Critical Life and Quilting Points collaborative seminar: Theory after Ferguson - Fred Moten and Cedric Robinson


Wednesday 20th March | 4:00-6:00pm | The Meeting Room (School of English)

Please join the Critical Life Research Collective and Quilting Points for a special collaborative session. This session will take its cue from Quilting Point’s year-long consideration of Cedric Robinson’s work, reflecting on that work in the light of a thinker who takes aspects of Robinson’s ideas in a different direction: Fred Moten. To this end, we will consider two short essay interventions into the aftermath of the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri – a critical event, the ramifications of which have been felt over the past decade.  

Both Robinson and Moten want to think through the relationship between the symbolism of the killing and the singularity of Michael Brown. Brown’s murder occurred at the end of Robinson’s career. Nevertheless, it provided a final opportunity for him, alongside his then-wife and collaborator Elizabeth Robinson, to set out their political commitments in ‘The Killing in Ferguson’. The essay relates the killing to a media and global political environment that is inherently hostile to Black lives. Fred Moten, whose first book begins with an acknowledgment of Robinson, works with Stefano Harney in the essay ‘Michael Brown’ to think about the ramifications of the killing in terms of the dynamics of statehood, survival, and the task of critical reflection in its wake.  

Both thinkers ask us to reconsider the epistemological ramifications of this relationship between theory and practice. With this in mind, the session will take the form of an open seminar that looks at close readings of both passages to open a broader discussion about the relation between theory and practice in our contemporary condition. All are welcome with no prior familiarity with the writers necessary, and we look forward to a productive conversation.  

(Ground Floor, House 10 Cavendish Road - https://maps.app.goo.gl/jVyNhfVTwsTHmBsb7 - https://what3words.com/courier.vase.valid)  

School of English | AccessAble

on Wednesday 20th March between 4:00-6:00pm, followed by the option of a pub social. 

Please do let us know if you have any questions, concerns or access requirements at quiltingpoints@gmail.com. 

[Image credit: Jeff Robertson/AP] 

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