[Grad_history_students] FW: "Second Nature: Rethinking the Natural through Politics," Feb. 9-10

Wed Feb 7 08:54:50 CST 2007

Just a reminder!

Holly Grieves
Technology Coordinator
History/Religious Studies Departments and Catholic Studies Program
2320 N. Kenmore Ave. Ste 420
Chicago, IL 60614

773-325-7470
hgrieves at depaul.edu 
-----Original Message-----
From: Laura Ephraim [mailto:l-ephraim at northwestern.edu] 
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 8:46 PM
To: 'Second Nature'
Subject: "Second Nature: Rethinking the Natural through Politics," Feb.
9-10

"Second Nature:

Rethinking the Natural through Politics"

A graduate student conference

Feb. 9-10

8:30am-6:00pm

Harris Hall 108 (1881 Sheridan Ave, Evanston IL)

Northwestern University

Please visit our website, or see below, for the full schedule of papers
and panels:
http://www.polisci.northwestern.edu/secondnature/conference.html

Friday Keynote Address:

Jane Bennett

Johns Hopkins University

"Vital Material"

Feb. 9, 4pm, Harris 108

Reception to follow

Saturday Keynote Address:

Michael Warner

Rutgers University

"The Nature of the Unnatural"

Feb. 10, 4pm, Harris 108

Reception to follow

Full Conference Schedule:

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9th

8:30-9:                        Continental breakfast

9-9:15:                        Introductory Remarks by Dean Andrew
Wachtel and conference organizers

9:15-10:45:     PANEL 1 Ecology and Capital: Economies of Nature

Alienation, species-being, praxis 

Anita Chari, Univ. of Chicago 

"The parody of the motley cadaver": Revolution as Life and Death in
Benjamin and Marx 

Tim Fisken, UC Berkeley 

Thoreau's Political Economy of Nature 

Jennifer Lin, Johns Hopkins Univ.

The Nature/Social Dualism in the Environmental Security Debate: A
Critical Theory of Distorted Interdisciplinary Communication 

Eli Meyerhoff, Univ. of Minnesota 

DISCUSSANT: Prof. Keith Topper

11-12:30:        PANEL 2 Unmasking First Nature: Political
Possibilities, Political  Constraints  

Schelling's Second Thoughts on Second Nature 

Christopher Lauer, Penn State

Adorno's Critical Theory of Nature 

Chris Buck, Univ. of Chicago 

The Nature of Teleology and the Teleology of Nature: Two Approaches to 
a Regulative Idea in Political Philosophy 

Loren Goldman, Univ. of Chicago 

Bare Life as Second Nature 

Lorenzo Fabbri, UC Irvine 

DISCUSSANT: Prof. Peter Fenves

12:30-2:          LUNCH 

2-3:30              PANEL 3 Hybrid Life: Politics Beyond the Human

Un/Natural Metaphors for Political Rights: Cyborgs as Perfect
Citizen-Subjects 

Keridiana Chez, CUNY

In the Face of the Machine: Westoxification, Cultural Collision, and the
Making of Perso-Islamic Ideology 

Shirin Deylami, Univ. of Minnesota

After Human and Nonhuman Hybridity: The Expansion and Contraction of the
Political 

Rafi Youatt, Univ. of Chicago 

Habits of Belonging: Reconciling Bergsonian habit with a Deleuzian earth

Mabel Wong, Johns Hopkins Univ.

DISCUSSANT: Prof. Soulymane Bachir Diagne

4-6:                  Opening Keynote Presentation (reception to follow)

Jane Bennett, Johns Hopkins University

"Vital Material"

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 10th

8:30-9:15:       Continental breakfast

9:15-10:45:     PANEL 4 Questioning Modern Orders

Nature and the Urge to Conserve: What if humans made the Amazon?  

Amanda Kirk, Univ. of Mass., Amherst

Creating the Kindly Nature: Mastering the Furies and Creating a
Democratic Second Nature in Aeschylus' Eumenides

Arthur Craig, Rutgers Univ.

Violence and cruelty: Machiavelli's politics of nature

Yves Winter, UC Berkeley 

Leo Strauss on the Crisis of Modernity: Historicism, Nature, and the
Return to the "Philosophy of the Future"

Mujeeb Khan, UC Berkeley

DISCUSSANT: Prof. Sara Monoson

11-12:30:        PANEL 5 After Human Nature: Rights and Ethics in a
Post-Foundational World

Ghosts of Prometheus: Sacrifice and the Question of the Animal

Stefan Dolgert, Duke Univ.:

Bare Life at the Threshold of Natural and Political: Agamben on Human
Rights and Biopolitical Logic of Sovereignty 

Ayten Gundogdu, Univ. of Minnesota

On Arendt's Critique of Human Nature & Absolute Sovereignty: Towards a
Politics of Human Rights 

Kirin Banerjee, Univ. of Chicago

The 'Unnatural Growth of the Natural': Reconsidering Arendt on nature
and artifice in the context of biotechnology 

Ashley Biser, Univ. of Minnesota:

DISCUSSANT: Prof. Bonnie Honig

12:30-2:          LUNCH 

2-3:30              PANEL 6 The Trouble with the Nature of Politics

Understanding "Spontaneity" Beyond Natural/Social Divide: Habermas,
Negri and Rousseau on Popular Political Action 

Cigdem Cidam, Univ. of Minnesota

Kantian Natures and Rousseau's Paradox 

Alex Livingston, Univ. of Toronto

The Antipolitical Nature of "The Political" 

Jack Jackson, UC Berkeley

Reproducing Nature 

Hagar Kotef, UC Berkeley

DISCUSSANT: Prof. Linda Zerilli

4-6:                  Closing Keynote Presentation (reception to follow)

Michael Warner, Rutgers University

"The Nature of the Unnatural"

"Second Nature: Rethinking the Natural through Politics," a
graduate-student organized program of events, is made possible by the
generous support of The Graduate School and the Alice B. Kaplan
Institute for the Humanities, as well as by the co-sponsorship support
of the Political Science Department, the MacArthur Fund, the English
Department, the History Department, the Gender Studies Program, the
French Interdisciplinary Group, the Program in Science in Human Culture,
and the Klopsteg Fund.

For more information, please contact us: secondnature at northwestern.edu.