CTP Events 2024-25

1. GUEST SPEAKERS LECTURE SERIES


Luisa Lorenza Corna (UWE Bristol) (March 5th 5:15-7pm -- venue Henry Daysh Building room 9.03)

Title: Reproductive Rights and Their Discontents: Debating Italy's 1970s Abortion Law and its Aftermath through Lonzi and Pasolini 

In 1978, the feminist thinker Carla Lonzi wrote a controversial text in response to the legalization of abortion in Italy. Unlike institutional feminism and many grassroots collectives, she saw the passing of the law not as a feminist victory but as yet another concession to patriarchy. A parallel critique came from writer and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini, though his objections stemmed from different political premises. Lonzi attempted to engage Pasolini in dialogue, but her letter remained unanswered.

This paper will first undertake a comparative reading of Lonzi and Pasolini’s critiques of the abortion law in the 1970s, situating them within the broader socio-political context of the time. The second part will shift to the present, examining how the specific formulation of the law has left room for contemporary conservative forces to erode reproductive rights in Italy. Finally, the third section will explore the paradoxical ways in which abortion laws have been more recently instrumentalized to restrict access to assisted reproductive technologies.

For more information, contact Dr Lorenzo Chiesa, email: lorenzo.chiesa@newcastle.ac.uk

Robert Piercey (University of Regina, Canada) (February 27th 5.15-7pm -- venue Henry Daysh Building room 9.03)

Title: Criticizing Tradition with Jaeggi and Ricoeur

Paul Ricoeur argues that being situated in a tradition is a necessary condition of engaging in inquiries such as science and philosophy. Any view of this sort needs to explain what it means for a tradition to fail and to stand in need of critique or replacement. This paper asks whether Rahel Jaeggi’s influential account of the critique of forms of life contains the resources needed for Ricoeur to do so. I argue that Jaeggi’s account makes a significant advance on Ricoeur’s, since Jaeggi’s interpretation of forms of life as problem-solving entities teaches an important lesson about the normativity of traditions, a lesson to which Ricoeur is insufficiently attentive. At the same time, Jaeggi’s account is undermined by its failure to take seriously enough the potential for traditions to speak past one another. On this matter, Jaeggi has something important to learn from Ricoeur.

For more information, contact Dr Ida Djursaa, email: ida.djursaa@newcastle.ac.uk.


Tadej Troha (Institute of Philosophy, ZRC SAZU, Ljubljana) (November 7, 5:15-7pm -- venue Henry Days Building, 9th floor, Agora)

Title: What, In Fact, Is Metapsychology?

Some questions resist being posed directly. Or rather, they are questions we can only confront head-on in retrospect—after we have, through detours and various more or less contrived approaches, crafted an answer that stands relatively independent of the original question. One such question is that of metapsychology, Freud’s metapsychology.

The concept itself is relatively seldom invoked, remaining undefined and elusive, yet it carries a certain grandeur, both in Freud’s work and in later psychoanalytic literature. Consequently, its content and scope fluctuate between almost everything and almost nothing. Where, then, should we even look for it? How can we delineate the field in which it is to be sought? What function does it serve within Freud’s oeuvre? How does it situate itself in relation to psychoanalytic theory and practice? And ultimately, does metapsychology hold the answer to what it fundamentally is?

For more information, contact Dr Lorenzo Chiesa, email: lorenzo.chiesa@newcastle.ac.uk


Stella Sandford (Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University) (October 31, 5:15-7pm -- venue Henry Daysh Building, 9th floor, Agora)

Title: Plant Agency: What is at Stake?

Recent work in the plant sciences, particularly in plant physiology and behaviour, is giving rise to a new picture of vegetal life. Some believe that this constitutes a new paradigm in and for the plant sciences. The results of experimental work are being interpreted by some scientists and others as evidence that plants enjoy properties and capacities previously thought to be exclusive to animals or even to humans. These include agency, intelligence, cognition, intention, decision-making, self-identification, kin recognition, sociality and altruism. While there is no scientific consensus on the interpretation of this research, the claims of the advocates of the new paradigm are often received quite uncritically in various disciplinary areas of the humanities and social sciences and often communicated to lay publics as if the claims represented established and uncontested scientific views.

