Door Team Braidotti

The Summer School course of Prof. Rosi Braidotti, titled ‘The Posthuman Glossary’, will take place on 22-26 August 2016. This intensive course by Prof. Rosi Braidotti, with guest teacher Dr. Rick Dolphijn and in cooperation with BAK (Institute for the Contemporary Arts in Utrecht), will explore contemporary posthuman theory, with special reference to the works of Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, feminist and postcolonial theories and Rosi Braidotti’s work. It will also place a special emphasis on the relation between arts, technology and theory. The course is now open to registrations via the Utrecht Summer School website.

Contemporary art, science, and the humanities converge on stressing the need for renewed analysis of the re-constructions of the category of the human. This course is based on the assumption that contemporary contextual concerns such as advanced scientific and technological developments, the neoliberal economics of global capitalism, migration, environmental destruction, perpetual war on terror and extensive security systems have challenged the concept of the human as we had previously known it. Together with Maria Hlavajova, Director of the contemporary arts centre BAK, a full day is devoted to explore the role of the contemporary arts in these debates.

The course interrogates the main concepts in present-day scholarly and artistic work. It is constructed around four focal points: Anthropocene, eco-sophies, digital activism and algorithmic cultures and security.

Course dates: 22-26 August 2016

Deadline for registration: 01 May 2016

Location: Utrecht City Campus, the Netherlands

Costs: 500 EUR (course + course materials)

Read more and apply online via the Utrecht Summer School website!

The intensive course “Human/Inhuman/Posthuman” offers an introduction to contemporary debates around posthumanism and the so-called ‘posthuman turn’, as well as Rosi Braidotti’s brand of critical posthuman theory. The course will explore the extent to which a posthuman approach displaces the traditional humanistic unity of the subject, as well as the binary human/non-human distinction on which such unity is postulated. Starting from the assumption that we find ourselves in a ‘posthuman predicament’, the course explores different aspects of posthuman subjectivity and culture, stressing the productive potential of the posthuman condition and advocating for the politics of affirmation.

This is an intensive course convened and taught by Prof. Rosi Braidotti and Maria Hlavajova, Director of the contemporary arts centre BAK, with some guest teachers. It consists of keynote lectures in the morning and three thematic tutorials for four afternoons (the class ends at noon on Friday). The theme of the course this year is: “Human/Inhuman/Posthuman.” The course is about contemporary posthuman theory, with special reference to the works of Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, to feminist and postcolonial theories and to Rosi Braidotti’s work, placing special emphasis on the relation between arts, technology and theory.

Cultural diversity, global migration, digital ‘second life’, genetically modified food, advanced prosthetics, robotics and reproductive technologies are familiar facets of our global and technologically mediated societies. How do they affect the self-understanding, the cultural representations and the social and political participations of contemporary subjects? How does a neo-Spinozist approach based on vitalist materialism illuminate these issues? The emphasis on nomadic theory aims to outline a project of sustainable modern subjectivity and to offer an original and powerful alternative for scholars working in cultural and social criticism.

If art and the humanities share one thing, it is the human at the centre of their respective realms, or rather, their mutual investment in how people process, document, and analyse their human experiences. Under the pressure of new contemporary realities, however—global neoliberal capitalism, migration, technological developments, depleted nature and devastated environment and the ‘anthropocene’, to name but a few markers of our time—the concept of the human as we had previously known it has undergone dramatic transformations. Not only have some been dehumanized to the level of becoming “inhuman,” but even the phenomena we thought to have controlled (such as nature), or thought to have invented and control (the capitalist market, technologies, among others), have become increasingly dominant in our lives in the current posthuman age.

Following Foucault’s method, the course provides discursive and material cartographies of the impact of these developments on the construction of critical but also affirmative posthuman subjects today. The course assesses the extent to which intense technological mediation and global networks have blurred the traditional divide between the human and non-human other, thus exposing the nature-culture continuum as the constitutive structure of the human subject. It also attempts to assess the escalating effects of the posthuman condition, which encompass new relationships to animals and other species and ultimately raises the question of the sustainability of our planet as a whole. After delving into the inhumane and structurally unjust aspects of our culture by looking at new wars and contemporary conflicts, the course concludes by outlining new forms of cosmopolitan nomadic citizenship and new art practices that explore this complexity. Rather than perceiving the posthuman situation as crisis that entails the loss of cognitive and moral self-mastery, this course argues that it helps us make sense of our flexible but ethically accountable nomadic identities.

