End Date :
501 Schermerhorn (April 29th)
Common Room, Heyman Center (April 30th)
Each year the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society (ICLS) hosts an annual conference that brings together the finest scholars in the world to discuss issues of historical and contemporary relevance, joining the reading practices of comparative literary studies to those of the social theoretical disciplines. This year, the topic of the ICLS conference is World of Capital: Conditions, Meanings, Situations. Although discussions of world economy in all its permutations (political, geographical, cultural, technological, legal, mediatic etc.) are ubiquitous, less attention is paid to capital as such, the economic force – but also socially signifying and culturally symbolizing object – that continues to animate all world-making (and world-unmaking) resources. Beyond its strictly economic significance, capital may be said to be a kaleidoscopic concept, a sort of protean substance. Its capacity to permeate all societal domains, actual or virtual, and determine their production of meaning is unprecedented in relation to other historical forces.
Dates:
April 29, 2011 – April 30, 2011
Location:
April 29th: 501 Schermerhorn Hall
April 30th: Common Room, Heyman Center
PROGRAM
World of Capital: Conditions, Meanings, Situations will be conducted as a conversation amidst several comparatist and interdisciplinary domains: literary studies, social and political sciences, law, economics, gender studies, media and technology studies, education, ecology and geography, human rights. The purpose of this conference is to initiate another sort of inquiry as to the situation of capital and its workings across and throughout the world’s domains. Because this inquiry must be plural and collaborative, as its object is heterogeneous and multilateral, this conference is envisioned as the initial event of a series of like meetings subsequently to take place abroad, perhaps in relation to Columbia’s new Global Centers or in collaboration with other international institutions.
Conference Panelists:
Étienne Balibar, Distinguished Professor of Humanities, University of California, Irvine
Ritu Birla, Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Toronto
Melinda Cooper, ARC(Australian Research Council) Research Fellow,Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Sydney
Carlos Forment, Associate Professor of Sociology, The New School for Social Research
Meredith McGill, Associate Professor of English and Director of the Center for Cultural Analysis, Rutgers University
Andrew Parker, Associate Professor of English, Amherst College; Visiting Professor of French and Comparative Literature, Rutgers University 2009-2011
Willi Semmler, Professor of Economics, The New School for Social Research
Constantine Tsoukalas, Professor of Sociology and Political Theory, School of Law, University of Athens
Wang Hui, Professor of Literature and History, Tsinghua University
Wang Shaoguang, Professor of Political Science, Chinese University of Hong Kong
