RMeS Seminar and Workshop: The Revolution of our Times (in cooperation with Sonic Acts Academy)

—*The streets in Hong Kong, October ’19. By Rick Dolphijn—

The Revolution of our Times
Political Action, Art, and the State of the Earth Today

With TJ Demos and other guests
Coordinated by Rick Dolphijn (Utrecht University) in cooperation with Sonic Acts Academy

When? 14, 20, 21, 22 & 23 February
Where? Utrecht & Amsterdam, see below
For? PhD Candidates and RMa Students
Credits?  2 ECTS
Registration

THE SEMINAR IS FULLY BOOKED, please send an e-mail to rmes-fgw@uva.nl with your name, university and research school. We will put you on our waiting list.

All the [2019] protests refer to each other
Mathilde Larrére

The year 2019 will be remembered for the many leaderless protests that erupted all over the world. In Hong Kong (most prominently), in Barcelona, in France, all over South America, in India, we saw a younger generation of citizens (university students and increasingly high-school students) taking it to the streets, to protest fearlessly against the political establishment and to autocratic rule. However, in line with climate strikes and demonstrations, this younger generation seems to call for a change quite fundamental; for the end of petrocapitalism and the end of the state as we know it. Occupying the city, its streets, its lives, their art incorporates the resistance and proposes the world to come.

In this RMeS seminar we will read several classical texts on civil disobedience (Thoreau), on eco-revolution (Marx) and on how these thoughts matter in our time (in respect to nature (Serres) to governance (Deleuze) and science (Stengers)). Additionally, We link this to the ideas of TJ Demos ad to the current developments in Hong Kong and elsewhere.

This seminar/workshop is open to ten graduate students and counts for 2 EC (attendance and a final (joint)paper). Apart from the two seminars and the workshop the ones enrolled are also invited to attend the roundtable discussion on these matters at the Sonic Acts Academy

Timetable:

Friday February 14 2020, Reading Seminar
University of Utrecht 11-14 (you can bring your lunch)
Kromme Nieuwegracht 80 (Ravensteynzaal) room 1.06

• Henry David Thoreau (1849) Resistance to Civil Government, or Civil Disobedience
• Henry David Thoreau (1845) Where I lived, and what I lived for (excerpt from Walden)
• Karl Marx (1858) Grundrisse Notebook v: The Chapter on Capital (continuation)

Thursday February 20 2020, Reading Seminar
University of Utrecht 11-14 (you can bring your lunch)
Drift 23 – room 113

• Michel Serres (1990) Natural Contract in the Natural Contract p.27-50
• Gilles Deleuze (1990) Postscript on Control Societies
• Isbelle Stengers (2015) The Intrusion of Gaia, Capitalism, Not Paying Attention

Friday February 21 2020, Workshop with TJ Demos and other guests
University of Amsterdam 11-14 (you can bring your lunch)
Room: UB – Potgieterzaal, Singel 425

• TJ Demos (2019) Climate Control, From Emergency to Emergence
• Read through the online library of the Hong Kong Free Press.

February 22 and 23 SONIC ACTS ACADEMY in Amsterdam with ROUNDTABLE (more to follow).
See: https://2020.sonicacts.com/?gclid=CjwKCAiAmNbwBRBOEiwAqcwwpdDspuZ3u7ROBNqp66Q4moSM3FGoHEprlvHB9VrOHZmtUjeUBSey6BoCMQ4QAvD_BwE