Strategic Working Groups

Critical Theory || 2005

Is Critique Secular?
A day-long symposium hosted by the Critical Theory Initiative
October 19, 2007
9:30 am—5:30 pm | Geballe Room, Townsend Center, 220 Stephens Hall

Opening Remarks
Wendy Brown, Political Science

“Reflections on Blasphemy and Secular Criticism” || DOWNLOAD PDF
Talal Asad, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center,
Discussants: Judith Butler (Rhetoric) and Saba Mahmood (Anthropology)

“Psychoanalytic Critique, Secular or Otherwise?” || DOWNLOAD PDF
Amy Hollywood, Christian Studies, Harvard Divinity School
Discussant: Niklaus Largier, German

“Is Critique Secular?  Thoughts on Enchantment and Reflexivity” || DOWNLOAD PDF
Colin Jager, English, Rutgers University
Discussant: Chris Nealon, English

No formal presentation will be made of the papers so please read in advance.  PDF downloads are available above, and hardcopy is available at the Townsend Center. A collective discussion of each paper will be preceded by brief remarks from assigned UCB discussants.

The symposium is co-sponsored by the Townsend Center, the Mellon Fellowship in the History of Art, the Taubman Funds, the Center for Middle East Studies, the Maxine Elliot Funds, and the Departments of German and Comparative Literature.

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Update (04/07): In February 2007 the Graduate Division approved the new graduate Designated Emphasis in Critical Theory. Although Critical Theory has had a programmatic presence at UC Irvine, UCLA, and UC Davis, the Berkeley Designated Emphasis will be distinct not only for its interdisciplinary faculty, but also for its concern with both the historical formation of practices of critique as well as the contemporary salience of critical theory in a global context. In addition to Judith Butler and Martin Jay, co-directors of the Mellon Strategic Group in Critical Theory, Berkeley faculty who will teach in the new Designated Emphasis in Critical Theory include Wendy Brown, T.J. Clark, Nelson Maldonado-Torres, Anthony J. Cascardi, Pheng Cheah, Donna Jones, Niklaus Largier, John Lie, Saba Mahmood, José Davíd Saldívar, and Hans Sluga.

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In 2005, the Mellon Strategic Group in Critical Theory took as its first goal the design of a Designated Emphasis in Critical Theory. During the semester’s meetings, the participants read from texts that would constitute the course of a future graduate curriculum: Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, Adorno, Benjamin, Dussel, Talal Asad, and Paul Gilroy. Participants commented on this work and led conversations; out of these discussions, the group developed three goals:

• Establish a Designated Emphasis in the Graduate Division that will allow graduate students from a wide range of departments to specialize in Critical Theory. The DE will provide a regular curriculum including one course in 19th-century critical theory, one course engaging with the Frankfurt School in a comparative framework, and one course in contemporary critical theory, ranging from seminars on dissent and critique to considerations of Latin American critical theory. The DE will give students a firm foundation in the tradition of critique and allow them to explore its various articulations in different parts of the world, engaging with new global formations of knowledge.

• Develop an Institute for Critical Thought focusing on contemporary social questions regarding social criticism, forms of participatory democracy, religion and politics, and the form and validity of normative judgments within social theory. Eventually, the group hopes that the institute will be established as an organized research unit supporting faculty research seminars on contemporary issues that intersect with the traditions of critical theory. The group would work closely with the office of John Lie, Dean of International and Area Studies, to develop this goal.

• Help reanimate Berkeley’s Critical Studies Program in Paris. Working in conjunction with the Critical Theory programs already in place at Irvine and Davis, the group would develop a contemporary curriculum for undergraduates combining history, politics, and theory, including consideration of the “new Europe” and questions of immigration and belonging that have emerged in recent decades.

About the Group Members

Judith Butler, Maxine Elliot Professor in the departments of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature, writes extensively on issues in philosophy and in feminist and queer theory.  Her current projects include a set of essays engaged with grievable and ungrievable lives, war, politics, and the suspension of civil liberties. 

Martin Jay, Sidney Hellman Ehrman Professor of History,  has particular interests in European intellectual history and cultural criticism.  He is the author of widely known studies on the Frankfurt School, Adorno, and visual culture; his most recent book is Refractions of Violence.

Group organizers Butler and Jay were joined by Rakesh Bhandari (lecturer, Department of Rhetoric), Wendy Brown (Department of Political Science), Anthony Cascardi (Department of Rhetoric), Pheng Cheah (Department of Rhetoric), T. J. Clark (Department of Art History), Anne-Lise François (Department of English), Shannon Jackson (departments of Rhetoric and Theater, Dance and Performance Studies), Niklaus Largier (Department of German), John Lie (Department of Sociology and Dean of International and Area Studies), Saba Mahmood (Department of Anthropology), Nelson Maldonado-Torres (Department of Ethnic Studies), Christopher Nealon (Department of English), José Davíd Saldívar (departments of English and Ethnic Studies), and Hans Sluga (Department of Philosophy).