InterCcECT

Theory works concentrically, theory works linearly, and most of all it works obliquely.

Join InterCcECT for a seminar with very special guest Professor Alexander Galloway, sharing work in progress on philosophy, art, and angling:

This paper considers the diagonal line as a technique within thought. Inherently formal and spatial, if not also graphical, the diagonal or oblique line has played any number of important roles: from the diagonal of the unit square (which nearly destroyed Pythagoreanism and, later, played an important role in Plato’s “Meno”), to the clinamen or oblique swerve in Lucretius, to the modern intervention of Georg Cantor’s “diagonal argument” (where in 1891 he demonstrated that the real numbers are uncountable), to Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s postmodern “machine,” defined as a diagonal that cuts through an assemblage. What does it mean to think and act “on the bias”?

(rsvp to interccect@gmail.com to receive the paper the week before)

Alexander R. Galloway is a writer and computer programmer working on issues in philosophy, technology, and theories of mediation. Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University, he is author of several books on digital media and critical theory, including Uncomputable: Play and Politics in the Long Digital Age (Verso, 2021).

Tues 27 September

4pm

UIC University Hall 1850

601 S Morgan St, 18th floor

(Blue Line: UIC Halsted)

For reasons of both pleasure and overwork, humanities nerds often long to upload archives directly to our brains — but does the fantasy go the other direction? When will tech host the first uploaded human mind? What are the frontiers of AI and their consequences for mental labor (of academic stripes and otherwise)? How does science fiction work out hypotheses about the human and the machine?

InterCcECT is delighted to host an in-person miniseminar with special guest Professor Gerry Canavan to probe these weird frontiers. We’ll read this short story (composed in the form of a wikipedia article), along with “Bioethics and Transhumanism,” a recent article by Allen Porter.

Join us Tuesday 9 November, 4pm, at UIC, University Hall Room 2028 (20th floor, 601 S Morgan St; Blue Line: UIC Halsted).

Contact us for PDFs.

As always, InterCcECT welcomes proposals for workshops, reading groups, field trips, and more.

How can theology enrich the historicization of race and racialization? Find out at a special session with Professor Adam Kotsko! We’ll read the chapter “Modernity’s Original Sin: Toward a Theological Genealogy of Race” from his new collection What is Theology? Christian Thought and Contemporary Life, out now from Fordham University Press. Contact us for PDFs.

Join us Tuesday 28 September, 4pm, at Sheffield’s Beer and Wine Garden (outdoors; CTA Belmont on Red, Brown, Purple lines).