Upcoming Events
The 2nd Annual PAL Young Scholars Workshop - Writing is Thinking: Writing as a Way of Life in the Academy
Friday, April 8th
Perkins Library 217
10am - 12pmA 2-part writing series and workshop sponsored by the Center for Philosophy, Arts and Literature (PAL), The Thompson Writing Program and the Graduate School at Duke University.
This 2-part writing event and workshop in spring 2011 is designed to help graduate students and new PhDs in the humanities and social sciences with the perennial problems of crafting research topics and writing in a sustainable (and pleasurable!) manner. The two-part event and workshop is the 2nd annual PAL workshop for younger scholars. It will provide a unique opportunity for young scholars at Duke to develop their craft and to get inspiration for their future life of writing and thinking. Two day-long sessions will be held – on Friday 28th January and Friday April 8. Each day will be divided into two parts: the morning event, which will be free and open to the public; and the afternoon workshop, which will be limited to 15 participants (already chosen).
On Friday April 8, Dr. Joan Bolker, author of Writing Your Dissertation in 15 Minutes A Day will conduct the second session of this program, beginning with a talk that will be free and open to the public, followed by a workshop and individual conversations with the 15 students who participated in January. Those among the 15 who wish ongoing consultation may arrange to do that via email.
Dr. Bolker is a clinical psychologist who specializes in working with writers. She has helped hundreds of doctoral students and many academic writers at other stages in their careers. She has taught writing at several colleges, cofounded the Harvard Writing Center and consulted to physicians and scientists writing at the MDAnderson Cancer Center.
Participants in the two-part afternoon workshop have been chosen. (Applications were due November 15th, 2010)
See photos from PART I of The 2nd Annual PAL Young Scholars Worshop here.
Also, check out the March Graduate School Newsletter to read the text of Professor Toril Moi's "Writing as a Way of Life in the Academy" presentation from Part I.
Simone de Beauvoir Now: A Symposium to Mark the 25th Anniversary of Simone de Beauvoir's death
Co-sponsored by PAL and the Department of Women's Studies, Duke University
An All-Day Symposium
Friday September 23, 2011
Women's Studies Parlors, Duke UniversityConfirmed Speakers:
Emily Apter (French, New York University)
Stella Sandford (Philosophy, Kingston University, UK)
Ursula Tidd (French, University of Manchester, UK)
Linda Zerilli(Political Science and the Center for Gender Studies, University of Chicago)Respondents:
Nancy Bauer (Philosophy, Tufts University)
Toril Moi (PAL; Literature, Duke University)There will also be two graduate students/young scholars panels featuring exciting new voices speaking on Beauvoir
Ongoing Events
PAL FORUM
Meets two or three times a semester on Tuesdays at 7pm: Informal discussions, readings, and/or presentation of work in progress. Usually catered.
Future Events
Keep checking back for more information!
Past Events - Photos
THE 2nd ANNUAL PAL YOUNG SCHOLARS WORKSHOP PART I
Writing is Thinking: Writing as a Way of Life in the Academy
A 2-part writing event and workshop sponsored by the Center for Philosophy, Arts and Literature (PAL), The Thompson Writing Program and the Graduate School at Duke University.
This 2-part writing event and workshop in spring 2011 is designed to help graduate students and new PhDs in the humanities and social sciences with the perennial problems of crafting research topics and writing in a sustainable (and pleasurable!) manner. The two-part event and workshop is the 2nd annual PAL workshop for younger scholars. It will provide a unique opportunity for young scholars at Duke to develop their craft and to get inspiration for their future life of writing and thinking. Two day-long sessions will be held – on Friday 28th January and Friday April 8. Each day will be divided into two parts: the morning event, which will be free and open to the public; and the afternoon workshop, which will be limited to 15 participants (already chosen).
On Friday January 28, The open event will include short presentations by Nancy Bauer (Tufts University), Sarah Beckwith (Duke University), Toril Moi (PAL), Kristen Neuschel (Thompson Writing Program), Bernard Rhie (Williams College) and Aaron Sachs (Cornell University), focusing on two key themes: writing as thinking, and writing as a way of life in the academy. All are welcome.
THE TURN TO AFFECT: A CRITIQUE
a lecture by Ruth Leys, Henry Wiesenfeld Professor of Humanities, Johns Hopkins University
Tuesday, January 25, 2011, 5:30pm
Franklin Humanities Institute Garage
C105, Bay 4, Smith WarehousePresented by Expression/Performance/Behavior, the 2010-11 Franklin Humanities Institute Annual Seminar & the Center for Philosophy, Arts, and Literature.
Ruth Leys is Henry Wiesenfeld Professor of Humanities at Johns Hopkins University, with a joint appointment in the Department of History. Throughout her career she has been interested in different aspects of the history of the life sciences, especially the neurosciences, psychoanalysis, and psychiatry. She has analyzed the early history of the reflex concept, a defining concept for the modern neurosciences (From Sympathy to Reflex: Marshall and His Critics). She has edited what is arguably the most important correspondence between the two leading figures in twentieth-century American psychiatry and psychology, Adolf Meyer and Edward Bradford Titchener (Defining American Psychology: The Correspondence Between Adolf Meyer and Edward Bradford Titchener). She has critically examined the history of the modern concept of psychic trauma from its origins in the work of Freud to recent discussions by Shoshana Felman, Cathy Caruth, and others (Trauma: A Genealogy). She has explored the post-World War II vicissitudes of the concept of “survivor guilt” and its recent displacement by notions of shame, focusing on the recent contributions to shame theory by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick,, Giorgio Agamben, and others (From Guilt to Shame: Auschwitz and After). She is presently working on a book on the post-war history of experimental and theoretical approaches to the study of the emotions, with a special emphasis on the philosophical issues at stake in the competing cognitivist and neo-Darwinian paradigms of the emotions.