This lecture will focus on the idea of plant agency. It will examine the claims about agency in the plant sciences in relation to discussions of agents and agency in philosophy of action, philosophy of biology, Actor Network Theory and indications from what the anthropological literature calls ‘indigenous ontologies’. I will suggest that while there are compelling ways of thinking of plants as agents it is not clear what is gained by doing so. In addition, lack of engagement in the scientific literature with the theoretical discourses on the concepts of ‘agent’ or ‘agency’ mean that they are in danger of presuming what Markus Schlosser calls the ‘standard conception’ of agency – which, I will argue, is in fact the least appropriate for thinking plants as agents. As it is this conception that finds its way so easily into popular science and which therefore dominates in the public perceptions of the issues, there are good reasons to criticise it.

For more information, contact Dr Ida Djursaa, email: ida.djursaa@ncl.ac.uk

 

Tadej Troha (Institute of Philosophy, ZRC SAZU, Ljubljana) (October 17, 5:15-7pm -- venue Henry Days Building, 9th floor, Agora)

Title: Understanding the "Case" in Freud's Five Case Studies

Case studies have been an integral part of psychoanalysis from the outset. In its early period in particular, they constituted an indispensable and dominant portion of psychoanalysis's literary output. Through this method, the nascent approach to mental treatment established a sufficient material foundation for the development of its principles and concepts, while also demonstrating its ambition—not merely as a method of treatment but as a path toward a definitive cure.

While a multitude of dreams, slips of the tongue, or symptoms provided material for illustrating theory or conceptualising practice, it was the comprehensive case studies alone that established psychoanalysis, in the eyes of both its internal and external audiences, as a purposeful endeavour—a process with both a beginning and an end.

However, as psychoanalysis evolved and it became clear that it could only claim that finitude by reconfiguring the very concept of an ending, interest in comprehensive case studies gradually waned. And here, yet again, it was Freud who progressively transformed this spontaneous loss of momentum into a programmatic gesture.

With each of the five great case studies—from Dora to Little Hans, the Rat Man, Schreber, and finally the Wolf Man—it became increasingly evident that the case study, as a textual form providing essential insights into the core of psychoanalysis, had entered a finite and definitive sequence. Even though Freud would later publish additional fragments or extended accounts of particular clinical cases, after the Wolf Man, those efforts failed to impact the universal dimension of the Freudian project.

What is the specific contribution of each of these cases? What are the underlying elements that establish continuity among them? And, ultimately, what, for Freud, constitutes a case study?

For more information contact Dr Lorenzo Chiesa, email: lorenzo.chiesa@newcastle.ac.uk

 

Michael Marder (University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain) (November 6th, 3-5pm -- venue Henry Daysh Building, 9th floor, Agora) 

Title: Seeds for Thought, or Several Tips on How to Follow Plants

What does it mean “to follow plants”? How to re-learn the work and the play of thinking from them? I propose shifting the focus and perspectives of our thought and attention from the extremes to the middle, whence the extremes emerge and develop in their tireless interplay. Rather than commence with the earth and the sky—that is, with the elemental and metaphysical terrestrial and celestial grounds of vegetal life arranged in definite hierarchical formations—starting in the middle that is the seed is following the seed’s own trajectories, whether of germination or non-germination. My wager is that it will be possible to glean surprising implications from such an exercise for the practice of human thinking, which would be of a piece with and conducive to life.

For more information, contact Dr Adam Potts, email: adam.potts2@newcastle.ac.uk

 

