[Cwgrad-announcements] What's Left of Life?

Fri Feb 2 10:55:56 PST 2007

Dear Colleagues,
A friend of mine is organizing fascinating conference happening next
week in Berkeley-- I'm probably driving up there on thursday evening
so if anyone wants to tag a long for the drive and conference, let me
know.  (check out the beautiful poster and their website).
Also I have many books I don't need and if anyone wants them you're
pretty much welcome to them for 10 bucks. Let me know and I'll bring
them to the office on tuesday if someone wants them.
-a brand new, American Heritage still unwrapped Spanish-Englsih
dictionnary (but wait! there's more--if you buy today I'll throw in an
old dog-eared spanish synonym/antonym dictionnary)
-an American Heritage dictionnary (but wait! there's more-- buy today
and you'll also receive the Penguin Dictionnary of Australian
Slang--in case  you need one of your characters to be 120% authentic)
-Deleuze and Guattari's (brand new) Difference et Repetition (got it,
then got it as a gift it's a-ma-zing--some of my fave philosophers)
alright, do contact me off list.
over and out,
Gaby

"What's Left of Life?" Conference
February 16-17, 2007
Wurster Auditorium, UC Berkeley
www.whatsleftoflife.com

In the wake of recent public debates that question the efficacy and
relevance of university scholarship to social life, this conference
addresses problems that are literally a matter of life and death: ongoing
wars, genocides, epidemics, genomics, life extension technologies, assisted
reproduction, pharmaceuticals and potential stem-cell therapeutics.  By
bringing together scholars, public intellectuals, artists, biologists,
social scientists and filmmakers, this conference will approach the problems
raised by technologies of death and survival as inextricable from the
question of what counts as "life itself." It will provoke a serious
cross-disciplinary dialogue investigating the scientific, aesthetic,
political, historical, philosophical and ethical stakes when we ask: what's
left of life?  How is life defined and constituted, by whom, and in what
specific disciplinary contexts?  What kinds of tensions and contestations
take place under the sign of life?  What then is the relationship between
life and death, and in what ways are their demarcations undergoing profound
transformations in the world today?

This conference is generously sponsored by The Doreen B. Townsend Center for
the Humanities, The Critical Theory Initiative, The Division of the Social
Sciences, The Division of the Arts and the Humanities, The Graduate
Division, The Center for the Study of Sexual Culture, the Department of
Anthropology, the Department of Performance Studies and the Department of
Rhetoric.

Panelists:
David Bates - Rhetoric, UC Berkeley
Judith Butler - Rhetoric and Comparative Literature, UC Berkeley
Adele Clarke -  Sociology, UC San Francisco
Lawrence Cohen - Anthropology, UC Berkeley
Anna Furse – Performance Artist, London, England
Cori Hayden – Anthropology, UC Berkeley
Donna Jones - English, UC Berkeley
Sharon Kaufman - Anthropology, History, and Social Medicine, UC San
Francisco
Catherine Malabou - Philosophy, Université de Nanterre, Paris X
Paola Marrati - Humanities and Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University
Paul Rabinow - Anthropology, UC Berkeley
Joan Roughgarden - Biological Sciences, Stanford University
Nancy Scheper-Hughes - Anthropology, UC Berkeley
Susan Stryker - Filmmaker and Independent Scholar
Jennifer Terry - Women's Studies, UC Irvine
Charis Thompson - Rhetoric and Gender and Women's Studies, UC Berkeley

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Day 1: Friday, February 16th

1:00pm – 1:15pm

Introductory Comments:

        Jessica Davies – Department of Rhetoric, UC Berkeley
        Christopher Roebuck – Department of Anthropology, UC Berkeley

1:15 – 2:45

"Machine Thinking: Humans, Animals, and Robots, after Descartes"
        David Bates - Rhetoric, UC Berkeley

"Life Sciences, Public Goods"
        Cori Hayden – Anthropology, UC Berkeley

"All Our Eggs in Three Baskets: Donating, Selling, and Trafficking Women's
Eggs in the
                New Reproductive and Regenerative Sciences"
        Charis Thompson - Rhetoric and Gender and Women's Studies, UC Berkeley

Moderator: Jessica Davies - Department of Rhetoric, UC Berkeley

2:45pm – 3:00pm

Break

3:00pm – 4:30pm

"The King's Body, Queen's Member: State Sovereignty, Transsexual Surgery,
and Self-
                Demand Amputation"
        Susan Stryker - Filmmaker and Independent Scholar, San Francisco

"Surgery as Anthropology: The Afterlife of the Operation"
        Lawrence Cohen - Anthropology, UC Berkeley

Moderator: Christopher Roebuck – Anthropology, UC Berkeley

4:30pm – 4:45pm

Break

4:45 – 5:30

SCREENING: "The Glass Body" by Anna Furse - Performance Artist, London UK

        Discussant: Kelly Ann Rafferty – Department of Theater, Dance and
Performance
                Studies, UC Berkeley

5:30 – 6:30

Cocktail Reception – Wurster Auditorium

Day 2: Saturday, February 17th

9:30am

Breakfast Buffet – Wurster Auditorium

10:00am – 12:00pm

"Who is Alive?: The Troubled Biological Individual"
        Joan Roughgarden - Biological Sciences, Stanford University

"The Novelty of Life"
        Paola Marrati - Humanities and Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University

"Equipment: Ethics and Ontology"
        Paul Rabinow - Anthropology, UC Berkeley

Moderator: Nima Bassiri – Department of Rhetoric, UC Berkeley

12:00pm - 1pm

Lunch

1:00pm – 3:00pm

"The Tyranny of Longevity, the Option of Death and the Ethics of Obligation"
        Sharon Kaufman - Anthropology, History, and Social Medicine, UC San
Francisco

"Cooke's Bones: An American Morality Tale"
Nancy Scheper-Hughes - Anthropology, UC Berkeley

"What is There to Live For?: Biopolitics and the  Dystopic Vision of
Children of Men."
        Donna Jones – English, UC Berkeley

Moderator: Marques Redd – Department of English, UC Berkeley

3:00pm – 3:30pm

Break

3:30 - 5:00

"Biomedicalization, Healthscapes and Life Itself"
Adele Clarke - Sociology, UC San Francisco

"Traumatic Brain Injury: An Instance of the Mutual Provocations of Medical
Science and
Militarism"
        Jennifer Terry - Women's Studies, UC Irvine

"On Scar and Regeneration: The Phoenix, the Spider, the Salamander"
        Catherine Malabou - Philosophy, Université de Nanterre, Paris X

Moderator: Ben Lempert

5:30 – 6:00

Closing Comments:
        Judith Butler - Rhetoric and Comparative Literature, UC Berkeley

6:00- 7:30

Cocktail Reception – Wurster Auditorium

_________________________________________________________________
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