Students from the Theory, Culture, and Politics (TCP) graduate program at Trent will present an interdisciplinary graduate conference with the theme: Technology/Politics. The event will take place at Traill College on October 24 and 25.
Presenters at the conference are MA and PhD students from a diverse array of political theory, media theory, communications, and cultural studies programs at universities in Canada, United States, and the UK.
Graduate student panelists will be discussing a broad range of related themes, and conference panels will include: Drones, Digital Subjectivity, Print Media, Tools/Ideologies, Conditions, Bio/Technical Power, Transcendence, Intervention/Resistance, and Actual Expression.
The last time TCP put on a conference was the Noir Sensorium in 2010, and this year’s student organizers are hoping to galvanize the TCP program with their upcoming offering.
Organizers are excited to present Technology/Politics two keynote speakers, professors David Golumbia and Arthur Kroker.
Golumbia will open the conference on Friday at 9am, and will discuss themes from his book-in-progress, Cyberlibertarianism: The False Belief in Digital Liberation.
The closing keynote talk will be presented by Arthur Kroker on Saturday at 3:30pm, and will be based on his most recent book Exists to the Posthuman Future (2014).
David Golumbia teaches in the English Department and the Media, Art, and Text PhD program at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is the author of The Cultural Logic of Computation, more than two dozen articles on digital culture, language, and literary studies, as well as his blog, uncomputing.org.
Arthur Kroker is the Canada Research Chair in Technology, Culture and Theory, Professor of Political Science, and the Director of the Pacific Centre for Technology and Culture (PACTAC) at the University of Victoria.
He is the editor with Marilouise Kroker of the internationally acclaimed journal CTheory and Critical Digital Studies: A Reader. His recent publications include The Will to Technology and the Culture of Nihilism: Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Marx and Born Again Ideology: Religion, Technology and Terrorism.
In addition to the keynote presentations, Technology/Politics will feature three intimate working seminars and one multi-media artistic intervention led by faculty from Trent:
Davide Panagia: Datapolitik (Friday at 1:30pm)
Nadine Changfoot: Project Re*Vision (Friday at 4:30pm)
Veronica Hollinger: Humanity 2.0 (Saturday at 9am)
Liam Mitchell: Heidegger and New Media Determinism (Saturday at 10:45am)
The workshops are open to participation by Trent students who register by emailing a request to technologypolitics@gmail.com. Space in the workshops is limited, so organizers suggest interested students register soon in order to ensure opportunity to participate.
Attendees are encouraged to attend the Technology/Politics After Party on the night of Saturday the 25th at The Gordon Best Theatre, a no cover, licensed event that will include performances by local DJs, bands and visual artists.
The lineup features Fever, Commander Goznales, live film projections by Kelly Egan, Dauri Cems, Lester Alfonso (VJ), and an art installation by Love For Life Collective.
Look to the conference website, http://technologypolitics.ca, for more information and details on the conference.
You can also “like” Trent University: Theory, Culture & Politics on Facebook for more information and productive online discussions about theoretical, cultural, and political topics.