Arranged thematically, the sessions of the course explore the different aspects of critical theory debates about contemporary subjectivity and the posthuman condition: the feminist anti-humanism, post-anthropocentric thought, the intersection with postcolonial theories, the impact of modern technological developments on the social and political structures and on contemporary warfare, as well as the implications of these shifts for the institutional practice of the humanities.

Course dates: 24 August – 28 August 2015

Location: Utrecht City Campus, the Netherlands

Deadline for registration: 1 May, 2015

Costs: 500 EUR (course + course materials)

For more information see the Utrecht Summer School website, and apply online here!

Symposium and exhibition on Rosi Braidotti’s work. Co-organized by Atria and the Centre for the Humanities of Utrecht University,

DATE: 6 November 2014

TIME: 17:00 – 19:00 h with an opening of an exhibition afterwards

LOCATION: Atria, institute on gender equality and women’s history, Vijzelstraat 20, 1017 HK Amsterdam

REGISTRATION by email: cfh@uu.nl

The term ‘feminist movement’ expresses the fact that it is in the nature of feminism to move. Feminism does not capture a singular position and the status quo to which feminists find themselves compelled to respond, is ever changing. With these changes, feminism itself also evolves. On a more empirical note: feminists themselves move. They, or rather: we, have to adapt to changing social and historical conditions and to new technological advances that profoundly alter our teaching and research practices, as well as our activism. We change our minds about feminist politics; we move in and out of institutions and we experience different gender regimes whilst growing older.

This symposium seeks to address feminist movements not only from this particular angle, but also to celebrate a recent move made by one feminist in particular, Rosi Braidotti. Having just turned 60, Braidotti is in the process of moving her archive to Atria in order to ensure that it is both well preserved for and, crucially, available to future generations of feminists. Whereas this may sound like a logical thing for a dedicated feminist to do, ‘archiving’ has many differing aspects and faces that this symposium will explore.

We ask: ‘How does the practice of archiving actively bridge feminist activism and gender research?’ Additionally, ‘What is the value of archiving of feminist activists’ life and work for the purpose of knowledge production and trans-generational transmission of memory? How do new media affect the practice of (feminist) archiving?’ Moderated by Maayke Botman, attendants of this symposium will be introduced to some of the prominent contemporary narratives that exist within (feminist) archiving, what is at stake in them and to a range of positions from a feminist “bomb the archive” stance to an equally feminist “treasure the archive” position.

After the symposium we will raise a celebratory glass to Braidotti’s 60th and enjoy an exhibition that has been created in order to showcase a selection of the items Atria has recently acquired for preservation.

Speakers: Berteke Waaldijk, Whitney Stark, Annette Mevis, Rosi Braidotti and Alies Pegtel

Moderator: Maayke Botman

Organizing committee: Sophie Chapple, Goda Klumbyte, Gé Meulmeester, Annette Mevis, Iris van der Tuin

To celebrate the publication of the book “The Subject of Rosi Braidotti”, edited by Bolette Blaagaard and Iris van der Tuin, there will be a book launch organised in London on 17 October 2014. Apart from the pubisher, editors and Prof. Braidotti herself, there will be guest speakers present: Christina Slade (Bath Spa University, UK), Chrysanthi Nigianni (University of London, UK) and Gregg Lambert (Syracuse University, USA).

The launch will take place in the premises of Bloomsbury Publishing, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B3DP at 18:00h. Guests are required to register by sending an email to BraidottiAssistant.gw@uu.nl by Monday, 13 October.

The Subject of Rosi Braidotti: Politics and Concepts brings into focus the diverse influence of the work of Rosi Braidotti on academic fields in the humanities and the social sciences such as the study and scholarship in – among others – feminist theory, political theory, continental philosophy, philosophy of science and technology, cultural studies, ethnicity and race studies.

Inspired by Braidotti’s philosophy of nomadic relations of embodied thought, the volume is a mapping exercise of productive engagements and instructive interactions by a variety of international, outstanding and world-renowned scholars with texts and concepts developed by Braidotti throughout her immense body of work. – See more at Bloomsbury website.

Download the flyer of the book here.