CFP: Critical Theories Graduate Workshop: Adorno and Foucault

CFA: Critical Theories: Adorno & Foucault

DePaul University Graduate Student Workshop

April 20-1, 2018

Call for Abstracts Deadline: February 16, 2018

Theme: Critical Theories: Adorno & Foucault

Theodor Adorno and Michel Foucault are undoubtedly two of the twentieth-century’s most prominent philosophers and social critics, and this workshop aims to broaden the discourse of critical theory by thinking them with and against one another. Already in 1980 Foucault reported that he saw “striking parallels between his own analysis of the disciplinary, carceral society and Adorno’s administered world,” yet there has been very little work until recently to bring these two thinkers together.[1] Thus, this workshop aims to contribute to a growing interest in scholarship surrounding these two figures.

Topic Areas

We invite abstract submissions from any area of philosophy related to the works of Theodor Adorno and/or Michel Foucault. Given the nascent nature of this dialogue, there is no expectation that presenters be fluent in both figures. We simply ask that presenters are open to exploring dissimilarities and continuities between them during the workshop’s discussions. Possible topics include any scholarship on Foucault and/or Adorno as well as related figures, criticisms, and fields. We especially welcome submissions which draw upon underrepresented areas of philosophy.

Keynote Speaker: Deborah Cook, University of Windsor

Prof. Cook received her doctorate from Paris I-Panthéon-Sorbonne in 1985. In Paris, she took courses with Jacques Derrida at the École Normale Supérieure and with Michel Foucault at the Collège de France.  Her first book was on Foucault, The Subject Finds a Voice: Foucault’s Turn Toward Subjectivity, and to date, she has published more than thirty articles on Adorno. The Culture Industry Revisited: Theodor W. Adorno on Mass Culture was published by Rowman and Littlefield in 1996 and Adorno, Habermas, and the Search for a Rational Society by Routledge in 2004. A book she edited, Theodor Adorno: Key Concepts, published by Acumen, appeared in 2008, and her text Adorno on Nature was also published by Acumen in 2011. Prof. Cook’s The Critical Matrix: Adorno and Foucault is forthcoming with Verso this year. 

Format

Presentations will be 20 minutes long and will be accompanied by prepared responses. Presenters will be asked to circulate their papers with fellow participants 1 week prior to the workshop.

Prof. Deborah Cook will provide a keynote address, and there will be a panel discussion of her forthcoming, The Critical Materix: Adorno and Foucault.

Submission Guidelines

Please submit a 300-600 word abstract prepared for blind review to [email protected] by February 16. Include your name, institutional affiliation, and paper title in the body of your email.

You will hear back from conference organizers by February 20.

Accessibility

We aim to organize the workshop in such a way that enables everyone to equally enjoy the benefits of participation. All workshop events will be held in accessible spaces, and we encourage enquiries regarding accessibility and accommodations to be addressed to conference organizers at [email protected]

In order to defray the cost of travel, we will strive to provide housing for all participants with DePaul graduate students for the duration of the workshop.

[1] Martin Jay, Adorno, (London: Fontana, 1984), p. 22.