Waiting for the political moment

EUR and UU organise conference on the erosion of politics

The bonus culture seems to continue unbridled, we eat factory-farmed meat, and we are all addicted to consumption. We are apparently unlikely to change course ourselves, waiting instead for ‘the political moment’ when this will happen. Frans-Willem Korsten (EUR Professor of Literature and Society) and Bram Ieven (Utrecht University) organised the international conference ‘Waiting for the Political Moment’. The conference will be held from Wednesday, 16 June to Saturday, 19 June 2010 in Utrecht and Rotterdam.

In recent decades, political and cultural theorists have argued that the domain of politics is eroding. They claim that politics has lost its status to the more powerful capitalist system. During the conference, 35 young academics from the Netherlands and abroad will speak on the nature of modern-day politics and the political. The idea of the political moment will be applied in order to investigate whether the political domain has been eroded by other powers and forces. Speakers will focus on the theory of politics, the political and the political moment.

The keynote speakers accompanying Frans-Willem Korsten and Bram Ieven include political scientists, philosophers and sociologists, including Martin van Gelderen (European University Institute, Florence), Patchen Markell (University of Chicago) and Jodi Dean (Erasmus University Rotterdam). On Friday, 18 June, and Saturday, 19 June 2010, Rosi Braidotti (Director of the Centre for Humanities, Utrecht University) and Alberto Toscano (Goldsmith College, London) will give a public lecture in the debating forum De Unie in Rotterdam.

The conference includes closed, semi-public (registration only) and public lectures. For further information, see www.waitingforthepoliticalmoment.org. During the conference, an artists programme relating to the political moment will also take place, under the direction of Katarina Zdjelar. The conference is sponsored by Erasmus University Rotterdam, Erasmus University Rotterdam Trust Fund Association, the foundation for humanities and Rotterdam society Stichting Letteren en Samenleving Rotterdam and the Utrecht University Centre for Humanities.

See for more information:

Web: www.waitingforthepoliticalmoment.org

Personal page prof.dr. Frans Willem Korsten