QUILTING POINTS:

Our theme for this year is   Lacan Read(s) Across the Disciplines . It   aims to examine the academic and intellectual work of the psychoanalyst and anti-philosopher Jacques Lacan, whose research and writings intersect disciplines across the Humanities and Social Sciences.  The organizers believe that such an approach is particularly fruitful for quilting together scholars from fields usually considered mutually exclusive, as well as clarify relationships in those disciplines with ambiguous liminality.     In order to read Lacan reading across the Disciplines, we will critically engage with the texts that influenced his thought and style.  The scope of these texts ranges in genre from literature and poetry across history and medieval studies to philosophy, psychology and anthropology.  Each meeting will focus on a particular essay by Lacan and be introduced by a member of the group; the work of the reading group will be punctuated by four seminar papers presented by leading scholar

Building on last year's successful 'Lacan Read(s) Across the Disciplines', this year the Quilting Points Reading group will focus  on the work of the German philosopher and critical theorist Walter Benjamin. The focus for readings in the first semester will be History, Time and the Messianic and the second, the theme of Violence. Each meeting will be introduced by a member of the group; the work of the reading group will be punctuated by four seminar papers presented by leading scholars from around the United Kingdom. The aim  of this group will be to allow staff and research students across  the Faculty to deepen their engagement with the primary and  secondary texts with the benefit of different disciplinary expertise   both within the university, and by inviting experts for other   universities to present one-off seminar introductions. It is also hoped that the reading group will bridge research interests of the  newly formed Northern Critical Theo