Plasticity: Catherine Malabou Reading Group and Seminar
Wednesday, October 4, 18; November 1, 15, 21, 2017, 7pm
SFU, Vancouver and 221A
This reading group is closed to registered participants only. Two public events with Catherine Malabou are posted at the bottom of this page.
French philosopher Dr. Catherine Malabou, best known for her work on plasticity, has forged new connections across such fields as philosophy, neuroscience and psychoanalysis and their fundamental entanglements with cultural, political and social life. Working with post-structuralist and post-critical methodologies, she addresses the work of philosophers Kant, Hegel, Freud, Heiddeger, and Derrida. Her writing engenders a reconsideration of keywords and foundational concepts such as subjectivity, affect, gender, sex, feminism, neoliberalism, sovereignty, justice, and trauma, to name a few.
This fall Catherine Malabou will be visiting Vancouver in conjunction with the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery exhibition, The Beautiful Brain: The Drawings of Santiago Ramón y Cajal from September 5-December 3. In advance of her visit, the Belkin Art Gallery is partnering with SFU Galleries, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement, and 221A to host a reading group that will focus on a selection of her recent essays. The sessions will culminate in a seminar lead by Dr. Malabou.
This reading group is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Space is limited and a commitment to the five sessions is necessary. We strongly encourage participants from diverse disciplines, with diverse abilities, to participate. To register please send a brief email introducing yourself and your interests, and confirm your commitment to the schedule to malabou@221a.ca by September 15. The syllabus will be posted on all of the participating organization's websites.
Dr. Malabou will also deliver a public lecture, Empty Square v. Evolutionary Memory: The New Adventures of Signs on November 23, and a keynote address at UBC's Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health's 20th Anniversary Symposium on November 25.
Plasticity is co-presented by SFU Galleries, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement and 221A. The reading group coincides with 221A's inaugural season of the Pollyanna Library, which will support a new artistic program of fellowships dedicated to the production of cultural, ecological and social infrastructures, through a space that acts as a research collection and events venue.
Catherine Malabou's visit is part of the French Scholars Lecture Series made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the Embassy of France in Canada in partnership with the UBC Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, with additional support from the Audain Endowment for Curatorial Studies in the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory at UBC.
Public Events
Catherine Malabou: Empty Square v. Evolutionary Memory: The New Adventures of Signs
Thursday, November 23, 6pm
Liu Institute for Global Issues, 6476 NW Marine Drive, UBC
SYMPOSIUM: 20 Years of Brain Health: An Anniversary Symposium
Keynote Speakers Catherine Malabou and Karl Deisseroth
Saturday, November 25, 1pm
Jack Poole Hall, Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre, 6163 University Boulevard, UBC
