Critical Theory at the Margins

The 1st Kritike Conference in Celebration of the 10th Anniversary of KRITIKE: An Online Journal of Philosophy (ISSN 1908-7330).

In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the journal, the UST Department of Philosophy is hosting the first ever Kritike Conference with the theme, “Critical Theory at the Margins.”  Max Horkheimer understands critical theory as propounding a strong social and political claim: emancipation from slavery and the abolition of social injustice.  Critical theorists have always been staunch defenders of social justice and egalitarianism through their vocal criticisms of the ideological nature of capitalist culture and the oppressive tendencies of Western empires.  While the birthplace of critical theory is Europe, its normative claims are, nonetheless, universal, inasmuch as it lends an intellectual voice to the voiceless and articulate a notion of hope for the hopeless.  In the context of the Philippine society, critical theory may play an instrumental role in analyzing social and political pathologies.  Moreover, the complex history of the Philippines, as a post-colonial nation with a neo-colonial culture, has resulted in “marginal spaces” that profoundly inform Filipino identity and culture.  As such, the Philippines is a peculiar locus for the possibility of a critical theory of society that is characterized by marginal spaces.  While we may understand the word “marginal” in its negative form, usually referring to the disadvantaged members of society, it is also possible to construe “marginal” precisely as the obverse of the disadvantaged, as there are subterranean cultures that are thriving, yet largely unrecognized or misrecognized.  These subterranean cultures or “alternative rationalities,” when given voice, may inspire new forms of normative modalities that could respond to various forms of social and political crises, thus instigating the possibility of hope and the activation of utopian visions.

This conference will be held at the University of Santo Tomas, from the 1st to the 2nd of December 2017.

This event is free and open to the public. Online registration, however, is required.   LINK TO POSTER AND CFP: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByW05-PP3t4yQjhkclFGdTk5T00/view