Cfp: "French Theory: Reception in the Visual Arts in the United States Between 1965 and 1995," University of Louvain, May, 2011.

Summary:

There are many American artists, active in the second half of the twentieth century, whose practice and theory have been infuenced by philosophy, literary studies and social sciences. In this regard, several French scholars have benefited from early sustained interest. Among these are major figures such as Lévi-Strauss, Barthes, Bourdieu, Foucault, Lacan, Althusser, Lyotard, Baudrillard, Derrida or Deleuze. Many thinkers whose writings have come to constitute the corpus of the so-called French Theory. This symposium intends to study the reception of this French thought in the field of the American visual arts from 1965 until 1995.

Call for Papers:

There are many American artists, active in the second half of the twentieth century, whose practice and theory have been infuenced by philosophy, literary studies and social sciences. In this regard, several French scholars have benefited from early sustained interest. Among these are major figures such as Claude Lévi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Louis Althusser, Jean-François Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida or Gilles Deleuze. Many thinkers whose writings have come to constitute the corpus of the so-called French Theory. The influence of this French thought in the American universities, from the mid-1970s on, notably contributing to the emergence of the Cultural studies, has been the subject of several studies, including the important and recent work by Francois Cusset. However, the reception of such a thinking in the specific field of the visual arts has not yet been the subject of systematic research, with the exception of a few and relatively dispersed studies. Among the laters are some essays by Sylvère Lotringer considering artistic practice posterior to the mid-1970s, and by Sande Cohen. Still, it turns out that some artists could gradually have access to various pieces of this corpus as soon as the second half of the 1960s, thanks to first translations, conferences, travels or the presence itself of one or the other author on the territory. Thus, this symposium intends to study the reception of this French thought in the field of the visual arts from 1965 until 1995. A year that marks the eve of a movement of critical evaluation of the influence of these authors on the American intellectual field initiated by the now famous “Sokal affair”, among other events. To understand this episode, three issues or topics can be brought to the fore.

The first one concerns the ways and means by which the dissemination of the ideas of these French authors occurred. How and by the mean of which historical events did the artists happened to get in touch with their writings ? Is it possible to define different and subsequent phases of dissemination of authors in the United-States (such as : Lévi-Strauss, Barthes ; then Foucault, Lacan, Bourdieu and Lyotard ; and finally Baudrillard, Deleuze and Derrida ; phases to be revised during the symposium)? Did some English artists and reviews play a role in the relaying and spreading of these ideas?

A second issue deals with the reception of the French thought among artists. For instance, is it possible to figure out the understanding the first artists could possess of structuralism and post-structuralism in the second half of 1960s ? Is it possible to define the chronological moment of a real reception ? Besides, what is also at stake are the different cultural, intellectual and even political conditions that might have provided a convenient environment or cradle for the rise of this French thought in the United-States. Or, to the contrary, what were the conditions that might have impede its reception and absorption. It will also be of interest to study which texts, which concepts and which theories, the American artists decided to retain and to use, and therefore to study the changes this thought underwent owing to these uses.

Finally, a third issue will focus on the application or use made by the artists of the lessons gained from these French authors. Through a series of case studies, covering the period of the three decades, we expect to uncover the benefits and changes experienced by visual practices thanks to the French Theory. What’s more, from a more historiographic point of view, what needs to be reassessed is the relevance of the critical use critics and art historians themselves might have made of this same thought when studying these very artistic practices.

Keynote speakers already confirmed are:

Victor Burgin (Goldsmiths College, University of London)
François Cusset (Université Paris Ouest Nanterre)
Sylvère Lotringer (University of Columbia, New York)
Laura Mulvey (Birbeck University, London)
Peter Osborne (Middelsex University)
Jean Michel Rabaté (Pennsylvania University)
John Rajchman (University of Columbia, New York)

Proposals for papers in French or English, with a short résumé, will be accepted at frenchtheory_at_uclouvain.be. Proposals are limited to 400 words. The deadline for submissions is October 15, 2010.

"From Structure to Rhizome: Transdisciplinarity in French Thought, 1945 to the Present: Histories, Concepts, Constructions," April 16-17, 2010.

Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Middlesex University. In the final decades of the twentieth century, the ‘great books’ of postwar French theory transformed study in the humanities in the Anglophone world. These books were all, in one way or another, transdisciplinary in character. Yet their reception has primarily taken place in an array of specific disciplinary contexts, isolated from a broader understanding of the intellectual dynamics, forms, significance and innovative potential of transdisciplinarity itself. This conference aims to redress this situation. Each speaker will reflect on the transdisciplinary functioning of a single concept in French thought since 1945, with respect to a founding text, a particular thinker or a school of thought. Speakers:

• Éric Alliez (CRMEP, Middlesex University) 'Rhizome'
• Etienne Balibar (University of Paris X/Irvine UC) 'Structure'
• Andrew Barry (Oxford University) 'Network'
• Tom Conley (Harvard University) 'Writing'
• François Cusset (University of Paris X) 'Theory'
• Patrick Guyomard (University of Paris VII) 'Object a'
• Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond (University of Nice) 'Science'
• Alain de Libera (EPHE, Paris/University of Geneva) 'Subject'
• Peter Osborne (CRMEP, Middlesex University) 'Transdisciplinarity'
• Michèle Riot-Sarcey (University of Paris VIII) 'History'
• Stella Sandford (CRMEP, Middlesex University) 'Sex'

Visit the conference website here: http://www.web.mdx.ac.uk/crmep/EVENTS/Transdisciplinarity.htm.

Cfp: "Rethinking 1968," Special Issue of PHAENEX (forthcoming).

The events of 1968 shook the world. On the 40th anniversary of the protests in France, Germany and the United States, the EPTC organized a series of panels to investigate these industrial and student actions, and whether they can serve as a basis for critiquing our current political climate. We want to ask if the philosophical underpinnings of these revolutionary acts have continued relevance today. For example, in France, the French phenomenologist and existentialist, turned Marxist, Jean-Paul Sartre was held up as one of the intellectuals who could provide an intellectual basis for the revolution. Alongside structuralists like Althusser, Sartre was viewed as an intellectual god-father of the movement, not only because of his writings critical of capitalism and the bourgeois system, be they his early writings on existentialism, or his later reformulation of Marxism in the Critique of Dialectical Reason, nor because he linked left-wing activism in the first world with support for the oppressed elsewhere, but because he was willing to lend his name and support to the Maoists against the Gaullist government. Similarly, in Germany, two philosophers, the phenomenologically-inspired and Marxist Herbert Marcuse and the neo-Marxist and member of the Frankfurt School Jürgen Habermas were central figures for the student revolutionaries. As a member of the Frankfurt School’s second generation, Habermas was viewed by the students as safely removed from the alleged post-World War II conservatism of Adorno and Horkheimer. For the first several years following its publication, Habermas’s habilitation thesis, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, was a text central to the student struggle in Germany. Similarly, Marcuse’s texts, Reason and Revolution, Eros and Civilization, and One-Dimensional Man, as well as his occasional writings, were used as rallying cries by the left both in Europe and in the United States. The question we propose for this volume is, what relevance do these philosophers’s works have today, in light of the continued expansion of the capitalist system, and the fact that student leaders like Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Bernard Kouchner, and Joschka Fischer have renounced extra-political activities and joined the political mainstream. We are interested in papers that explore the relevance of the philosophical critiques that inspired the movements of 1968 for present day radical politics, including papers that use the philosophical inspirations behind 1968: (1) To critique global capitalism while providing a positive way forward, (2) To examine American hegemony, (3) To examine possibilities for overturning existing political structures in either the developed or developing world, (4) To examine issues surrounding the environment or environmental justice, (5) Or any other topic, provided that the paper deals extensively with the philosophical ideas of 1968 and their relevance for today’s changed political landscape. Interested authors should submit a copy of their paper in RTF or WORD format to PhaenEx's website (http://www.phaenex.uwindsor.ca/ojs/leddy/index.php/phaenex). Queries should be sent to: Kevin W. Gray at kevin-william.gray.1@ulaval.ca. The submission deadline is July 1, 2009.

"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.

Cfp: "New French Thought," Department of Philosophy, Villanova University, April 3-4, 2009.

