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Schedule for 2010 - 2011

Failure in the Arts and Sciences

Fall Semester 2010

Thursday, September 16 – Opening Reception, 5:00 – 6:30 PM, Nolte 235.

Friday, September 17 -- Lectures: “Mapping Meaning: Jesuit Cartographic Visions of 'All Under Heaven'" and “Telling Scientific Lives and the Return of Biography,” Florence Hsia, History, University of Wisconsin-Madison. 12:15 – 1:30 PM, 1210 Heller Hall and 3:30 – 5:00 PM, 131 Tate Laboratory of Physics. Cosponsored with the Center for Early Modern History and the Program in the History of Science and Technology.

Tuesday, September 21 – Reading Group: René Descartes, Regulae ad directionem ingenii (Rules for the Direction of the Mind), 1626–1628. 5:00 – 6:30 PM, Nolte 337.

Thursday, September 23 – Lecture: “Ricci's World: The 1602 Map," Ann Waltner, History, Minnesota. 7:00 – 9:00 PM, James Ford Bell Library.

Tuesday, October 5 – Reading Group: René Descartes, Discours de la méthode (Discourse on the Method), 1637. 5:00 – 6:30 PM, Nolte 337.

Thursday, October 14 – Reading Group: Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Translation of Die protestanische Ethik und der Gesit des Kapitalismus (1905)), 5:00 – 6:30 PM, Nolte 235.

Tuesday, October 19 – Reading Group: René Descartes, Dioptrique, and excerpts from Méteores, 1637. 5:00 – 6:30 PM, Nolte 337.

Thursday, October 21 – Work-in-Progress Seminar: “Who (Still) Needs the Black Legend? Perspectives From, and About, Contemporary Art,” Dana Leibsohn, Art, Smith College. 5:00 – 6:30 PM, Nolte 235. Co-Sponsored with the Center for Early Modern History.

Friday, October 22 -- Lecture: “Trans-Pacific: From China to Mexico in Early Modernity," Dana Leibsohn, Art, Smith. 12:15 – 1:30 PM, 1210 Heller Hall. Co-Sponsored with the Center for Early Modern History.

Tuesday, November 9 – Reading Group: René Descartes, Dioptrique, and excerpts from Méteores, 1637. 5:00 – 6:30 PM, Nolte 337.

Friday, November 11 – Lecture: The Illusion of Empire: Missionaries, Maps, and the Spatial Logic of European Discovery and the Colonization in the Great Lakes," Michael Whitgen, American Culture, University of Michigan. 12:15 – 1:30 PM, 1210 Heller Hall. Cosponsored by the Center for Ealry Modern History.

Tuesday, November 16 – Reading Group: René Descartes, Meditationes de prima philosophia (Meditations on First Philosophy), 1641, along with the six “Objections and Replies.” 5:00 – 6:30 PM, Nolte 337.

Thursday, November 18 – Work-in-Progress Seminar: "'I....Feel My Want of Powers': Tristram Shandy, Impotence, and the Reader," Jessica Leiman, English, Carleton College. 5:00 – 6:30 PM, Nolte 235.

Friday, November 19 – Work in Progress Seminar: “Obituaries for Poetry: Dead Poet Love, the Life of the Author, and Photographed Romanticism,” Deidre Shauna Lynch, English, University of Toronto. 12:00 – 1:30 PM, Lind Hall 207A. Co-Sponsored with the English Department - 19th-Century Sub-Field.

Thursday, November 25 – THANKSGIVING

Tuesday, December 7 – Reading Group: René Descartes, Les passions de l'âme (Passions of the Soul), 1649. 5:00 – 6:30 PM, Nolte 337.

Thursday, December 9 – Reading Group: Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment (Translation of Kritik der Urtheilskraft (1790)), “Preface” and “Introduction." 5:00 – 6:30 PM, Nolte 337.

Spring Semester 2011

 

Thursday, January 27 – Lab Session: “Theorizing Failure.” Readings will be Judith Butler, "Against Ethical Violence" in Giving an Account of Oneself (Fordham University Press, 2005), 41-44, and J. Aaron Simmons, Review of Giving an Account of Oneself, Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory, vol. 7, no. 2 (Spring, 2006), 85-90. 5:00 – 6:30 p.m., Nolte 235.

Friday, February 4 – Reading Group: Speculative Posthumanism, Brian Massumi, Parables of the Virtual (Duke, 2002). 12:00 – 1:30 p.m., Nolte 235.

Thursday, February 10 – Reading Group: Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment (Translation of Kritik der Urtheilskraft (1790)), Part I, Book II “Critique of Aesthetic Judgment – Analytic of the Sublime.” 5:00 – 6:30 p.m., Nolte 335

Friday, February 18 – Work-in-Progress Seminar: Elizabeth Wingrove (University of Michigan), “Sovereign Address,” 1:30 – 3:00 p.m., Lippincoat Room, 1314 Social Sciences. Co-Sponsored with the Political Theory Colloquium. (Download the paper in .pdf - Contact Michael Gaudio for password information.)

