Department of English
University of Virginia
Prof. David Golumbia
449 New Cabell
email: dgolumbia at virginia dot edu
Theory Reading Group
The English Department Theory Reading Group meets approximately once each month during the Fall and Spring academic terms, usually 6-7 times total during the academic year. Theory Reading Group discussions are open to any Arts and Sciences and other UVa faculty and graduate students, and provide the opportunity to discuss recent cultural studies and literary theory texts with other interested members of the University. New participants are always welcome; no reservations are required or expected.
Theory Group meets from 7:30 to 9:00pm, usually on Thursdays, in the Bryan Hall Faculty lounge. The Theory Reading Group also occasionally plays host to visiting and UVa faculty in discussions of their recent work. Notice of upcoming Theory Reading Group meetings is distributed through the engl-theorygroup mailing list (any member of the UVa community can subscribe to this list) and through the English graduate student mailing list.
In the Fall 2009-Spring 2010 academic year, the Theory Reading Group will meet on Thursdays from 7:30-9:00pm, in 233 Bryan Hall (next to the Faculty Lounge). Specific dates will be listed in the schedule below.
PDFs linked below and on our UVa Collab resources page are available only to members of the mailing list.
2009-10 Academic Year (coordinator: David Golumbia)
- Next Meeting
Thurs, Apr 29, 7:30-9pm, nomadic location on 2nd Floor Bryan Hall
Jacques Derrida, First Session and Fifth Session from The Beast and the Sovereign (Seminars Vol. I) (Chicago, 2009); also optional Fourth Session.
- Thurs, Mar 25: Chapter 1 of Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler, Capital as Power: A Study of Order and Creorder (Routledge, 2009) and Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan, "Dominant Capital and the New Wars." Journal of World-Systems Research X:2 (Summer 2004), 255-327. (postponed)
- Readings on Object-Oriented Philosophy and Speculative Realism: Quentin Meillassoux, "Time Without Being" (talk given at Middlesex University, May 8 2008); Graham Harman, "Intentional Objects for Non-Humans" (ms., 2008)
and "Vicarious Causation" Collapse II (2007); François Laruelle, "Identity and Event," Pli 9 (2000) and Jacques Derrida and Laruelle, "Controversy over the Possibility of a Science of Philosophy," La Decision Philosophique 5 (April 1988)
- Martin Hägglund, from Radical Atheism: Derrida and the Time of Life (Stanford, 2008): "Introduction" and Chapter 5: "Autoimmunity of Democracy: Derrida and Laclau"; supplemental readings: Chapter 3: " Arche-Violence: Derrida and Levinas"; Henry Staten, "Writing: Empirical, Transcendental, Ultratranscendental," from CR: The New Centennial Review Special Issue on Radical Atheism, 9:1 (2009)
- Michel Foucault, Chapter 1 (Jan 10, 1979 lecture) and Chapter 9 (March 14, 1979 lecture) from The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978-79 (Palgrave, 2008)
- David Golumbia, Chapter 1, "The Cultural Functions of Computation," and Chapter 7, "Computationalism, Striation, and Cultural Authority," from The Cultural Logic of Computation (Harvard University Press, 2009)
2008-09 Academic Year (coordinator: David Golumbia)
- Sianne Ngai, "Introduction" and "Afterward: Disgust," from Ugly Feelings (Harvard University Press, 2005) (Thurs Apr 30)
- Peter Stallybrass (Rushton Seminar): a discussion with the author of "Reading and Authorship: The Circulation of Shakespeare 1590-1619" (with Roger Chartier), in Andrew Murphy, ed., A Concise Companion to Shakespeare and the Text (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007); "The Materiality of the Shakespearean Text" (with Margreta de Grazia), Shakespeare Quarterly 44:3 (Autumn 1993); "Shakespeare's Desk: The Materiality of Authorship" (ms.) (Fri Feb 27)
- Eleanor Kaufman (Rushton Seminar): a discussion with the author of the "Preface" and introduction, "Badiou and the Thought of the Twentieth Century: Perse, Pessoa, Mallarmé, and the Count," to the forthcoming At Odds With Badiou: Politics, Dialectics, and Religion from Sartre and Deleuze to Lacan and Agamben (Columbia University Press) (Fri Nov 21)
- Akira Mizuta Lippit, "An Atomic Trace," Chapter 4 of Atomic Light (Shadow Optics) (University of Minnesota, 2005) (Thurs Oct 9)
- Jacques Derrida, "As If It Were Possible, 'Within Such Limits'...," from Negotiations: Interventions and Interviews, 1971-2001 (Stanford, 2002) (Thurs Sep 11)
2007-08 Academic Year (coordinator: David Golumbia)
- Essays from David L. Eng, Judith Halberstam, and José Esteban Muñoz, eds., What's Queer About Queer Studies Now?, Social Text 23 (3-4, 84-85) Fall-Winter 2005: Elizabeth Freeman, "Time Binds, or, Erotohistoriography"; Roderick A. Ferguson, "Of Our Normative Strivings: African-American Studies and the Histories of Sexuality"; Gayatri Gopinath, "Bollywood Spectacles: Queer Diasporic Critique in the Aftermath of 9/11" (Thurs Sep 6)
