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Plenary speakers

Janina Wellmann (Gotha Research Centre, University of Erfurt)
Author of Biological Motion: A History of Life (2024) and The Form of Becoming: Embryology and the Epsiemology of Rhythm, 1760–1830 (2017)

Howard Caygill (CRMEP, Kingston University London)
Books include: (2020),  (2017) and (2013)

Conference abstract

This conference is concerned with mapping the concepts of "life" and "death" in contemporary philosophy and social theory with regard to the related problematics of extinction, reproduction, resistance and survival. There has been an increasing presence of each of these concepts in recent debates, whether through the growing significance of the history of the life sciences for histories of philosophy, the importance of reproduction, social death and ecology to contemporary critical theory, or their representation in contemporary activist and socially engaged art practices. 

Concepts of life and death appear to move freely between each of these domains, with little account of their respective relations. The object of this conference is therefore to examine the various instantiations of these concepts in practices of knowledge production, art, activism and politics, in order to map their more general, transdisciplinary philosophical articulation.

Programme

10:00–11:15am – 1st Keynote
Howard Caygill (CRMEP)
'The Vital and the Petrified: Geologies of Life and Death'

Break: 11:15–11:30

11:30–1:00pm – Panel 1: The Concept of Life in the History of Philosophy
Christopher Jones (CRMEP)
‘Lost in Translation? Life and logic: a case of mistaken identity in the evolving history of natural philosophy and the life sciences.’
Claudia Mongini (University of Paris-8)
‘Force = Life: From Leibniz’ machine of nature to Tarde’s biopolitics.’
Jonas Friedli (New School for Social Research, New York)
‘Life: A Grammatical Question?’

Lunch: 1:00pm–2:00pm

2:00–3:30m – Panel 2: The Politics of Death
Nikita McCauley (CRMEP alumna)
‘Becoming riot: modalities of life and death in Cameron Rowland’s Properties’
Sebastian Kokesch (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna)
‘“Le mort saisit le vif”: Sketches towards a social theory of mourning’
Pip Hudd (Kings College London)
‘Adriana Cavarero on life over death: Responding to psychoanalytic critique’

Break: 3:30–3.45pm

3.45–5:15pm – Panel 3 : Life/Death and the Forces of Reaction
Shaun Terry (University of California, Santa Cruz)
‘Abstract Materialism and the Dialectics of Life and Death: On Philosophical Criticisms of Fascist Vitalism’
Sophie Bäärnhielm Poussette (CRMEP alumna/Södertörn University)
‘Dead Language, Living Sovereignties: The Linguistic Theologies of and Against the Modern Nation-State’
Tøger Christiansen (CRMEP alumnus)
‘Death and Eternal Life: Risk, Ageing and Entropy in Post-Holocene Elite Culture’

Break: 5:15–5:30pm

5.30pm–6:45pm – 2nd Keynote
Janina Wellmann (Gotha Research Centre, University of Erfurt)
‘What is Life? Investigating Motion, the Most Profound Definition of Living Existence'

6.45 End