Am still not the world's greatest public speaker, but am gradually phasing in the use of notes rather than a detailed paper printed in very large type. Sometimes there is even (shudder) improvisation. This progress can be seen either being arrested or continued at a talk on Militant Modernism at the University of Westminster this Thursday, October 15th at 6.30 (see here for further details), and at the Frieze Fair this Saturday at midday, taking part in a debate on Nostalgia. Next month there is yet more excitement, because I shall be attending one of the most superbly Ballardian places in London, Cullinan's UEL runway/disused dock/pods/watchtowers campus experience (note the website's explanation of how the campus 'unlocks' brownfield regeneration, and of how the airport noise is drowned out by 'allowing windows to be closed'), at a seminar with the noted Power and Fisher. Full details as follows:
Modernism After Postmodernism: Is there a future beyond capitalist realism?
November 11th 2009
2:00pm - 5:00pm
UEL Docklands Campus
Room EB.3.19
(first floor, main building, turn left upon entering the main square after leaving Cyprus DLR
Cyprus DLR is literally situated at the campus)
Free, All welcome
Has the idea of ‘postmodernism’ left any legacy but that of a generalised capitulation to the demands of liberal capitalism? What can contemporary urbanism learn from the era of unabashed ‘militant modernism’? Is the most controversial living philosopher, Alain Badiou, with his radical re-conceptualisation of Truth, Event and Subject, to be understood as advocating a neo-modernist programme, or something quite different? Can there be any progressive radicalism that does not ultimately embrace the revolutionising logic of modernism?
Speakers:
Mark Fisher
Capitalist Realism, or the Political-Economic Logic Of Postmodernism
Mark Fisher teaches at UEL, the City Lit and Goldsmiths and is the author of Capitalist Realism (Zer0, 2009)
Nina Power
Is Badiou a Modernist?
Nina Power is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Roehampton University and the author of One-Dimensional Woman (Zer0 2009)
Owen Hatherley
They Are Rebuilding The City, Always: Regeneration now and its Post-war Predecessors
Owen Hatherley is a freelance writer, a researcher at Birkbeck and author of Militant Modernism (Zer0 2009)
Jeremy Gilbert
New Times Again: Legacies of Left Postmodernism
Jeremy Gilbert teaches at UEL and is the author of Anticapitalism and Culture (Berg 2008)