Keynote Speaker: Bernard Stiegler We encourage submissions that consider any theme in contemporary French philosophy, which might engage figures including (but not limited to): Badiou, Rancière, Descombes, Meillassoux, Compagnon, Laruelle, Kristeva, Irigaray, Le Doeuff, Cixous, Stiegler, Deleuze, Marion, Balibar, Aron, Laplanche, Castoriadis, Latour, Ferry, Ricœur, Derrida, Virilio, Lefort, Henry, Nancy, Lacoue-Labarthe, Gauchet, Manent, Renaut, Baudrillard, Lazarus, Macherey, Rabaté, Gaillard, Brisson, Romano, Malabou, Lyotard, Milner, Serres, and others. Submission Guidelines: We encourage submissions from faculty and graduate students of abstracts (at least 300 words) and/or papers (3,000 to 5,000 words). Please submit in blind review format to ryan.feigenbaum@villanova.edu by February 1, 2009.

Kleinberg, Ethan. "Review of Francois Cusset's FRENCH THEORY." NDPR (September 2008).

Cusset, François. French Theory: How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, & Co. Transformed the Intellectual Life of the United States. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2008. There is a central question that provides a guiding thread through François Cusset's far ranging and intellectually challenging investigation into the reception of "French Theory" in the United States: how is it that "around the beginning of the 1980s, right when the works of Foucault, Deleuze, Lyotard, and Derrida were being put to work on American campuses and in some alternative communities as the theoretical foundation for a new type of politics, those very names were being demonized in France as the epitome of an outdated 'libidinal' and leftist type of politics"? (XVIII) His study unfolds, examining the chronological periods before and after this crucial decade, casting back to roughly 1966 and then moving forward up until 2004, in an attempt to answer this question and explain the American phenomenon he terms French Theory. Cusset is fascinated by the simultaneous American invention and French erasure of French Theory and his investigation into the social, political, and theoretical causes of this transatlantic divergence takes the reader on a journey from the "public birth" of post-structuralism at the 1966 Johns Hopkins University conference that brought Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan and others to the United States (and together) for the first time, through the mutations and revisions of French Theory in the American academic, cultural, and political landscape up to our current moment. To be sure the wide range and loose chronology of the book makes it difficult to discern a clear American trajectory. But what makes the book an exciting and informative read is the details gleaned as we move from the world of advanced academics to the world of cyberpunk comics, temporary autonomous zones (an early incarnation of the internet), and post-modern architecture. In Cusset's account, French Theory was never the sole property of advanced academics but a site of shared interest for those academics and countercultural figures. It is actually the symbolic capital, the star power, of the countercultural figures that led to the rising popularity of the French theorists; this light then reflected back onto the American academics who, in turn, basked in the glow. Thus Cusset's narrative unfolds in two ways. It tells the story of the academics who were instrumental in cultivating French Theory in American higher education and it also attempts to discern and explicate the points of contact with American counter-cultural forces. . . . Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=14085.

Cusset, Francois. "French Theory's American Adventures." CHRONICLE REVIEW June 13, 2008.

All "traveling theories," as the late Edward Said once called them, carry with them . . . a risk, for they have always involved a disconnection from a specific context and reconnection with a new one — in this case, disconnection from a certain Continental notion of writing, from the horizon of Marxism and revolution, and from a timely critique of semiology and the linguistic turn — and reconnection with many American traditions like textual ontology and literary irony, best represented by the New Critics of the 1940s, against the "fallacies" of psychology and intentionality. Reconnection too with the American tradition of pragmatism. Reconnection with a historical tradition of subversive counterreadings, a quintessentially American tradition that started with the founding fathers and their reinterpretation of the Bible. Reconnection again, much closer in time, with the bold new analysis of schizophrenia, therapy, and marginality inaugurated in the 1950s by the likes of Gregory Bateson or R.D. Laing. Reconnection may not be the right term: What should be said here is that there is a historical convergence of the two branches, French and American, Foucault and Bateson, Deleuze and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Derrida and Robert Penn Warren. . . . Read the rest here: http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=5xc4vh095tvr4q3rybvmdv94vkwxfjnl.

Wolin, Richard. "America's Tolerance for French Radicalism." CHRONICLE REVIEW June 13, 2008.

