2013-14 CSRG Theme: Making Worlds

Photo: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/
cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=
2005ApJ...622..759G

This year, the CSRG will be pursuing readings that relate to the theme of "Making Worlds."

A rich stream of Marxian theory exposes what Zizek, following Badiou calls the “worldless” nature of capitalism as a global system. Not only does capital dissolve all pre-existing social conglomerates (Jameson), it must borrow from existing value structures to supply the narratives that “humanize” it as a mode of production (Boltanski and Chiapello), even while the constant imperative to growth ultimately undermines the particular “host” cultures to which it grafts (Zizek). In the grips of such a force, how do subjects struggle to articulate livable, human (or maybe post-human!) worlds? How do a multiplicity of worlds produce and respond to a field of uneven, global power relations? How do post-colonialism, globalism, and transnationalism factor? What is the role of virtuality, speculation, utopia and dystopia in the production and reproduction of worlds? How do we represent our relation to a natural world that appears increasingly precarious, and to a future that seems progressively uncertain? How do play and game theory, media, television and film figure into the construction of worlds?

The CSRG will be pursuing articles or chapter readings that relate to these topics. If you would like to come to one or more meetings (people tend to come and go as one's schedule allows), or if you can suggest a reading that would fit well with the above theme please drop us a line.