Critical Theory Seminar
Hilary Terms, Weeks 1-8
All Souls College, University of Oxford
The Critical Theory seminar brings a range of scholars engaged in social and political critique to Oxford once a week during the winter term. Critical theory offers a distinctive methodological and political problematic for political and social theorists. Its practitioners interrogate how social formations fail to live up to their own normative ideals. They disclose social pathologies, diagnose the sources of oppression, and point the way towards more emancipatory futures.
The seminar is an interdisciplinary space open to students of all levels and scholars from across a diverse range of disciplines. All are welcome. Past years' seminar schedules are available here (2018), here (2019), here (2020) and here (2022).
Next year, the Oxford Critical Theory seminar will be run by Emily Dyson, Jasper Friedrich, and Mario Aguiriano. For more information or to join the Critical Theory mailing list, please contact Emily.
Thursdays*, Weeks 2 - 8
5:15 to 6:45 pm
Wharton Room, All Souls College
*There will be an additional Tuesday session in Week 7.*
Week 2 — Jan. 27
Jeannie Morefield (Oxford)
'Global Underworld: The Imaginative Geography of Liberalism'
Week 3 — Feb. 3
Lois McNay (Oxford)
Book discussion: The Gender of Critical Theory
Respondent: Liz Frazer (Oxford)
Week 4 — Feb. 10
Amy Allen (Penn State)
'Slavery, Work, and History: Du Bois's Black Marxism'
Week 5 — Feb. 17
Jean Khalfa (Cambridge)
"Fanon on Alienation and Identity"
Week 6 — Feb. 24
Rahel Jaeggi (Humboldt)
*Postponed*
Week 7 — Tues., March 1
Nikolas Rose (ANU/UCL)
"Against mental health: speaking of suffering in the time of COVID"
*Moved to Trinity term.*
Week 7 — March 3
Koshka Duff (Nottingham)
'The death of the prison and other beautiful experiments'
Week 8 — March 10
Amelia Horgan (Essex)
'Critical Theory and Work'
Week 2 — May 3
5:15 pm at All Souls College
Hagar Kotef (SOAS)
'The colonizing self, or home and homelessness in Israel/Palestine'
Week 4 — Feb. 3
5:15 pm at Nuffield College
Nikolas Rose (ANU/UCL), Steffan Blayney (Sheffield), Jasper Friedrich (Oxford), and Lorna Finlayson (Essex)
Panel discussion: The Politics of Mental Health
Week 5 — Feb. 10
5:15 pm at New College
Cristina Beltrán (NYU)
'Cruelty as Citizenship: How Migrant Suffering Sustains White Democracy'