The Wheatsheaf Talks are an annual series, and take place in the upstairs room of the Wheatsheaf pub - a favourite of 1930s writers such as George Orwell and Dylan Thomas - at 25 Rathbone Place, W1T 1DG. Talks are open to all Consortium students.

This year’s series of talks is being organised by Consortium students Ben Dawson and Matt Wraith, and consider the fate of ‘the organism’ in recent social theory.

Organics: Between Biology and Politics in Contemporary Social Theory

The second in the series of talks will take place on Tuesday 20 November 2007 at 7pm:

Michael King (Professor of Law, Reading)
Professor King is a leading expert on the increasingly influential work Niklas Luhmann. His paper, ‘The Autopoiesis of Social Systems’ will focus on Luhmann’s uses of biology in his theorisations of autopoietic systems.

The Wheatsheaf Talks are an annual series, and take place in the upstairs room of the Wheatsheaf pub - a favourite of 1930s writers such as George Orwell and Dylan Thomas - at 25 Rathbone Place, W1T 1DG. Talks are open to all Consortium students.

This year’s series of talks is being organised by Consortium students Ben Dawson and Matt Wraith, and consider the fate of ‘the organism’ in recent social theory.

Organics: Between Biology and Politics in Contemporary Social Theory

The conception of society as a single living organism is ancient and found in a variety of cultures. From the early Stoics’ connections of pneuma (life force) and oikeiosis (belonging/sociality) to the mechanists and vitalists whose science framed the political debates of the Glorious Revolution, theories of organic life have implicitly and often explicitly carried morally and politically normative associations. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, ‘organic relations’ came to be seen as an antidote to the ills of industrialisation and the call for an ‘organic society’ was made by an extraordinarily diverse range of thinkers. In recent years, organic and biological concepts have crept back into cultural theory and begun breeding there exponentially. Insights, discoveries, and models drawn from the life sciences have inflected political, social and cultural thought and have variously been used as means of conceiving, exemplifying, analogising, grounding, expanding, regenerating and metamorphosing cultural and political processes. But these new theories differ from the organic social models of the past in many important ways.

Contemporary revitalisations of the relation between biological and social processes resist reductive or essentialist biologism. These theories focus not so much on the human organism and other drearily hierarchical central nervous systems, but draw instead on the rhizomatic structure of certain grasses, on viruses, or single cells.

Older theories arguing for an ‘Organic Society’ tended to be anti-modern, anti-industrial, anti-urban. Today, it is the modern, industrial or post-industrial, technologically connected urban collective that most adequately approaches the complexity of the organism. The organic was once valued for its simplicity, now it is seen as a paradigm of complexity.

The aim of this lecture series, and of the discussions we hope will emerge from and grow around it, is to consider the fate of the organism in recent social theory and tap the wide stream of thought that flows from the meeting of these two tributaries.

Wednesday 17 October 2007, 7pm
John Dupré (Professor of Philosophy of Science, Exeter)
Professor Dupré specialises in the relationships between of science, metaphysics, and social theory, and on the limitations of socio-biology. He will be speaking on the statement ‘There is no such thing as society’.

Tuesday 20 November 2007, 7pm:
Michael King (Professor of Law, Reading)
Professor King is a leading expert on the increasingly influential work Niklas Luhmann. His paper, ‘The Autopoiesis of Social Systems’ will focus on Luhmann’s uses of biology in his theorisations of autopoietic systems.

Spring Term (Date TBC)
John Marks (Associate Professor of Philosophy, Nottingham)
John Marks has written extensively on the work of Gilles Deleuze. He is a member of the Science, Technology, and Culture Research Group at Nottingham, and will be speaking on biology, twentieth-century French thought and cybernetics.

Tuesday 9th October, 7.15pm

A series exploring the continued relevance of phenomenology, a philosophy aimed at making explicit structures of lived experience and modes of human existence. What can be learned from other people’s experience of things we rarely think about?

