The Spontaneity of Freedom (SPONT), a European Research Council/UKRI-funded project based at University College London, explores forms of human agency and freedom that are not easily captured by models of rational planning or control. SPONT hosts an annual workshop: this year, the theme of the workshop will be “sex,” The first in a planned three-year conference series exploring “sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll.”

Tentative Schedule

8 July

9.00 Breakfast

9.30 Andreja Novakovic: Frock Consciousness in The Second Sex

11.15 Nick Clanchy: ‘Dreaming of a World Exempt from Meaning’: Roland Barthes on Love

13.00 Lunch

14.30 Ry Smith: Who Cares about the Rules Anyway? Rendering BDSM Philosophically Legible

16.15 Tim Dean: Libidinal Economies of Fascism

19.00 Dinner

9 July

9.00 Breakfast

9.30 Francey Russell: Opacity and Intimacy: Kant on Sex and Friendship

11:15 Elena Comay del Junco: Why Desire Is Better than Sex: Some History

13.00 Lunch

14.30 Elizabeth Holt: On Lesbian ‘Sex’

16.15 Keynote: Avgi Saketopoulou: Race Play, Refracted: Trauma and Sexuality in Stalag Fiction

19.00 Dinner

Commentators

Ellie Anderson

Ayesha Chakravarti

Simon Shogry

Jeremey Fix

Kirstine La Cour

Ann Pellegrini

Due to space and budgetary constraints, attendance at this workshop is by invitation. If you would like to attend, please write to [email protected] and we will accommodate you if possible.