QUILTING POINTS:

We warmly welcome all of those interested in 'the past'/past(s), how it is constructed, remembered, memorialized, theorized and otherwise invented, objectified, subjected and/or turned into 'History' - in short Philosophy of History and theories of History - to come along to the meetings.  Please do not feel that you don't 'know enough'.  Philosophy of History is only now re-emerging as a serious, critical topic, and our group was the first new collection of scholars in the UK and other English-speaking contexts to form together to discuss the issues in over a decade.  In this we were quickly followed and since then have been lucky to partner with these developing networks and programs, as well as the previous generation of groups and scholars.  The point is that the material, ideas and discourses are fresh to most of the people who come to the meetings, so please feel open to attend.  The discussions, although lively and serious, are also ver...

The next meeting of Quilting Points is Wednesday 4th December, 3.30pm, Alumni Room, School of English We will be continuing our exploration of history and redemption by discussing Benjamin's "Eduard Fuchs: Collector and Historian" which is available here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/96807532/Walter-Benjamin-Eduard-Fuchs Also recommended to accompany this, is his shorter essay "Unpacking my library" which is available here: http://art.yale.edu/file_columns/0000/2138/benjamin.pdf The text will be introduced by Leila Nassereldein (School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies) We hope you can join us! As this is our last session this semester, there is talk of going for a drink after the discussions.

Quilting Points: Reading Benjamin will meet: Wednesday 20th November, 3.30pm, The Alumni Room, School of English We shall be continuing our discussion of Theses on the Concept of History – use this link for a (perhaps) better translation than the one used last week http://cscs.res.in/dataarchive/textfiles/textfile.2010-11-02.7672177498/file In addition, we shall consider Adorno’s essay ‘Progress’, which can be accessed in full in google books (the ‘Critical Models’ volume) here: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=W1Refr-z8roC&pg=PA143&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false All welcome!

Quilting Points: Reading Benjamin will meet: Wednesday 6th November, 3.30pm, The Alumni Room, School of English (House 10) We shall be discussing two texts: Benjamin's Theses on the Concept of History (especially Theses I - IX) http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/benjamin/1940/history.htm Giorgio Agamben's essay 'Walter Benjamin and the Demonic: Happiness and Historical Redemption' [For a copy, please contact Stefan Skrimshire S.Skrimshire@leeds.ac.uk or quiltingpoints@gmail.com ] The discussion will be introduced by Catalin Taranu (School of History)

Dear all, On behalf of our colleague Silvana De Paula, we would like to draw your attention to the play "Hilda & Freud", written and directed by Antonio Quinet, a  Brazilian psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and philosopher (Paris VIII), who is very well acknowledged in Brazil for his clinical work and for his contributions to the lacanian field through  the publication of his own  books as well as for  his translations of Lacan's.  Quinet studied and worked with Lacan for many years. In the last 10 years or more,  he has also worked with theater, and his plays have been also well received.  One of them, "La leçon de Charcot", was staged in Paris  a couple of weeks ago by invitation of the  International Colloquium La Salpêtrière: un théatre de l'hystérie - Charcot, Freud, Lacan", at the 120th anniversary of Charcot's death. "Hilda & Freud" will be staged  in English at the Freud Museum...

You are warmly invited to join us for the next meeting of Quilting Points: Reading Benjamin on the 23rd of October at 3.30 pm. This week we will meet in Seminar Room 6 (School of English, House 9). We will be reading Benjamin's 'On  the Theory of Knowledge, Theory of Progress' . For an accompanying reading, following Layla's advice, we suggest Rolf Tiedmann's 'Dialectics at Standstill.' If you would like a copy of the text, please contact the organisers at quiltingpoints@gmail.com . The reading group is generously supported by the LHRI. If you are interested in introducing one of the texts in the future, please contact the organisers.

You are cordially invited to the first meeting of this reading group Reading Benjamin dedicated to critical and cultural theory across the disciplines. Wednesday 9th October, 3.30pm, The Alumni Room, School of English, University of Leeds We shall be reading Benjamin's 'The Life of Students' ( http://libcom.org/library/life-students-walter-benjamin ) - a pertinent little piece for the start of term, and a feisty little introduction to his wider thought on History. We'll also be discussing the remaining programme of texts for the semester.