Join us for an in-person workshop at UNSW Kensington Campus.
We live in a time of endemic and rolling crises: plague, war, racialised and gendered violence, economic collapse, ecological catastrophe. Crisis is a common term but what exactly does it mean? When does one crisis end and another begin? Cenes are one conceptual tool for trying to make sense of the mess we’re in and they abound these days: Anthropocene (Crutzen and Boehmer), Capitalocene (Moore), Plantationocene (Tsing), just to name a few. A conjuncture refers to the particular contradiction within the social formation in periods of upheaval and unrest. Conjunctural analysis seeks to distinguish between the structural forces that condition a particular historical moment and the immediate forces that drive transformation. Naming and periodising the era in which we find ourselves has become an urgent task of critical scholarship in no small part because this naming is an act of diagnosis that shapes action in response.
In this research workshop, we will work together on how we might reckon with cene, crisis, and conjuncture. While we will discuss the meaning(s) and contestation(s) that surround these terms, we’ll also delve into the temporality and texture of this mess we’re in – and the political potential of critical theory for scholarship and activism. Our aim is to explore these terms in order to find ways to put them to use in order to intervene in the crises that confront us.
The workshop will take the form of an hour of short presentations on work-in-progress by Media Futures Hub researchers, followed by a two-hour discussion provoked by the readings and introduced by provocations from Andrew and Michael. The workshop will take place in person, followed by drinks for those who want to stick around.
Registration link here.