- Readings on "Thing Theory": Bill Brown, "Thing Theory"; Peter Stallybrass and Ann Rosalind Jones, "Fetishizing the Glove in Renaissance Europe" (both from Critical Inquiry 28:1, Things, Autumn 2001); Brown, "Object Relations in an Expanded Field" (differences 17:3, 2006), "Reification, Reanimation, and the American Uncanny" (Critical Inquiry 32, Winter 2006) (Thurs Oct 4)
- Chapter 2, "Restructuring," and Chapter 5, "Arts of Living," of Eric Paras, Foucault 2.0: Beyond Power and Knowledge (Thurs Nov 8)
- Slavoj Žižek, "Knee-Deep" and "Resistance Is Surrender: What to Do about Capitalism" and Tom Nairn, "Make for the Boondocks," in part on Hardt & Negri's Empire and Multitude, from the London Review of Books (Thurs Dec 13)
- Louis Althusser, "Philosophy and Marxism" (also see "Translator's Introduction"), from Philosophy of the Encounter: Later Writings, 1978-87 (Verso 2006) (Thurs Mar 20)
- Saskia Sassen,
Chapter One, "Introduction" and Chapter Eight, "Assembling Mixed Spatial and Temporal Orders: Elements for a Theoretization," from Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages (Princeton, 2006). (Thurs Apr 24)
- Eleanor Kaufman, recent essays on Badiou: "Why the Family Is Beautiful (Lacan Against Badiou)," diacritics 32:3-4 (Fall-Winter 2002), 135-51; "The Desire Called Mao: Badiou and the Legacy of Libidinal Economy," Postmodern Culture 18:1 (forthcoming 2008). (Thurs May 15)
2006-07 Academic Year (coordinator: David Golumbia)
- Michel Foucault, Chapter 10 (March 12, 1975 lecture), and Chapter 11 (Mar 19, 1975 lecture), from Abnormal: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1974-75. (Thurs Sep 7)
- Essays from Wai-Chee Dimock, ed., "Scales of Aggregation" issue of American Literary History (Summer 2006): Walter Benn Michaels, "Plots Against America: Neoliberalism and Antiracism"; Walter Mignolo, "Citizenship, Knowledge, and the Limits of Humanity"; Emily Apter, "On Oneworldness: Or Paranoia as a World System." (Thurs Oct 5)
- Bruce Holsinger, "Empire, Apocalypse, and the 9/11 Premodern" (discussion with author, Weds Nov 7)
- Jacques Lacan, Seminar 4 (Jan 6, 1965) and Seminar 5 (January 13, 1965) from Seminar XII: Crucial Problems for Psychoanalysis (1964-65) (unpublished material) (Thurs Dec 7)
- Gillian Rose, Chapter 1, "Athens and Jerusalem: A Tale of Three Cities," and Chapter 2, "Beginnings of the Day: Fascism and Representation," from Mourning Becomes the Law: Philosophy and Representation (Thurs Feb 8)
- Sara Ahmed, Introduction and Conclusion from Queer Phenomenology: Objects, Orientations, Others (Thurs Mar 22)
- Fred Moten, Chapter 3, "Visible Music" (part 1; part 2) from In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition (Thurs May 10)
2005-06 Academic Year (coordinator: David Golumbia)
2004-05 Academic Year (coordinator: David Golumbia)
- Judith Butler, selections from Undoing Gender (Sep 28)
- Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, selections from Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (Nov 9)
- Ranjana Khanna, selections from Dark Continents: Psychoanalysis and Colonialism (Dec 9)
- Achille Mbembe, "Necropolitics," and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "Righting Wrongs" (Jan 27)
- Bruce Fink, selections from Lacan to the Letter: Reading Écrits Closely (Mar 24)
- Derek Attridge, selections from The Singularity of Literature (discussion with author, Apr 12)
- Jahan Ramazani, "Edward Said and the Poetry of Decolonization," and Jennifer Wicke, "Edward Said and the Poetics of Agency" (discussion with authors, Apr 28)
2003-04 Academic Year (coordinator: Eleanor Kaufman)
Spring 2003 Semester (coordinator: Eleanor Kaufman)
- Tim Dean, “Lacan Meets Queer Theory”
- Jacques Derrida, "A Silkworm of One's Own"
- Jonathan Dollimore, selections from Death, Desire, and Loss in Western Culture
- Jerome McGann, “Texts in N Dimensions” (discussion with author)
- Michael Warner, selections from The Trouble With Normal
2001-02 Academic Year (coordinator: Eleanor Kaufman)
- Srinivas Aravamudan, “The Return of Anachronism" and selections from Tropicopolitans
- Walter Benjamin, “Critique of Violence”
- Peter Brooks, “The Law as Narrative and Rhetoric”
- Judith Butler, selections from Antigone’s Claim
- Jacques Derrida, “Force of Law: 'The Mystical Foundation of Authority'”
- Frantz Fanon, “Concerning Violence”
- Fredric Jameson, “Class and Allegory in Dog Day Afternoon” and “The Antinomies of Postmodernity”
- Ranjana Khanna, “Ethical Ambiguities and Specters of Colonialism: Futures of Transnational Feminism”
- London Review of Books: “11 September, Some LRB Writers Reflect”
- Michael Rotthberg, selections from Traumatic Realism and "Holocaust Memory and the Color line”
- Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, selections from A Critique of Postcolonial Reason
2000-01 Academic Year (coordinator: Eleanor Kaufman)
- Giorgio Agamben, “Form of Law” and “Means without Ends”
- Judith Butler, selections from The Psychic Life of Power
- Cathy Caruth, selections from Unclaimed Experience
- Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, selections from Empire
- Rosemary Hennesy, “Queer Theory Left Politics”
- Jean Laplance, “Fantasy”
- Maurizio Lazzarato, “Immaterial Labor”
- Paolo Virno, “Virtuosity and the Revolution”
- Slavoj Žižek, selections from The Plague of Fantasies
Last updated April 24, 2010.