2. CONFERENCES

The Unconscious in the Wake of Frantz Fanon and Édouard Glissant
Hybrid Colloquium
Newcastle University, 6 November 2024
The Unconscious in the Wake of Frantz Fanon and Édouard Glissant is a one-day hybrid colloquium, supported by the Leverhulme Trust, inviting scholars from across the humanities to reflect on the points of relation and divergence between Fanon and Glissant’s thought on the unconscious. Grounding our discussion in recent developments in Black studies, decolonial philosophy, and critical psychoanalytic theory, we aim to create a locus for considering the ongoing relevance of Glissant and Fanon’s ideas on social psychology for counter-mapping and refusing the remainders of coloniality that continue to undergird the present world.
Confirmed speakers include:
The event will be held in a hybrid format, both online and in-person at Newcastle University, on 6 November 2024. Registration is free but mandatory, and interested attendees can now register on this online Registration Form. For those attending online, an email with Zoom links will be sent closer to the date.
Further information about the colloquium, including a more extensive event description and in-person venue details, can be found on The Unconscious in the Wake of Frantz Fanon and Édouard Glissant website.
Please feel free to contact David.Ventura@ncl.ac.uk for any questions about the colloquium.
We hope to see some of you there!




Kafka Encapsulated
Form, Matter, and Method
A Colloquium in Commemoration of the Centenary of Franz Kafka’s Death
13 November 2024
10:45 AM - 6:00 PM
Newcastle University, Henry Daysh Building, 1.10


 
Researchers and students are invited to this in-person, one-day colloquium to commemorate the centenary of Franz Kafka's death at Newcastle University. This colloquium is co-organised by Tadej Troha, the Head of the Institute of Philosophy at ZRC SAZU, and Holden Rasmussen, a doctoral candidate at Newcastle University, Department of Philosophy. The co-organisation of this event has been conducted as part of the official collaboration between ZRC SAZU and Newcastle University.
When we think of Kafka, a series of associations almost automatically comes to mind. Without any effort, a chiaroscuro portrait with strikingly sharp features and an equally sharp yet hollow gaze is drawn before our eyes, immediately followed by a vague reminiscence of a singular atmosphere driven by relentless bureaucratic power issuing demands on the individual without ever disclosing the reason or goal. Optional are the images: a giant insect believing it can continue life as a traveling salesman; a peculiar apparatus inscribing the punishment's text onto the condemned man's body; an ape giving a speech before the academy; or, simply rooms leading to other rooms leading to other rooms until one room turns into a courtroom. Eventually, these images give way to names like Gregor Samsa, Karl Rossmann, Josef K., and K., progressively bringing us back to the starting point and inducing a tautology: the ultimate association to Kafka is...: Kafka. 
  
In Kafka's case, tautology seems strangely appropriate. Kafka is not an author who stands at a distance from his writing, viewing it as a medium for narrative reflection. Instead, he is so intensely dissolved in his work that he becomes indistinguishable from the very objects he produces. For this reason, he cannot be captured by a problem or set of problems that he addresses. Kafka is not an author who simply describes, analyses, or diagnoses the reality of ‘Kafkaesque’ power structures and subjectivity that would exist before his intervention. Rather, it is in his writing that this reality, in the strictest sense, becomes Kafkaesque. Indeed, the universal aspect of his writing is unmistakable; the very points at which the reader identifies with his universe are the conditions for the generalised use of his name as an adjective in the first place. Yet, the experiences we feel and label as Kafkaesque are only mere approximations of Kafka's universe. 
  
If we want to enter Kafka's universe and articulate its core—if we want, in other words, to encapsulate Kafka—the most effective way might not be the shortcut of a theme-based approach or the detours of biography, but close reading which traces and joins Kafka in his own process of creation. There are countless direct entries into his universe, from novels, short stories, and aphorisms to diaries and letters. And, as Deleuze and Guattari have already pointed out, with Kafka, it is possible to start at ‘any point whatsoever; none matters more than the other, and no entrance is more privileged even if it seems an impasse, a tight passage, a siphon’.



Presentations
Dr. Arthur Bradley, Kafka's Fault
Dr. Lorenzo Chiesa, Labour’s Surplus-Enjoyment in The Castle
Dr. Kirstin Gwyer, 'I Was a Bridge': Reverse-Engineering Kafka
Dr. Daniel Katz, 'Do You Feel the Same?': Kafka on Community and Artist
Jacob Parkin, Sickness as Method: Disability and Aestheticism in 'A Hunger Artist'
Holden M. Rasmussen, 'Everything Pleased Me, Everything Was My Concern': Desire and the Pleasure of Philosophy in 'Investigations of a Dog'
Dr. Tadej Troha, 'One Cook in Particular': Kafka and the Dispersed Other