Thinking Things

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Comment by Lisa Mullen on October 22, 2014 at 12:03

Dear all,

We are pleased to announce the next Space/Things Group will be a joint screening of Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow (2010), a film of the work of Anselm Kiefer: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1414368/

To be held on Monday 10 November, from 6-9pm, in room 218, Birkbeck School of Arts, 43 Gordon Square.

Hopefully this will give people a chance to see the current exhibition of Kiefer's work at the Royal Academy before they see the film.

https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/anselm-kiefer

The group is open to all, so please do bring friends and colleagues. Wine and nibbles will be provided.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Best wishes,

Terri and Lisa

Comment by Lisa Mullen on August 11, 2014 at 19:30

Dear all,

We're very pleased to announce a combined Space / Things Group summer film screening on Monday 18 August 2014, at 6pm in Room 112, Birkbeck School of Arts, 43 Gordon Square.

The film is: The Battle of Algiers (1966) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058946/

Also available to download HERE is the chapter 'Colonial Spacing - Control and Conflict in the Colonial and Neocolonial City' from Ben Highmore's Cityscapes book about the film that people may want to read beforehand.

We hope you can make it and look forward to seeing you there.

Best wishes,

Terri and Lisa

Comment by Julie Warburton on July 23, 2014 at 9:51

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/jul/23/tools-of-protes...

disobedient objects

Comment by Lisa Mullen on March 24, 2014 at 18:01

Dear All,

The next Things Group session will be next Monday, 31st March, 6-7.30pm, in Room 112, Gordon Sq.

I'm delighted to say that it will be led by Julie Warburton, who will be presenting some thoughts which have grown out of her research into Walter Benjamin and the culture of neon. Below is a link to Julie's summary of what we might discuss - please note that there is no mandatory reading for this session.

Hope to see you there!

best wishes

Lisa

Here's the link:
Neon, Atoms and the Cut of Things

Comment by Lisa Mullen on February 26, 2014 at 16:09

Dear all

The next Things Group session will be next Monday March 3, 6-7.30pm, in Room 317, Gordon Square.

This is the postponed session which fell foul of the tube strike, and we'll be discussing the idea of clothes as things - both as objects with exchange value, and as cultural agents with their own thingly agenda.
The primary reading is a chapter from Jonathan Faiers's new book Dressing Dangerously: Dysfunctional Fashion in Film, in which he looks at film noir trenchcoats and mackintoshes in films such as Dial M for Murder, Seven Days Till Noon and The Lost Weekend, as well as musing on pawnshops and second hand clothes. He references both Baudrillard and Marx, so I thought we might also like to think about Peter Stallybrass's famous essay on Marx's overcoat and fetishized commodities - but that's sort of an optional extra.

The Faiers chapter is here
And the Stallybrass is here

See you on Monday!

Lisa

Comment by Julie Warburton on February 3, 2014 at 16:01

Can't remember if I have already posted this - never mind. Also, it is on Dandelion events so some of you may have already seen it??

https://dandelionnetwork.org/events/cfp-holding-things-in-common-the...

Comment by Bruno Roubicek on January 25, 2014 at 12:11

Dear All,

"Moving From I to It"

I'm performing in a new play by Tim Etchells: "Moving From I to It" at Tate Modern on Thursday. Details in the link above. It's part of a series of new books and performances exploring Object/Subject relations. Thought it may be of interest.

Comment by Lisa Mullen on January 25, 2014 at 11:16

Dear all

Many thanks to Jen for forwarding this CFP for a conference on things in detective (and related genre) fiction. Looks interesting!

Detecting Objects: The Material Item and Detective Fiction

University of Portsmouth UK, 12 June 2014

Keynote speaker: Dr Janice Allan, University of Salford

http://www.port.ac.uk/centre-for-studies-in-literature/literature-e...
Pioneering works in the field of ‘thing theory’ such as Bill Brown’s A Sense of Things: The Object Matter of American Literature (2003) and Elaine Freedgood’s The Ideas in Things: Fugitive Meaning in the Victorian Novel (2006) have sought to reconceptualise the roles of objects in fiction, moving beyond Marxist conceptions of the commodity and seeing material items not as weak metonymies, but as tellers of obscured histories. Yet the focus of such explorations has tended towards a focus on canonical realism and the ways in which such texts invite us to concentrate on subjects at the expense of objects. This symposium considers the ways in which objects have always been of crucial importance to the popular genre of detective fiction, as either clues, weapons, or as other embodiments of history. We welcome proposals on any aspect of the reading of objects in detective fiction (and related genres such as the sensation novel and crime fiction) from the nineteenth century onwards.

Potential topics for proposals include (but are not limited to):

The material object as clue or detective
The material object as weapon or victim
Deconstructions of the animate/inanimate in detective fiction
Detective fiction as material object: book and publication history
Detective fiction and materialism
The material manifestations of detective/crime fiction fan cultures
Proposals of no more than 300 words and a brief CV should be sent to Dr Christopher Pittard at [email protected], by 28 March 2014.

Comment by Lisa Mullen on January 25, 2014 at 11:15

Dear all

I'm planning three meetings of the Things Reading Group this term; the dates are as follows

Wednesday 12 Feb, Room B02 Gordon Square
Monday 3 March, room TBC
Monday 31 March, room TBC

I'm very happy to say that Julie has offered to lead the session on March 31st, when she'll be discussing some of the thingly topics arising from her current research on neon - more details to follow nearer the time.

If anyone would be interested in leading one of the other sessions, perhaps suggesting a reading and/or discussing their own work, then please get in touch. Otherwise, I will circulate reading for the 12 Feb meeting at the beginning of next week.

I thought it might be good to show and discuss a film for one of the sessions, which was an idea that was mooted last term. Please let me know any suggestions you have - left to me, it will inevitably be something Midcentury!

Hope everyone is well and look forward to seeing you next month.

best wishes

Lisa

Comment by Julie Warburton on December 2, 2013 at 22:42

http://monoskop.org/log/?s=timothy+morton

his views not necessarily my views… morton book download

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