In this talk, Professor Leys will argue that the recent turn to affect in the humanities and social sciences is marred by untenable assumptions about the absence of intention, signification and meaning in affect. She will also suggest that, in denying the role of intention and meaning in affect, the new Deleuze-inspired affect theorists make common cause with today’s affective neurosciences, which likewise mistakenly tend to separate emotion or affect from cognition and meaning. In the course of her paper, Leys will work through some of the neuroscientific experiments that play a strategic role in recent writings on affect and will reflect on the general theoretical, political and other implications of the recent turn to affect. Her talk will be of interest to scholars and students in the humanities, social sciences, and neurosciences, including philosophers, literary critics, historians, cultural theorists, anthropologists, and others.
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MORAL UNDERSTANDING AND ANIMAL SENTIENCE IN LITERATURE AND FILM
November 16, 2010 - PAL co-sponsored a symposium from 5:00-7:30pm in C105, Bay 4, Smith Warehouse. Presented by Expression/Performance/Behavior, the 2010-11 Franklin Humanities Institute Annual Seminar with the Center for Philosophy, Arts, & Literature (PAL). Lecturers included Professor Sharon Cameron (Johns Hopkins) and Professor Raimond Gaita (King’s College, London).
BEYOND CRITIQUE: READING AFTER THE HERMENEUTICS OF SUSPICION
September 10, 2010 - PAL hosted a symposium followed by a reception in Duke’s Rare Book Room in Perkins library from 2p.m. - 6:30p.m. Speakers included: Rita Felski (English, University of Virginia Charlottesville), Sharon Marcus (English, Columbia), Stephen Best (English, Berkeley), Katherine Hayles (Literature and English, Duke). Respondent: Toril Moi (Literature, Duke).
ANNUAL REPORT 2009-2010
REALISM, MODERNISM, PHILOSOPHY: A SYMPOSIUM ON THE VISUAL ARTS
March 4-5, 2010: PAL was privileged to be able to host an event with Fredric Jameson (Duke), Michael Fried (Johns Hopkins University) and Robert Pippin (University of Chicago), where these superb scholars both presented their work and engaged in conversation about art, art history and philosophy.
PAL VISITING SCHOLAR
Spring, 2010: Christine Hamm (Nordic Studies, Bergen) Christine Hamm, born 1971, is associate professor at the Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies at the University of Bergen, Norway. She regularly teaches courses in literary theory, gender studies and Scandinavian literature. She has published a book on the novels of marriage written by the Norwegian naturalist writer Amalie Skram, which is mainly inspired by Stanley Cavell’s work on melodrama. She has also coedited a collection of articles that include queer-readings of literary texts. Her current project focuses on motherhood in Sigrid Undset’s writings.
YOUNG SCHOLARS WORKSHOP
February 19-20, 2010: PAL hosted a workshop for young scholars working on ordinary language philosophy in relation to literature and other arts, or in relation to more general problems in the humanities. The workshop brought together young scholars (graduate students, recent Ph.Ds and junior faculty) from Duke and from other universities. The workshop aimed to inspire and support exciting new work, and to build a national and international community of scholars in the field. We hope to make this an annual event. Participation in the workshop was by invitation only. Unfortunately budget constrictions made it impossible for PAL to invite a larger audience to the workshop. See the list of the participants HERE and photos of the event HERE.
A.S. BYATT
On October 15, 2009, PAL co-sponsored the visit to Duke by British writer A.S. Byatt, who gave a free public reading. Dame Antonia was also at the National Humanities Center on October 16, 2009, where she appeared in conversation with Professor Toril Moi. See photos of both events HERE.
STANLEY CAVELL
On October 12, 2009, Stanley Cavell gave PAL's inaugrual lecture, "Exceprts from Memory" in the Nasher Museum of Art Auditorium. The lecture was based on the concluding part of his autobiography to be published next year. On October 13, 2009, Cavell gave a seminar, which was an open discussion where Professor Cavell welcomed questions on any aspect of his work. See photos of both events HERE. Find audio and video recordings of the lecture HERE.
WORKING GROUP ON ORDINARY LANGUAGE PHILOSOHY AND THE AESTHETIC
In 2007/08 the working group, organized events with Tim Gould (Denver Metropolitan University); Nancy Bauer (Tufts University) and Sandra Laugier (University of Amiens, France), and with Richard Fleming (Bucknell University). In 2008/09, the Working Group decided to focus on Wittgenstein, and invited Professor Fleming, the author of First Word Philosophy: Wittgenstein-Austin-Cavell and co-editor of The Senses of Stanley Cavell, to return to Duke to give three week-end long seminars entitled "Philosophical Investigations Remark by Remark." See photos of our final party HERE.