French theory's 'antifoundationalism' jibes surprisingly well with the precepts of American pluralism. Both traditions are deeply wary of metaphysical absolutes and high-flown theoretical speculation. Liberalism can be frustratingly nonprescriptive: It democratically allows everyone the luxury of having his or her own opinion. Deconstruction — which, under Derrida's stewardship, embraced the confusions of "undecidability" instead of taking a firm position — similarly ended up in a state of self-canceling judgmental paralysis. Little wonder, then, that on this side of the Atlantic, poststructuralism has frequently been assimilated with the tepid and stolidly reformist orientation of American pragmatism. . . . Read the rest here: http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=ww474bgn53kn7fv2g17ytbnzwr2rxhpt.

BBC Radio 4: "1968 -- Philosophy in the Streets."

Nick Fraser recalls the intellectual revolution of May 1968 that spread from the academy to the streets of Paris, and from Paris to the world. Contributors include key philosophers and thinkers, former activists and writers. Please visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/pip/topbf/ to listen.

McLemee, Scott. "French Theory." INSIDE HIGHER ED April 16, 2008.

Fish and his interlocutors reduce Cusset’s rich, subtle, and paradox-minded book (now arriving in translation) into one more tale of how tenured pseudoradicalism rose to power in the United States. Of course there is always an audience for that sort of thing. And it is true that Cusset – who teaches intellectual history at the Institute d’Etudes Politiques and at Reid Hall/Columbia University, in Paris – devotes some portions of the book to explaining American controversies to his French readers. But that is only one aspect of the story, and by no means the most interesting or rewarding. When originally published five years ago, the cover of Cusset’s book bore the slightly strange words French Theory. That the title of a French book was in English is not so much lost in translation as short-circuited by it. The bit of Anglicism is very much to the point: this is a book about the process of cultural transmission, distortion, and return. The group of thinkers bearing the (American) brand name “French Theory” would not be recognized at home as engaged in a shared project, or even forming a cohesive group. Nor were they so central to cultural and political debate there, at least after the mid-1970s, as they were to become for academics in the United States. So the very existence of a phenomenon that could be called “French Theory” has to be explained. To put it another way: the very category of 'French Theory' itself is socially constructed. Explaining how that construction came to pass is Cusset’s project. He looks at the process as it unfolded at various levels of academic culture: via translations and anthologies, in certain disciplines, with particular sponsors, and so on. Along the way, he recounts the American debates over postmodernism, poststructuralism, and what not. But those disputes are part of his story, not the point of it. While offering an outsider’s perspective on our interminable culture wars, it is more than just a chronicle of them. . . . . Read the whole article here: http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/04/16/mclemee.

Fish, Stanley. "French Theory in America, Part 2." NEW YORK TIMES April 20, 2008.

Well, there’s life in that old dog yet. My editor thought that a column on French theory would elicit a small number of responses from readers interested in continental philosophy. More than 600 comments later, it is clear that terms like deconstruction and postmodernism still have the capacity to produce excitement and outrage. . . . Read the rest here: http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/french-theory-in-america-part-two/. For Part 1, please visit: http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/french-theory-in-america/.

"Theories of Recognition and Contemporary French Philosophy: Reopening the Dialogue," École Normale Supérieure & Université de Paris X, May 6-7, 2008.

