[Peace] Sept. 11 panel

[C. G. Estabrook]

UIUC Unit for Criticism
Colloquium Series

"Has Anything Changed?
Critical Theory after 9/11"
a panel discussion with:

Behrooz Ghamari, History & Sociology, UIUC
Jim Hansen, English, UIUC
Susan Hegeman, English, University of Florida
Philip Wegner, English, University of Florida

September 11, 8:00 pm Levis Faculty Center

Background readings:
All readings available on library electronic reserves.

Buck-Morss, Susan. Ch.2 Critical Theory and Islamism. Thinking of Past 
Terror: Islamism & Critical Theory on the Left. NY: Verso, 2003.

Postone, Moishe. "History and Helplessness: Mass Mobilization and 
Contemporary Forms of Anticapitalism." Anticapitalism, Xenophobia, 
Imperialism. Public Culture 18:1. Duke UP, 2006.

Simpson, David. "Introduction: Taking Time." 9/11: The Culture of 
Commemoration. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2006.

****

On the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade 
Center and Pentagon, the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory is 
organizing a panel discussion to ask: Has anything changed? This 
question is meant to stimulate thinking about both the geo-political 
order and the state of critical theory in the wake of 9/11. Have 9/11 
and its aftermath created a cultural, political, and/or economic 
rupture? Have critical theorists, broadly defined, responded adequately 
to the changing global landscape? Are new critical and theoretical tools 
needed to understand and intervene in the post-9/11 world? Or are our 
inherited theories of globalization and empire, culture and imperialism, 
and race, gender, and class adequate to the current conjuncture? How 
does talk of the “death of theory” intersect with the post-9/11 context? 
Does theory still have a role to play in orienting political critique 
and cultural practice? What emerging forces and dynamics are essential 
to address in theory as well as in practice?