Event overview
CPCT鈥檚 annual research seminar meets on a bi-weekly basis and is open to the public.
The Centre for Philosophy and Critical Thought's annual research seminar meets on a bi-weekly basis and is open to centre members, graduate affiliates, and other interested staff and students at 牛牛资源 and beyond. It aims to serve as a forum for philosophical work and dialogue at 牛牛资源.
2021 is the 100th anniversary of the publication of two texts that were seminal for the development of the modern critique of the state: Walter Benjamin鈥檚 鈥淭oward the Critique of Violence鈥� and Sigmund Freud鈥檚聽Mass Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. The years around 1921 were not only the immediate aftermath of a number of revolutionary events in the environs of 鈥淓urope鈥� (Russia, Germany), however; they were also coincident with the abolition of the world鈥檚 last widely recognized caliphate, the reshaping of the Arab Middle East, and the creation of the first Islamic mass movement of the twentieth-century: the Muslim Brotherhood. Taking this triple anniversary as its point of departure, this seminar will investigate what it means to 鈥渃ritique violence鈥� and what being a 鈥渟tate鈥� stands for during the long decade around and in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, both for contemporaries of the time and for us today who are the heirs to some of the most influential writings in political and legal thought resulting from this period. Alternating between close systematic readings of the texts in question and a genealogical approach to their historical and intertextual contexts, the seminar will seek to return the conceptual and practical stakes of a critique of violence to their full complexity, reconsidering them as articulations of implicit and explicit debates on anti-imperialism, nationalisms old and new, the value of constitutionalism, and the ambiguous role of religion in the modern world.
Convened by聽Andrea Mura a.mura@gold.ac.uk and聽Julia Ng j.ng@gold.ac.uk.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 14 Oct 2020 |
4:00pm - 6:00pm Gustave Le Bon,聽The Crowd: A 牛牛资源 of the Popular Mind聽(1895; Dover, 2002) |
|
| 28 Oct 2020 |
4:00pm - 6:00pm Wilfred Trotter,聽Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War聽(1916) [selections]; and聽William McDougall,聽The Group Mind: A Sketch of the Principles of Collective Psychology with Some Attempt to Apply Them to the Interpretation of National Life and Ch |
|
| 11 Nov 2020 |
4:00pm - 6:00pm Sigmund Freud,聽Mass Psychology and Other Writings, trans. J. A. Underwood (London: Penguin, 2004); and 鈥淭houghts for the Times on War and Death,鈥� trans. E. C. Mayne, in聽The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works, ed. James Strachey |
|
| 25 Nov 2020 |
4:00pm - 6:00pm Hans Kelsen, 鈥淭he Conception of the State and Social Psychology鈥擶ith Special Reference to Freud鈥檚 Group Theory [1922],鈥澛營nternational Journal of Psycho-Analysis聽5 (1924), 1-38; and聽Der soziologische und der juristische Staatsbegriff聽(T眉bingen: M |
|
| 9 Dec 2020 |
4:00pm - 6:00pm Wilhelm Reich,聽The Mass Psychology of Fascism聽(1933) |
|
| 27 Jan 2021 |
4:00pm - 6:00pm V.I. Lenin,聽The State and Revolution聽(1917); and 鈥淎 Contribution to the History of the Question of the Dictatorship鈥� (1920) |
|
| 10 Feb 2021 |
4:00pm - 6:00pm Karl Kautsky,聽Terrorism and Communism聽(1918) |
|
| 24 Feb 2021 |
4:00pm - 6:00pm Carl Schmitt,聽Dictatorship聽(1921) |
|
| 10 Mar 2021 |
4:00pm - 6:00pm Adolf Reinach,聽The Apriori Foundations of the Civil Law聽(1913); and聽Edmund Husserl, 鈥淎dolf Reinach,鈥澛燢ant-Studien聽13 (1919), 147-149. |
|
| 24 Mar 2021 |
4:00pm - 6:00pm Walter Benjamin, 鈥淭oward the Critique of Violence鈥� (1921);聽One Way Street聽(1928) |
|
| 21 Apr 2021 |
4:00pm - 6:00pm Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, 鈥業mperialism, Science and Religion: Two Essays by Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, 1883 and 1884鈥�; Adams, Charles C.,聽Islam and Modernism in Egypt聽(1933; Routledge 1999), ch. 1; Kohn, Margaret, 鈥楢fgh?n? on Empire, Islam, and Civ |
|
| 5 May 2021 |
4:00pm - 6:00pm Ali Abdel Razek,聽Islam and the Foundations of Political Power聽(1925; Edinburgh University Press, 2013); and Kerr, Malcolm H.,聽Islamic Reform: The Political and Legal Theories of Muhammad 鈥楢bduh and聽Rashid Rida聽(Berkeley: University of California |
|
| 26 May 2021 |
4:00pm - 6:00pm Muhammad Iqbal,聽The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam聽(Stanford University Press, 2013): 鈥楾he Principle of Movement in the Structure of Islam鈥�, 116-142; and聽M. K. Gandhi,聽Indian Home Rule, or Hind Swaraj聽(1908): 鈥樷�楢 Word of Explanatio |
|
| 16 Jun 2021 |
4:00pm - 6:00pm Hasan al-Banna,聽Between Yesterday & Today, (Pamphlet, 1939);聽Towards the Light, (1947); Frampton, Martyn,聽The Muslim Brotherhood and the West聽(Harvard University Press, 2018), Ch. 1; and Berridge, Willow J.,聽Islamism in the Modern World: A Histo |
|
| 23 Jun 2021 |
4:00pm - 6:00pm Sayyid Qutb,聽Milestones聽(New Delhi: Islamic Book Service, 1964/2006). |
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