Law & Event: November 11-12

What a terrible week. I’ve had little time to work on anything remotely related to proximities this week, due primarily to a family emergency. I hope you’ll bear with me.

I’m posting now to call your attention to an exciting conference to be held on Sunday, 11/11 and Monday, 11/12 at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York City. Its title is Law & Event and promises much productivity. As you may have guessed, the conference is organized around the work of Alain Badiou and its relevance (or not) for legal studies and social theory. Below you’ll find the list of papers to be delivered. Some of our top law & humanities scholars will be presenting, as will Badiou himself.

In case you need some more convincing, I’ll remind you that it was at just such a conference in the 1990s (hosted by Cardozo Law) that Derrida presented one of his most important pieces: “Force of Law: The ‘Mystical Foundation of Authority’.”

The conference will be held at 55 Fifth Avenue (5th & 12th), and admission is free.

Sunday, November 11

10.00: Opening Remarks

10.05 – 11.15: Alain Badiou (Paris) Ambiguities of Transgression: Three Ways of Denying Law

11.30 –1.00: A: Amorous Particulars (Chair, J.Schroeder)

Jamieson Webster (N.Y. Psy.). Love and Shame: Philosopher & Analyst
David Lichtenstein (Apres Coup). Repetition and the New
Dimitra Panopoulos (Paris). The Partisan of the Universal

11.30 – 1.00: B: Set Theory and Religion (Chair, D. Carlson)

Robert Hockett (Cornell). Set Theory as Weltanschauungsform: From “the Structure of Thought” (and “World”) to the Ethos of Wise Law & Policy
Kirk Junker (Dusquene). The Mathematical Irony of the Civil Law
Bill Widen (Miami). Forcing Analogies: Badiou, Set Theory and Models

2.30 – 4.00: Negative Events (Chair, A. Sebok)

Bruce Hay (Harvard). Being 314: Ontology, Ethics, Pi
Tracy McNulty (Cornell). The Event of the Letter: Two Approaches to the Law and its Real
Anton Schutz (Birkbeck). Otherwise than Negative Theology: Alain Badiou, Rudolph Sohm, and the Form « Church »

4.30 – 6.00: Late Politics, Slow Laws (Chair, J. Jenkins)

Zartaloudis (Birkbeck). Ars Inventio, Poietic Laws
Pether (Villanova). Militant judgment? Judicial ontology, constitutional poetics, and “the long war”
Salecl (LSE & Ljubljana). The nature of the “event” in late capitalism?

Monday, November 12

10.00 – 11.30: Politics and Fidelity (Chair, Panu Minkkinen)

Simon Critchley (New School). Why Badiou is a Rousseauist or, if not, why he Should Be
Adam Gearey (Birkbeck). Counting, Speaking, Hearing: Politics, Ontology, Language
Gabriel Riera (UIC). Fidelity and the Law: Politics and Ethics in Badiou’s Philosophy

11.45 – 1.15: Monsters and Others (Chair, M. Slaughter)

Alain Pottage (LSE) La bioethique monstrueuse: vital politics and juridical form
Talia Morag (Sydney) When truth do us part – Alain Badiou’s theory of Objectivity
Pierre Legrand (Paris 1). On Badiou’s Cousin (And Other Others)

2.15 – 3.45 pm: Nocturns (Chair, M. Rosenfeld)

Gabriela Basterra (NYU). Signifying and Witnessing the Event: Levinas, Badiou
Bruno Bosteels (Cornell). The Force of Non-Law: Alain Badiou’s Theory of Justice
Igor Stramignoni (LSE). Badiou’s Nocturnal Jurisprudence

4.00 — 5.30: Untimely Events (Chair, O. Pfersman)

Emily Apter (NYU). Laws of the 70’s: Badiou’s Revolutionary Untimeliness
Tatiana Flessas (LSE). Immortal Objects: The Event-Horizon of Cultural Property

Closing remarks. Alain Badiou.

Hope to see you all there!