QUILTING POINTS:

Quilting Points returns for its seventh consecutive year with a new focus on Judith Butler. We are very pleased to announce the return of Quilting Points, an interdisciplinary critical and cultural theory reading group based at the University of Leeds. This year, we will be conducting a year-long discussion on the work of Judith Butler. Since the publication of her first two monographs, Subjects of Desire (1987) and Gender Trouble (1990), Butler’s theories on gender and identity, and power and language, are now widely recognised as cornerstones in the development of contemporary critical theory and philosophy . While Butler’s most notable impact has been in the fields of gender studies, feminist theory, queer theory, and ethics studies, there are few areas in the Humanities left untouched by her work. From her foundational notion of gender performativity to her recent and ongoing work on precarity, Butler’s intellectual range is both established and continually evolving. Ove...

This Wednesday, we will discuss Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's "Biopolitical Production," a chapter from Empire .  Click here  to download the PDF. We hope to interrogate the ways Hardt and Negri interpret and build upon Foucault's work, so feel free to bring relevant Foucault texts to the discussion. Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt. Wikimedia Commons Quilting Points co-directors, Ryan Topper and Benjamin Chwistek, will introduce the meeting, which will take place from 15:30-17:30 in the Leeds Humanities Research Institute.

January 28th: 'Right of Death and Power over Life' The first meeting of 2015 will be on Foucault's 'Right of Death and Power over Life'. This will be the first meeting focusing on the theme of biopower and subjectivity, which we will be building on throughout the semester.  Introducing the text will be Ed Powell, PhD student in the School of English and Ben Chwistek, PhD student in the School of Classics and co-director of Quilting Points. A link to the text can be found here:   'Right of Death and Power over Life' This semester we will be meeting at the slightly later time of 15:30, and will be finishing at 17:30. As before, we will be meeting in the LHRI Seminar Room. Benjamin Chwistek and Ryan Topper Directors, Quilting Points 2014/2015

The next Quilting Points reading group will be: Wednesday 19 th Feb, 3.30pm , Leeds Humanities Research Institute ( 29-31 Clarendon Place), Seminar Room 1 We shall discuss: 1.       Walter Benjamin, Critique of Violence [ available here ] 2.       Simon Critchley, Faith of the Faithless, Ch. 5 'Nonviolent Violence '. Texts introduced by Dr Stefan Skrimshire (School of Philosophy, Religion and the History of Science) We would like to remind you about the upcoming workshop with Prof Agata Bielik-Robson on the 28 th of February.  Here are the details: Quilting Points / Northern Theory School are pleased to invite you to: "Walter Benjamin: All Shades of Gnosis": A workshop with Professor Agata Bielik-Robson (Nottingham University) on themes of political theology, divine violence and tragedy in the thought of Benjamin. Please let us know if you intend to come as soon as possib...

There is to be a mini-exchange conference between MA and Phd students and academics of the University of Leeds and Humboldt-University of Berlin on the 15th and 16th of February in the School of English and the Leeds Humanities Research Institute at the University of Leeds. Papers will treat topics in the fields of African literary and cultural studies, theatre studies, politics and poetry. The programme may be found here.