Les théoriciens de la reconnaissance se sont souvent tournés vers la philosophie française. Le statut et les modalités de cette référence n'ont cependant pas encore reçu l'attention qu'ils méritent. Ces deux journées d'études se donnent précisément pour objectif de mieux cerner les divers rôles que joue la référence à la philosophie française contemporaine dans les théories de la reconnaissance. D'une part, il s'agira d'examiner la manière dont les théoriciens de la reconnaissance se sont inspirés de la philosophie française contemporaine. On a déjà beaucoup étudié les influences de Hegel, de l'Ecole de francfort et de G.H. Mead sur l'élaboration du cadre des théories de la reconnaissance. On s'intéressera ici à l'influence qu'a pu exercer sur les théories de la reconnaissance, la philosophie française de Sartre à Derrida en passant par Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, Lyotard et Levinas etc. De profondes divergences peuvent ressortir de l'interprétation des pensées de ces philosophes dans le cadre des théories de la reconnaissance. Il suffit, pour s'en faire une idée, de se rapporter aux références que font A. Honneth et N. Fraser au projet déconstructiviste : A. Honneth, se servant surtout des derniers écrits de Derrida, articule le projet de déconstruction aux éthiques de la sollicitude, du care, introduites notamment par C. Gilligan. N. Fraser, s'appuyant sur les premiers écrits de Derrida, relie le projet déconstructiviste à ce qu'elle appelle « la reconnaissance transformatrice », une politique culturelle anti-essentialiste qui viserait à contrer les inégalités institutionnelles de l'estime sociale en restructurant les relations de reconnaissance afin de déconstruire et de mettre en question l'identité que les individus et les groupes cherchent à faire reconnaître. De même, on peut constater que les interprétations de la pensée foucaldienne par J. Tully, Ch. Taylor, N. Fraser et A. Honneth sont également bien différentes voire sur certains points opposées. Nous visons donc, en un premier temps, à clarifier et à évaluer ces diverses interprétations et utilisations. D'autre part, il s'agira de concevoir un renouvellement du potentiel normatif et politique de la philosophie française contemporaine dont la portée politique est toujours discutée et contestée. Comme le remarque A. Honneth, la critique que fait Habermas de la philosophie française dans les années 80 a eu « un effet très préjudiciable et a placé le rapport franco-allemand sous la rubrique de l'irrationalité versus la rationalité », ce qui a entraîné « une certaine sous-estimation de plus en plus répandue de la tradition française » à tel point que « nous nous trouvons maintenant dans une situation où le dialogue à été interrompu ». Les théoriciens de la reconnaissance nous offrent une occasion de relancer ce dialogue et d'explorer de nouveau la capacité de la philosophie française à avoir trait aux préoccupations de la philosophie politique tout en faisant ressortir son potentiel normatif. For more details, including the programme, please visit the conference homepage here: http://www.u-paris10.fr/91972353/0/fiche___pagelibre/&RH=scdrsop_actu.

Fish, Stanley. "French Theory in America." NEW YORK TIMES April 6, 2008.

Cusset, François. French Theory: Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze & Cie et les mutations de la vie intellectuelle aux États-Unis. Paris: La Découverte, 2003. French Theory: How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, & Co. Transformed the Intellectual Life of the United States. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2008. The book’s author is Francois Cusset, who sets himself the tasks of explaining, first, what all the fuss was about, second, why the specter of French theory made strong men tremble, and third, why there was never really anything to worry about. Certainly mainstream or centrist intellectuals thought there was a lot to worry about. They agreed with Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont, who complained that the ideas coming out of France amounted to a “rejection of the rationalist tradition of the Enlightenment” even to the point of regarding “science as nothing more than a ‘narration’ or a ‘myth’ or a social construction among many others.” This is not quite right; what was involved was less the rejection of the rationalist tradition than an interrogation of its key components: an independent, free-standing, knowing subject, the “I” facing an independent, free-standing world. The problem was how to get the “I” and the world together, how to bridge the gap that separated them ever since the older picture of a universe everywhere filled with the meanings God originates and guarantees had ceased to be compelling to many. . . . Read the entire entry here: http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/french-theory-in-america/.

Chaplin, Tamara. "Excerpt from TURNING ON THE MIND: FRENCH PHILOSOPHERS ON TELEVISION."

Chaplin, Tamara. Turning on the Mind: French Philosophers on Television. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2007. In the decades following World War II, television laid siege to the culture of the book. However, with French television regarded less as a creative form in its own right than as a means for the transmission of the classical heritage, most early aficionados saw the medium not as a threat but rather as a boon to print culture. Television would “spread the word”—heightening public awareness about important new publications, encouraging viewers to read, and bringing the rich legacy of the French humanistic tradition directly into the homes and heads of the nation’s citizens. Few countries have worked as hard as France to merge the word and the image via the small screen. Indeed, between 1953 and 1989 alone, 106 series dedicated to literary programming sought to marry these disparate entities on French TV. Since its inception, the format known as the émission littéraire, or television book show, has also provided one of the dominant platforms for the televising of philosophy in France. . . . Read the rest here: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/509914.html.