SECT VIII

SEMINAR IN EXPERIMENTAL CRITICAL THEORY VIII

SPACES OF RESISTANCE

American University of Beirut

July 29-August 8, 2012

Spaces of Resistance, the 8th Seminar in Experimental Critical Theory, will investigate various strategies of non-violent popular resistance and how they unfold spatially using multidisciplinary frames of reference and methods of reading/analysis. We will explore the spatialities and speeds of resistance to dominant and exclusionary power structures, how spaces are shaped by and produced through various forms and temporalities of resistance, and how they can enable or impede resistance. Emphasis will be placed on the revolutions currently sweeping the Arab world. The seminar will also engage the various ways in which established powers attempt to foreclose the possibilities of space through forms of abstraction, development plans, and the creation of closed commemorative spaces.  We aim to explore space(s) as “contested” materially and imaginatively, and to locate resistance within the attempts of power to determine and control space.

Focal themes will include:

Convened in collaboration with the American University of Beirut, SECT VIII will be of interest to those concerned with the interface of Middle Eastern studies, history, politics, urban planning, architecture and design, postcolonial studies, cultural studies, anthropology, sociology, visual studies and more. And it will appeal to those drawn to theoretical modesty, tinkering and improvisation, appropriation and recombinatorial experimentation, to relationalities and rearticulations.

The Seminar in Experimental Critical Theory (SECT) is an intensive ten-day summer program offered by the University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI). Organized around a different theme each year, SECT convenes an international multidisciplinary slate of distinguished instructors with a group of 40-60 faculty, graduate students, independent scholars, and public intellectuals from both the US and the international community. Neither an introductory survey nor an advanced research seminar, SECT functions as a “laboratory” where participants at all levels of experience can study with scholars at the leading edge of creative theoretical thought. The hallmark of SECT is its attention to both “pure” and “applied” modes of contemporary critical theory, building on the Poor Theory Manifesto developed out of UC Irvine’s Critical Theory Institute that sees the past, present, and future as mutually constitutive and “heterotemporal”, attending to the “unsystematic” and undisciplined “practices of the everyday.”

Seminar Co-conveners:

Saree Makdisi, English, UCLA
Howayda al-Harithy, Architecture and Design, American University of Beirut
Mona Fawaz, Urban Studies and Planning, American University of Beirut
David Theo Goldberg, Director, UC Humanities Research Institute

Application Deadlines:

For fullest consideration please apply by Tuesday, February 21, 2012. Applications will be accepted through 5:00 pm on Monday, March 5, but seminar space is limited and applications will be considered in the order in which they are received.

Praise for Past Seminars:

“Without a doubt one of the most enriching intellectual experiences of my life.  Period.”

 “I am still astounded by the opportunities SECT opened up to all of us. I had the opportunity to survey the state of the field… and understand how my own work fits into the important innovations happening at the interface and intersection of the humanities and digital development. I had the opportunity to learn from some of the most innovative and well-known thinkers and makers in my field and also to network with them.”

“The intensity of thought, the diversity of approaches, and the opportunity to see how leaders in the field talk out their ideas made it a priceless experience. It showed me very clearly the stakes of the field.”