Conference

23rd–24th June 2010

The Hole in Time: German–Jewish Political Philosophy and the Archive

University of Westminster, Portland Hall, 4–16 Little Titchfield Street, London W1W 7UW

A Workshop Co-Organised by Sas Mays (University of Westminster), and Leena Petersen and Nitzan Leibovic (Sussex), as part of the research project ‘Archiving Cultures’ led by Sas Mays at the Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture at the University of Westminster.

Left discussions of politics and history owe much to German-Jewish theories of temporality that emerged in response to the political crises of twentieth-century Europe. Such theories problematized both the life of the individual and how the state perceived it. Given the rise of bureaucratisation, surveillance and control defining the modern state, and the concommitant rise in theoretical interest in ‘the archive’, the workshop ‘German-Jewish Political Philosophy and the Archive’ brings together interested parties to engage with German-Jewish conceptions of temporality, history, and crisis in terms of their archival dimensions, and to open discussion of German-French dialogue in critical philosophy in this context.

Speakers:

Howard Caygill (Goldsmiths): ‘Paul Celan’s Visual Archive’ / Matthew Charles (Middlesex): ‘The Snow Line of the Archive: Benjamin On the Trail of Old Letters’ / David Cunningham (Westminster): ‘Abstract Times: Benjamin, Kafka and the Modernism of Tradition’ / Rebecca Dolgoy (Montreal/ FU Berlin): ‘The Work of Art as Archive: Examining Adorno’s Zeitkern as Time Capsule’ / Andy Fisher (Goldsmiths): ‘‘Quiet Life’: History, Pathos & the Archive in Friedrich’s Kriege dem Krieg’ / Sami Khatib (FU Berlin): ‘The Messianic and the Archive: Walter Benjamin’s ‘Politics of Time’’ / Veronika Koever (Queen Mary): ‘Reversing the Irreversible: Jean Améry’s ‘ressentiments’ & the Moralisation of Time’ / Nicholas Lambrianou (Birkbeck): ‘Figures of Interruption: Philosophical Dramas of Temporality & History in Benjamin and Rosenzweig’ / Nitzan Lebovic (Tel Aviv/Sussex): ‘Paul Celan: Language of Loss at the Heart of Time’ / Manu Luksch (London): ‘Moonwalking in Real Time’ / Andrew McGettigan (Central Saint Martins) “Archive & Idea: Walter Benjamin’s Experiences of Time’ / Reut Paz (Humboldt University Berlin): ‘The Legal Transcendentalism of Hans Kelsen as a Hole in Time’ / Leena Petersen (Sussex): ‘Messianic Libertarianism and Linguistic Philosophies of History in Benjamin and Related Writings of His Time’ / Shela Sheikh (Goldsmiths): ‘The Wounded Archive: Derrida Reading Celan’ / Tommaso Speccher (FU Berlin): ‘The Hole in Space: Fragmenting and Re-piecing the Archive between Walter Benjamin and Daniel Libeskind’ / Elina Staikou (Goldsmiths): ‘Vigil of the Archive: On Derrida Dreaming Benjamin’

Chairs:

Christian Wiese (Sussex) / Esther Leslie (Birkbeck) / Leena Petersen (Sussex) / Keston Sutherland (Sussex) / Nitzan Lebovic (Tel Aviv/Sussex) / John Roberts (Wolverhampton).

Admission is free, but, since places are limited, please contact the organisers to book a place – at theholeintime@live.com – by the 17th of June.

Needless to say, this is exactly the sort of thing I'm interested in.