[Nettime-nl] UvA 4/5 juni: The Debt Drive

[Geert Lovink <geert@xs4all.nl>]

-- The Debt Drive --

University of Amsterdam, June 4-5.
PC Hoofthuis 104, Spuistraat 135

Sponsors: ASCA, NICA, Sandberg Institute

Organizers: Joost de Bloois, Robin Celikates, Aaron Schuster

Since 2008, debt and speculation have emerged as key concepts for
contemporary cultural and political theory. The global crisis has not only
impacted the wider fields of politics and culture, but has equally shaken
the critical vocabulary we use to scrutinize these. 'The Debt Drive'
explores the many ways in which 'debt' and 'speculation' have restructured
contemporary theory. What drives debt? How do debt and speculation affect
subjectivity? How does debt forge and undo (inter)subjective relationships?
In all its ghostliness, is debt opposed to the real? 'The Debt Drive'
gathers some of today's major theorists on 'debt', 'speculation' and 'drive'
and their political and cultural significance. The conference focuses on
'the debt drive' as a key instrument for contemporary governmentality and
its cultural and theoretical ramifications. The conference will address debt
and speculation as a mode of production: as the drive behind cognitive
capitalism, but equally as a mode of cultural production; the peculiar
relationship between art and speculation; the minutiae of debt's seeming
hostility towards autonomy. Moreover, 'The Debt Drive' investigates the
crucial role played by debt's affective dimension: is there such a thing as
the debt drive? Can we speak of speculative desire? Can the debt drive be
transformed into its antipode: communist desire? How does the debt drive
relate to neoliberal affect, such as depression, anxiety and mania, and on
which (affective) resources could a political response to it build?

Program:

June 4:

10-11hrs: Mladen Dolar (University of Ljubljana, Jan van Eyck Academy): The
Quality of Mercy is Not Strained
11-12hrs Discussion

12-13hrs lunch

13-14hrs: Samo TomÅiÄ (Humboldt University Berlin): The Capitalist
Discourse: from Marx to Lacan
14-15hrs Discussion

15-16hrs Eric Santner (University of Chicago): The Weight of All Flesh: On
the Subject-Matter of Political Economy
16-17hrs Discussion

17-18hrs Round Table

June 5:

10-11hrs Jodi Dean (Hobart and William Smith Colleges): Debt and
Subjectivity
11-12hrs Discussion

12-13hrs lunch

13.00-14 hrs Marina Vishmidt (Art Critic, London): 'Less Than Nothing to
Sell: From Living Labour to Living Currency to Default'

14-15hrs Discussion

15-16hrs Alexei Penzin (Russian Academy of Sciences Moscow, Chto Delat):
When There's No Time: An Ontological Hypothesis for 24/7 Capitalism
16-17hrs Discussion

17-18hrs Round Table



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