On Destructive Plasticity. With Catherine Malabou

On Destructive Plasticity. A Workshop with Catherine Malabou

The term "plasticity" was coined by the French philosopher Catherine Malabou, which enables us to comprehend the processes of subjectification beyond the dualism of receptivity and activity, still predominant in philosophy, as a simultaneous process of receiving and giving form. Malabou's understanding of plasticity is decidedly located at the interface between philosophy and neuroscience and contains both discursive and concrete material dimensions (e.g., in relation to the brain).

In her essay "The Ontology of the Accident » (2009), which we’ll discuss with Catherine Malabou in our workshop, she confronts this positive capacity of plasticity with a specific negativity: destructive or explosive plasticity. Malabou includes such heterogeneous phenomena as war trauma, brain injuries, as well as ageing and sudden radical changes in identity. Destructive plasticity stands for a kind of metamorphosis of the subject's identity, which, according to Malabou, represents a challenge for philosophical thinking: On the one hand, it confronts the subject with a radical outside ("accident" both as chance and destructive incident), and, on the other hand, these metamorphoses leave no scar that points back to the destroyed identity as a trace. Nevertheless, according to Malabou, "a form [is] born of the accident, born by accident, a kind of accident."

We invited Catherine Malabou in order to discuss with her how a theory of explosive plasticity is even possible. From a media-philosophical perspective, we are interested in the question of what role media in general and aesthetic media in particular play in the visualisation and representation of experiences of destructive plasticity. 

The workshop takes place in hybrid format, both via video conference and in the “Lounge”, University Library Weimar. Catherine Malabou will participate online. Reading the essay is a prerequisite for participation. You will receive the text and the link to the video conference after registration. The working language is English.

Please register by November 8 via email: [email protected]. The number of participants is limited.

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Concept and Organization:

Vanessa Franke & Laurien Wüst