The fourth event in the series focuses on meat. In Old English, the term was used to designate all food. Now it refers mostly to animal flesh meant for human consumption. Some people choose to shun it and others consume it everyday. Some say it’s bad for our health and others think we can’t live a healthy life without it. Whether it’s a source of nourishment or a cause for concern, meat is present in our lives. There will also be a demonstration of butchery.

Speakers: Jan Fabre, artist; Surinder Phull, nutritionist; Philip Hughes, managing director of Rhug Estate Organic Farm; and Ginger Pig butchers.

The series is organised by Consortium PhD student Martine Rouleau.

Presented in association with the ICA.
Tickets £10 / £9 Concessions / £8 ICA Members
Book online at the ICA website.

See details of previous talks in the series here.

An annual series of Artists’ Talks held at the Architectural Association, organised in collaboration with the London Consortium. Artists and speakers featured in this series included Bernd Behr, Ryan Gander, Jan Mancuska and Ralph Rugoff.

All talks were open to the public and took place at the Architectural Association, 34-36 Bedford Square, WC1.

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strong>Wednesday 28th February, 7pm
In association with the ICA

The third in an on-going series celebrating the continued relevance of phenomenology, a philosophy aimed at making explicit structures of lived experience and modes of human existence: those things that are encountered every day without thought.

The third event in the series focuses on walls.

They keep us in or keep us out; whether they literally mark borders or figuratively establish limitations, walls delimit the environment that surrounds us and dictate the paths we take to move through it. Speakers include Shumon Basar, architect, editor at sexymachinery and Tank magazines; Conor Harrington, painter and graffiti artist; artist Alex Hartley; and Louise Hojer, art theorist and curator.

Tickets are available from the ICA. £10 / £9 Concessions / £8 ICA Members.

This short series of talks sought to offer a place where the university, the academic institution and the social and intellectual traditions that surround them, will be presented and negotiated, challenged or celebrated. The first talk, on 18th October 2006, heard Thomas Docherty discuss ‘The English Question; or, Academic Freedom’.

At the second talk, on Wednesday 15th November, ‘Reading Paul Hirst: The Challenge of Graduate Research’ Mark Cousins discussed Paul Hirst’s essay “Education and the Production of New Ideas“.This thought provoking essay from 1995 presents some of the key issues related to the current roles of and challenges facing the university and the intellectual at a time of “institutional and intellectual crisis.” Professor Paul Hirst (1947-2003) was one of the founders of the London Consortium and Professor of Social Theory at Birkbeck College, University of London. Among his many publications are Associative Democracy (1993), Globalisation in Question and Space and Power: Politics, War and Architecture (2005).

These talks were organised by PhD student Noam Leshem.

Part 2: Hesitation
ICA, Thursday 7 September 2006. 7pm Nash Room.

A new series celebrating the continued relevance of phenomenology, a philosophy aimed at making explicit structures of lived experience and modes of human existence in the world: those things that are encountered every day without thought, those actions that are repeated automatically.

Hesitation is an important part of our daily lives. Its causes can be wildly variable and its effects can range from a benign waste of time to the life threatening delay. Yet we often choose to dismiss it as a sign of weakness.

Tonight’s Speakers:

Nicholas Parsons, chairman of Radio 4’s Just A Minute, the popular panel game, which invites guests to talk on subjects for 60 seconds without repetition, deviation or hesitation.

Gulsen Bal, visual artist and theoretician, she is currently working on the notion of ‘production of subject’ as a form of hesitation in which the possible is ‘engendered’ within representations;

Neil Mullarkey, founder-member of the Comedy Store Players, Britain’s top improvisation troupe, and who has appeared in two Austin Powers movies

Robin Lickley, lecturer in Linguistics specialising in disfluency at the Speech Science Research Centre of Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh.

Full Price : £10 / Concession : £9 / ICA Members : £8.
Book tickets on 020 7930 3647

Part 1: Walking
ICA, Mon 19 June 2006. 19:00 Nash Room.

A new series celebrating the continued relevance of phenomenology, a philosophy aimed at making explicit structures of lived experience and modes of human existence in the world: those things that are encountered every day without thought, those actions that are repeated automatically.

Tonight’s speaker Rebecca Solnit, author of the bestselling Wanderlust: A History of Walking will discuss the fascinating but often-overlooked significance of the first human mode of transport. Joining Rebecca Solnit will be special guests:

Andrea Phillips, an art historian researching connections between performance, architecture and social space, who is currently completing a book, Walking into Trouble, on contemporary art and pedestrianism. She is Assistant Director of MA Creative Curating, Goldsmiths College.

Sukhdev Sandhu, author of London Calling: How Black and Asian Writers Imagined a City (2003) and I’ll Get My Coat (2005). He is the chief film critic of the Daily Telegraph, and writes for Modern Painters and the London Review of Books.

And for those with stamina, an optional walking tour around the ICA, led by Jackie Stater, follows the talk. For many years Jackie Stater has traveled the world as a Fashion Accessory Buyer, until one day she realized that she lived in the world’s most fascinating and exciting city. Having trained as a London Blue Badge Guide, she is now able to share this insight with people from all over the world. There is no better way to see London than on foot.

Full Price : £8 / Concession : £7 / ICA Members : £6.
Book tickets on 020 7930 3647

4th February 2006

The London Consortium supported this one-day conference in contemporary aesthetics, organised by Naked Punch Magazine in honour of the work of Arthur Danto.

Speakers included:
Arthur Danto - Embodied Meanings as Aesthetic Ideas
Richard Shusterman - Ars Erotica: Transfiguration of the Commonplace
Nicolas Vieillescazes - The Return of the Hegelian Repressed
Jear-Pierre Cometti - Being and Doing: Aesthetics at the Crossroads

www.nakedpunch.com

In association with the Architectural Association

Following on from last year’s successful talks, the following artists and art theorists appeared at the AA during the spring 2006 term:
Georges Didi-Huberman: ‘Image, Event and Duration’, 20 January 2006
Thomas Demand: ‘Artist Talk’, 3 February 2006
Parveen Adams: ‘Hanged, Drawn and Quartered: Goya After the Chapmans’, 10 February 2006
Christian Marclay: ‘Artist Talk’, 17 February 2006

23 November 2005, 6pm, Brunei Gallery, SOAS

The legal philosopher HLA Hart once wrote of his own discipline: “jurisprudence trembles uncertainly on the margin of many subjects.” By using the word “tremble” he gave a clue to how the concept of the interdisciplinary be rethought. In this lecture Anthony Julius, the new Chairman of the London Consortium and Visiting Professor at Birkbeck College, pursued Hart’s clue to a series of conclusions about the nature of interdisciplinary practices in the arts and humanities.

7 November 2005, 6.30pm, in association with the Architectural Association

Professor Marcos Novak of the University of California, Santa Barbara describes himself as a global nomad, artist, theorist and transarchitect. At this joint event with the Architectural Association, he discussed ‘Transvergence’, a term he has coined to describe the clusters of cultural impacts and creative conditions brought about by accelerating cultural change.

The London Consortium sponsored a series of talks at the Architectural Association, where the following artists and critics appeared in conversation with Consortium faculty member Parveen Adams:
James Casbere, Friday 21 January 2005
Jonas Dahlberg, Friday 4 February 2005
Mariele Neudecker, Friday 11 February 2005
Jake Chapman, Friday 4 March 2005

Two panel sessions initiated by students to run in tandem with the Intellectuals, Professionals and Museums course. Organised by Consortium student Luke Smith.

