BEGIN:VCALENDAR PRODID:-//Grails iCalendar plugin//NONSGML Grails iCalendar plugin//EN VERSION:2.0 CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260616T195010Z DTSTART;TZID=Australia/Sydney:20120404T060000 DTEND;TZID=Australia/Sydney:20120404T080000 SUMMARY:Parentheses in Time: Last Year in Marienbad as Amorous Event UID:20260621T055444Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-bd7db559-gt5qm TZID:Australia/Sydney LOCATION:2 Bullecourt Ave\, Bankstown\, Australia DESCRIPTION:

The Writing &\; Society Research Centre and the Philosophy Research Initiative at UWS presents following seminar on Wednesday April 4:

\n

SPEAKER: Alex Ling (Lecturer)

\n

School of Humanities and Communication Arts

\n

University of Western Sydney

\n

TITLE: Parentheses in Time: Last Year in Marienbad as Amorous Event

\n

TIME: April 4\, 2-4pm

\n

PLACE: UWS Bankstown Campus\, 3.G.55

\n

ABSTRACT: This paper argues that the &lsquo\;timeless&rsquo\; nature of Alain Resnais and Alain Robbe-Grillet&rsquo\;s Last Year in Marienbad (1961) results from the film&rsquo\;s presentation of what Alain Badiou would call an &lsquo\;amorous event&rsquo\;. In Badiou&rsquo\;s philosophy an event is a cut that intervenes between heterogeneous times\, cleaving the old (the decaying past) from the new (the &lsquo\;eternal present&rsquo\; which is\, properly speaking\, the &lsquo\;truth&rsquo\; of the past). In this paper I contend that Last Year in Marienbad situates itself entirely within such a temporal rupture &ndash\; in the very &lsquo\;cut&rsquo\; between two times &ndash\; and is as such a wholly evental film. Indeed\, what is Last Year in Marienbad if not the eternal (evental) encounter\, amorous in nature\, of X and A? The endlessness of this encounter lies moreover not so much in its being infinitely repeated (denied\, forestalled\, postponed&hellip\;) as in its being undecided. Did X and A actually meet last year in Marienbad? Did A agree to leave M for X? Did X rape A? Did M kill A? I argue that all of these questions (which the film steadfastly refuses to answer) are ultimately subsidiary effects of Marienbad&rsquo\;s central undecidable event: are X and A in love? Such undecidability is central to Badiou&rsquo\;s characterisation of the event\, insofar as there can be absolutely no knowledge of an event&rsquo\;s occurrence\, and as such there can be no criteria upon which to base a decision concerning its having taken place. Deciding an event&rsquo\;s occurrence is thus strictly speaking an act of &lsquo\;deciding the undecidable&rsquo\;. I contend it is precisely this evental undecidability that is presented in Resnais and Robbe-Grillet&rsquo\;s film: like the event itself\, Last Year in Marienbad is not something to be known\, but rather something to be decided.

\n

BIO: Alex Ling is Research Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies at the University of Western Sydney. He is the author of Badiou and Cinema (Edinburgh UP\, 2011) and \;the co-editor and translator of Badiou&rsquo\;s Mathematics of the Transcendental (Continuum\, Forthcoming). His current research is on the role of artistic and scientific conditioning in contemporary continental philosophy. \; \;

\n

For the entire 2012 program of the Philosophy seminar series at UWS see: http://www.uws.edu.au/philosophy/philosophy@uws/events/research_seminars_2012

\n

Contact: philosophy@uws.edu.au

ORGANIZER: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR