Sexuate Subjects
POLITICS, POETICS AND ETHICS
UCL, London / Friday 3rd to Sunday 5th / December 2010

This international interdisciplinary conference seeks to generate new theories and practices of subjectivity – ‘sexuate subjects’ – through contemporary poetic and political research in the visual arts, humanities and social sciences. It explores how these positive ethical subjectivities for women and men are constructed through spatial, material and textual feminist poetics and politics. Over three days, it will examine how sexuate subjects (people/disciplines) aid interdisciplinary responses to contemporary global crises of community conflict, social and environmental wellbeing. Nine panels and invited keynote speakers examine the following themes: environmental and social crises;  sustainable ecologies; poetic communities, pedagogies, voices and bodies; the politics of bio-medicine, body-rights, family and well-being.

Principal Keynote:

Luce Irigaray, Doctor in Philosophy and Director of Research in Philosophy, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientific, Paris

Keynotes: Jananne Al-Ani (University of the Arts) Dr Caroline Bergvall (University of Southampton) Dr Carol Brown (University of Auckland) Dr Karen Burns (Monash University) Professor Lorraine Code (Toronto University) Professor Elizabeth Grosz (Rutgers University): video-conference presentation Professor Dorita Hannah (Massey University, Wellington) Dr Doina Petrescu (Atelier d’Architecture Autogérée and University of Sheffield)

Invited: Frederica Giardini (University Roma-Tre, Rome) FATALE (KTH, Stockholm) Dr Gillian Howie (Liverpool University) Profesor Heinz Kimmerle (University of Rotterdam) Professor Mary Rawlinson (Stony Brook University, SUNY) Dr Marita Ryan (University of Limerick) Dr Margrit Shildrick (Queen’s University, Belfast) Professor Gail Schwab (Hofstra University, Long Island NY) Professor Judith Still (The University of Nottingham) Taking Place: Feminist Spatial Practice collective Gianni Vacchelli (Universita degli Studi di Bergamo)

Please go to the Conference website for registration and further details: www.ucl.ac.uk/silva/sexuate-subjects

Funders: the Bartlett School of Architecture Research Fund; UCL’s Grand Challenge of Intercultural Interactions; Centre for the Study of Contemporary Art, History of Art Department, UCL; Department of French UCL; Slade School of Fine Art, UCL; Hofstra University; Stony Brook University and FATALE, KTH, Stockholm

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PS: I am presenting a performance as part of this session on Saturday 4 December:

9.30-16.00 Understanding Difference: why poetry matters
Panel, performances and exhibition

Convenors: Professor Timothy Mathews (UCL), Dr Sharon Morris (UCL)
Contributors: Helen Benigson, Taru Elfving, Geraldine Finn, Jane Gilbert, Kristen Kreider & James O’Leary, Miriam Leonard, Tim Mathews, Sharon Morris, Caroline Phillips, Simone Roberts, Nastja Ronkko, Kai Tai, Johan Thom