• 11 January, 2005: Curating Modern Art with Jessica Morgan (Tate Modern), Catherine Wood (Tate Modern) and Jens Hoffman (ICA)
• 25 January, 2005: Curating British Art and the Tate Collection, with Chris Stephens, Martin Myrone, Heidi Reitmaier and Richard Humphreys (all speakers from Tate Britain)

8th December 2004, Kings College London Chapel, in association with the ICA

We are still believers, but the things we believe are not worth believing in. Slavoj Zizek, radical social theorist and Lacanian psychoanalyst, has established himself as one of the most trenchant and perceptive critics of Western political culture at work in the world today. In a unique and provocative sermon, Zizek questioned our pretensions to enlightened unbelief. Those who believe in social change should now work to defend the Judaeo-Christian heritage against its burgeoning modern alternatives – everything from new-age religions to astrology to Western Buddhism – which are too shallow and too private to be capable of offering us real spiritual succour.

• 13 October, 2004
  Michael Hirsch ‘Social Theory and Aesthetics: How to use Adorno today’
• 27 October, 2004
  Dave Beech ‘Alternative or Nothing’
• 10 November, 2004
  Paul Taylor ‘The Pornographic Barbarism of the Self-Reflecting Sign and the Poignancy of the Pinstripe Suit’
• 24 November, 2004
  Jessica Morgan ‘Common Wealth’

16th June 2004, Clore Auditorium, Tate Britain, in association with Tate Britain

Juliet Mitchell is Professor of Psychoanalysis and Gender Studies at Jesus College, Cambridge. She is the author of several highly influential studies of the relations between psychoanalysis, gender and culture, including the groundbreaking Psychoanalysis and Feminism (1974), which challenged orthodox views of Freud as the patriarchal enemy of feminism. Subsequent books include Women: The Longest Revolution (1984) and Men and Medusa: Reclaiming Hysteria and the Sibling Relationship for the Human Condition (2000). A member of the Visiting Faculty for the London Consortium, Mitchell gave the 2004 Consortium Summer Lecture in which she discussed the issues around siblings and lateral relationships that are explored in her most recent study, Siblings: Sex and Violence (2003).

Listen to the lecture here: http://www.tate.org.uk/onlineevents/archive/juliet_mitchell/

10th December 2003, in association Tate Britain

Jacqueline Rose is Professor of English in the department of English and Drama at London University’s Queen Mary and Westfield College. Her research focuses on the interface between literature, psychoanalysis, politics and culture; publications include The Haunting of Sylvia Plath (Virago, 1991, reissued 1996), States of Fantasy (Oxford University Press, 1996) and, as

editor and translator, Moutaphas Safouan, Jacques Lacan and the Question of Psychoanalytic Training, (Macmillan, 2000).

Performance and talk, 30 May 2003, in association with the Architectural Association

Allen S. Weiss has written and edited over 30 books, including The Aesthetics of Excess(SUNY); Perverse Desire and the Ambiguous Icon (SUNY); Mirrors of Infinity (PAP); Phantasmic Radio (Duke); Sade and the Narrative of Transgression (Cambridge); Taste, Nostalgia (Lusitania); Unnatural Horizons: Paradox and Contradiction in Landscape Architecture (PAP); Experimental Sound and Radio (MIT); French Food (Routledge); Breathless: Sound Recording, Disembodiment, and the Transformation of Lyrical Nostalgia (Wesleyan); Feast and Folly: Cuisine, Intoxication, and the Poetics of the Sublime (SUNY). He has recently directed Theater of the Ears, a play for electronic marionette and taped voice based on the writings of Valère Novarina, and is completing a book of short stories, The Aphoristic Theater. He teaches in the Departments of Performance Studies and Cinema Studies at New York University.

10 December 2002, in association with the ICA

Filmmaker Patrick Keiller - director of London (1993) and Robinson in Space (1997) - is currently AHRB Fellow in the Creative and Performing Arts at the Royal College of Art.
A lecture discussing his current work, which explores the development of urban and other landscapes since the end of the nineteenth century.

The talk was introduced by Colin MacCabe.