Rethinking Poetics
Rethinking Poetics Conference
*Columbia University, NYC
June 11-13, 2010
Announcing the Columbia-Penn Poetics Initiative.
We are convening a three-day conference at Columbia (June 11-13, 2010),
"Rethinking Poetics." It is our sense that the practices of poetics are in
danger of becoming pro forma and that a focused, skeptical examination of
basic assumptions will be most useful. Terms continue to be used routinely
in circumstances that increasingly call for nuanced or even fundamental
change. What does "materiality of the signifier" mean in the era of data
mining or platform instability? What does "news" mean? How useful are
current periodizations? Such questions can be multiplied.
Given that new questions need to be raised and old certainties troubled, our
goal is to have a conference dedicated to articulating what most needs to be
rethought, what familiar formulations seem increasingly inadequate, what new
directions seem best to pursue.
In order to allow for time for substantial conversation, we are scheduling
no multiple panels and no plenaries; rather, there will be a series of
plenary-panels, two in the morning and two in the afternoon, with four or
five speakers each taking 10-12 minutes for themselves, leaving half the
session for more general discussion. There will be a panel chair to moderate
discussion, but there will be no introductions.
Participants will include Rachel Zolf, Rodrigo Toscano, Jennifer
Scappettone, Brent Hayes Edwards, Lytle Shaw, Juliana Spahr, Kenny
Goldsmith, Erica Hunt, Alan Golding, Monica de la Torre, Andrew Schelling,
Bruce Andrews, Michael Taussig, Joan Retallack, Rachel DuPlessis, K. Silem
Muhammad, Jena Osman, Craig Dworkin, Elizabeth Willis, Barrett Watten, Rob
Fitterman, Jonathan Skinner, Marjorie Perloff, Sherwin Bitsui, Mark Nowak,
Judith Goldman, C. S. Giscombe, Steve Evans, Stephanie Young, Lisa
Robertson, Paul Stephens, Rob Halpern, Jeff Dirksen, Ben Friedlander, Joshua
Clover, Michael Taussig, Astrid Lorange, James Livingston, Jeff Nealon,
Richard Doyle, Tan Lin, Tonya Foster, Matthew Hofer, John Melillo, Susan
Howe, and Charles Bernstein.
Conference costs for the 3-day conference are $50/university faculty,
$20/student & unaffiliated; $10 1-day entrance.