Friday, February 25 – Reading Group: Speculative Posthumanism, Brian Massumi, Parables of the Virtual II. 12:00 – 1:30 p.m., Nolte 235.

Thursday, March 3 – Work-in-Progress Seminar: Claire Goldstein (Miami University), “Failures of Vision: The Comet of 1680,” (The paper is available here, email Michael Gaudio for password information.)5:00 – 6:30 p.m., Nolte 235.

Friday, March 4 – Book Discussion: Chandra Mukerji, Impossible Engineering: Technology and Territoriality on the Canal du Midi (Princeton, 2009). 12:00 - 1:30 PM, Nolte 235.

Thursday, March 10  – Reading Group: Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment (Translation of Kritik der Urtheilskraft (1790)), Part II, “Critique of Teleological Judgment.” 5:00 – 6:30 p.m., Nolte 335.

Friday, March 11– Reading Group: Speculative Posthumanism, Nigel Thrift, Non-Representational Theory (Routledge, 2007). 12:00 – 1:30 p.m., Nolte 235.

Thursday, March 17 – SPRING BREAK

Thursday, March 24  – Lab Session: “Theorizing Failure: Schemes and Projects,” Daniel Defoe’s Essay Upon Projects (1697). 5:00 – 6:30 p.m., Nolte 235.

Friday, March 25 – Reading Group: Speculative Posthumanism, Nigel Thrift, Non-Representational Theory II. 12:00 – 1:30 p.m., Nolte 235.

Thursday, April 7 – Reading Group: Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment (Translation of Kritik der Urtheilskraft (1790)), “Preface to the First Edition (1790),” “Introduction to the First Edition (1790),” and “The First Introduction (unpublished in Kant’s lifetime).” 5:00 – 6:30 p.m., Nolte 335.

Thursday, April 14  – Work-in-Progress Seminar: Matthew Hunter (California Institute of Technology), “Very Able, Very Sordid, Cynical, Wrong Headed and Whimsical,” 5:00 – 6:30 p.m., Nolte 235.

Friday, April 15 – Lecture: Matthew Hunter (California Institute of Technology), “Joshua Reynolds's 'Photographs': The Temporally-Evolving Chemical Object in the British Enlightenment.” 12:15 - 1:30 PM, Heller 1210. Co-Sponsored by the Center for Early Modern History.

Thursday, April 21 – Lecture: Paola Bertucci (Yale University), "Enlightened Secrets: Silk, Travel, and the State in 18th-century France." 5:00 - 6:30 p.m., Nolte 235.

Friday, April 22 – Reading Group: Speculative Posthumanism, Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude (Continuum, 2008) (Après la finitude, Seuil 2006). 12:00 – 1:30 p.m., Nolte 235.

Thursday, April 28  – Work-in-Progress Seminar: Daniela Bleichmar (University of Southern California), “Peruvian Nature Up Close, Seen from Afar: Distance, Mobility, and Medium Fluidity in Hispanic Enlightenment Natural History.” 5:00 – 6:30 p.m., Nolte 235. Co-Sponsored with the Center for Early Modern History. Click here to download the paper. Email guadio@umn.edu for password information.

Friday, April 29  – Lecture: Daniela Bleichmar (University of Southern California), “Visible Empire: Visual Culture and Colonial Botany in the Hispanic Enlightenment.” 12:15 – 1:30 p.m., Heller 1210. Co-Sponsored with the Center for Early Modern History.

Thursday, May 5  – Lecture: Christopher S. Wood, Art History, Yale University, “The Votive Scenario.” 4:00 – 5:30 p.m., Nolte 125. Co-Sponsored with the Institute for Advanced Study and the Department of Art History.

Friday, May 6 –Book Discussion with Author: Alexander Nagel and Christopher S. Wood, Anachronic Renaissance (Zone Books, 2010). 12:00 – 1:30 p.m., Nolte 235.

Thursday, May 12  – The 8th Annual Graduate Student Roundtable. Jesse Dorst (Theatre Arts), "Walking in the Alley: Agas, Stow, Dekker and the Mapping of London at the Turn of the 17th Century," Steve Jaksa (English), "Bodies of Allegiance: Plowden and the Early Stuarts," and Anna Rosensweig (French), "The Early Modern as Origin and Other in Narratives of Modernity." E-mail Michael Gaudio at gaudio@umn.edu for password information. 5:00 – 6:30 p.m., Nolte 235.

PAPERS WILL CIRCULATE IN ADVANCE. Readings for each session will be available as .pdf files on the TEMS website http://tems.umn.edu/, and in hard copy in Heller Hall 338 and Folwell Hall 255.