Rethinking Institutions: Heterodox and Critical Perspectives

WIth the workshop we aim to address the following questions:

Can critical theory, by utilizing its vast underlying philosophical currents of German Idealism, Marx and materialist thought, Freud and contemporary psychoanalysis, provide a meta-theoretical discourse in determining the conceptual maturation of the notion Institution? How do institutions conceptually emerge, what are their historical and material conditions, what are their modes of presentation and representation, what are they in essence and what forms do they acquire, how are they reflected in subject’ consciousnesses, what is the relation between human agency and institutional frameworks etc.? Can we transcend the analytical framework of rules, behaviour and coordination, by historically and ideologically deconstructing institutional structures and frameworks of contemporary societies?

Programme:

Thursday 25th August – Mala dvorana

Introduction (9.30)

Session 1 (10.00 – 11.30) – Philosophy and Institutions

Oliver Feltham (American University of Paris)

Institution or Organization? A Humean reply to Nunes

Uroš Kranjc (University of York)

Can Institutions be Thought as Multiplicities – Marx, Veblen, Badiou

Coffee Break

Session 2 (12.00 – 14.00) – Sociological and Political Roots of Contemporary Institutions 

Rudi Rizman (University of Ljubljana & University of Bologna) (via ZOOM)

What is Left of Institutional Regulation and Democracy in the Time of Neoliberal Hegemony?

Tomaž Mastnak (ZRC SAZU)

Is Economic Power an Institution? The Limits of August Ludwig von Rochau's Redefinition of Liberal Politics

Peter J. Verovšek (University of Sheffield)

A Critical Theory of Political Institutions: Charting the Frankfurt School's Shift from Social to Political Categories

Friday 26th August – Mala dvorana

Session 3 (9.00 – 12.00) – Psychoanalysis and Institutions

Cindy Zeiher (University of Canterbury) (via ZOOM)

Psychoanalysis’ Slip of the Discourse

Mike Grimshaw (University of Canterbury) (via ZOOM)

Radical Theology and the ‘Weakening’ of Bourgeois Institutions

Jelica Šumič Riha (ZRC SAZU)

Sade or the Institution of the Right to Enjoyment

Lorenzo Chiesa (Newcastle University)

On Some Questions Prior to any Possible Treatment of Lacan’s Theory of Discourses as Political

Coffee Break

Session 4 (13.00 – 15.00) – Marx and the Institutional Dispositive

Carolina Alves (University of Cambridge) (via ZOOM)

Provisional: Marx's Influence on Keynes Circle, Joan Robinson and Economic Institutions

Werner Bonefeld (University of York)

On Real Abstraction: Wealth, Suffering and Negation

Closing Remarks

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