Sex in Theory Annual Lecture: Alenka Zupančič "Desire"
We are very excited to announce that Alenka Zupančič (Institute of Philosophy, Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts; European Graduate School) will be giving the 2023 Sex in Theory Annual Lecture (formerly the Queer Theory Annual Lecture).
Her talk, titled "Desire," will be held on Thursday, March 23, at 5pm (Arts W-215). For more information, please visit: https://www.sexintheory.org.
Over the last decade or two, the question of desire seems to have all but disappeared from theoretical approaches to sexuality and its vicissitudes, in favor of a focus on enjoyment and drive, or on deconstructing the power of the norms that guide our thinking about sexuality. Although desire cannot simply be divorced from these concerns, it has its own autonomous conceptual core. It is linked to the violent emergence of subjectivity and raises questions that go beyond and are more fundamental than those of individuality and its forms of enjoyment or identity. Subjectivity is not the same as individuality, and desire in particular tends to break down the usual moorings and supports of identity. The relationship between desire and fantasy also deserves closer consideration. The talk will focus on the disruptive, destabilizing, and even destructive nature of desire, without viewing these traits as simply and inherently “bad” or as something best avoided and suppressed.
Professor Alenka Zupančič is the author of Let Them Rot: Antigone's Parallax (2023), What IS Sex? (2017), Ethics of the Real: Kant and Lacan (2012),The Odd One In: On Comedy (2008), and The Shortest Shadow: Nietzsche's Philosophy of the Two (2003).
The Sex in Theory Annual Lecture is hosted by the Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies (IGSF). Launched in 2022 as the Queer Theory Annual Lecture, the event has since been renamed to reflect our broader interest in the persistence of sex as an object of thought in the theoretical humanities, as well as in the expansive and evasive field that constitutes the sexual itself. Taking a purposefully capacious approach, the series considers the role of sex, broadly construed, in the making and unmaking of the modern human subject, in ethics and intersubjective relations, and in aesthetic and cultural production.
This event is hosted by the Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies, with the support of the Department of Art History and Communication Studies.
Link to Facebook event: https://fb.me/e/2zJTJWtiP