Political Uses of Utopia Workshop
April 18-19, 2013
Founders College, Brian Cragg Room (303)
The Political Uses of Utopia Workshop convened by Sylwia Chrostowska (Humanities/European Studies, York University), James Ingram (Political Science, McMaster University), and Martin Breaugh (Political Science, York University) will bring together Canadian and European scholars for a two-day discussion of the uses of utopia and utopianism for politics. It is supported by a SSHRC Connection Grant as well as the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, Founders College, the Faculty of Graduate Studies, the departments of Political Science and Humanities, the Graduate Program in Social & Political Thought, and the Canadian Centre for German and European Studies (all at York).
Please be aware that there is NO REGISTRATION FEE for this event.
POLITICAL USES OF UTOPIA WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
DAY 1: THURSDAY APRIL 18, 2013
Founders College, Room 303
9:00 – Start
Welcome: Mauro Buccheri (Master, Founders College)
Introduction: Sylwia Chrostowska (York University)
9:15-10:45 – Session 1
Marcuse and the ‘Christian bourgeois concept of freedom’
Vincent Geoghegan (Queens University of Belfast)
10:45-11:15 – Coffee break
11:15-12:45 – Session 2
General Will or General Wish? Rousseau, Marx
Peter Hallward (Kingston University, London)
12:45-1:30 – Lunch break
Founders College, Room 305
1:30-3:00 – Session 3
Ideal Theory After Auschwitz? The Practical Uses and Ideological Abuses of Utopian Thought in Rawls and Adorno
Benjamin McKean (University of Chicago)
A Strange Fate for Politics? Jameson’s Dialectic of Utopian Thought
John Grant (University of Toronto)
3:00-3:30 – Coffee break
3:30-4:30 – Session 4
Intermediate Discussion
Moderated by Meghan Helsel (Johns Hopkins), Chris Holman (SUNY Stony Brook), and Ella Street (University of Toronto)
5:00 – KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Verney Room, South Ross Building, Room 674
Desire and Shipwreck: Powers of the Vis Utopia
Étienne Tassin (Centre de Sociologie des Pratiques et des Représentations Politiques, Paris 7)
Followed by reception (for guests only)
DAY 2: FRIDAY APRIL 19, 2013
Founders College, Room 303
9:00-10:30 – Session 1
Utopianism and Prefiguration
Ruth Kinna (Loughborough University)
10:30-11:00 – Coffee break
11:00-12:30 – Session 2
The Spectropolitics of Utopia
Matthew Beaumont (University College London)
12:30-1:30 – Lunch break
Founders College, Room 305
1:30-3:00 – Session 3
The Fragmented Space of Utopia: Gaps of Experimentation and Lines of Flight
Anders Fjeld (Paris 7)
Pluralism, Pragmatism, and Hope
Alexander Livingston (Cornell University)
3:00-3:30 – Coffee break
3:30-5:00 – Session 4
Concluding Discussion
Moderated by Meghan Helsel (Johns Hopkins), Chris Holman (SUNY Stony Brook), and Ella Street (University of Toronto)
