyse was a journal published by a group of brilliant young philosophy graduates (including Jacques-Alain Miller, Jean-Claude Milner, Alain Badiou and François Regnault) at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. Ten issues of the journal appeared between 1966 and 1969 – arguably the most fertile and productive years in French philosophy during the whole of the twentieth century. Articles published in the Cahiers include landmark texts by Derrida, Foucault, Althusser and Irigaray, as well as seminal and brilliantly original texts by Miller, Badiou and other members of the journal's editorial circle. Guided by the examples of Canguilhem, Lacan and Althusser, the Cahiers was conceived as a contribution to a philosophy based on the primacy of concepts, on the rigour of logic and formalisation, in opposition to philosophies based on the categories of representation, of lived experience, or of the conscious subject of such experience. This conference will explore some of the more general philosophical issues bound up with the ambitious ‘ultra-structuralism’ at work in the Cahiers: the effort to develop a non-psychological, non-humanist theory of the subject that might be compatible with some of the insights of structuralism; the relation between psychoanalysis and logic; the scope and limits of formalisation; the relation between psychoanalysis and politics, and so on. PROGRAMME (downloadable here): Thursday 21 May 9:30-10:00am Registration and coffee 10:00-10:15am Introductory remarks: Peter Hallward, Middlesex University 10:15-11:30am Knox Peden, University of California at Berkeley, 'The Fate of the Concept' 11:30am-12:45pm Luke Fraser, University of Guelph, 'What is Structure?' 12:45-2:00pm Lunch (sandwiches provided) 2:00-3:15pm Tracy McNulty, Cornell University, 'Transmission Terminable and Interminable' 3:15-3:30pm Christian Kerslake, Middlesex University, brief demonstration of the Concept and Form website (under construction). 3:30-3:45pm break 3:45-5pm François Regnault, University of Paris VIII, 'Les Cahiers pour l'Analyse, depuis la Vérité jusq'à Dieu qui n'eut pas lieu' 5pm-6pm concluding discussion 6pm to 7:30pm Wine reception Friday 22 May 9:30-10:00am Coffee 10:00-11:15am Patrice Maniglier, University of Essex, 'Acting out the Structure: from Lévi-Strauss to the Cahiers pour l'Analyse' 11:15am-12:30pm Claude Imbert, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, 'Lévi-Strauss and the Eighteenth Century: Forty Years Later' 12:30-1:30pm Lunch (sandwiches provided) 1:30-2:45pm Christian Kerslake, Middlesex University, 'Suture and Foreclosure in the Cahiers pour l'analyse' 3:15-4:00pm Jelica Šumič Riha, The Institute of Philosophy, Ljubljana, 'Logic of the pas-tout or Lacan with Aristotle' 4:00-4:30pm coffee break 4:30-5:45pm Adrian Johnston, University of New Mexico, 'Affects Are Signifiers: The Infinite Judgment of Lacanian Ultrastructuralism' 5:45pm-6:15pm concluding discussion Visit the conference homepage: http://www.mdx.ac.uk/www/CRMEP/EVENTS/CahiersPourl%27Analyse.htm.