The Johannesburg Workshop in Theory and Criticism

A workshop at University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 5–15 July 2009

You are invited to apply for a place in the 2009 session of the Johannesburg Workshop in Theory and Criticism.

The JWTC was founded in 2008 as a place for experimenting with theory from the perspective of a global South. It invites participants from across the academic and intellectual world to a creative and critical event at the intersection of theory, politics and aesthetics.

The programme will span 10 intensive days of lectures, seminars, public events, exhibitions and performances. It will also include explorations of Afrometropolitan Johannesburg.

Our audience is a new generation of local and international scholars who locate their work beyond the old model of area studies; are willing to challenge naturalized conventions of interpretation and are eager to bring about a renewed dialogue among the disciplines with a view to a transformed critical landscape.

We encourage to apply both faculty and senior post-graduate students in the humanities, social sciences, and critical studies in law, media, health, medicine and technology.

Building on rich historical traditions of subversive counter-readings in Africa and elsewhere, the goal of the JWTC is to contribute from the Southern Hemisphere to a reappraisal of theory and criticism and to the de-provincialization of intellectual praxis.

The 2009 theme ‘Rethinking the Political Under Late Capitalism’ will bring together a range of top scholars, artists and activists to reflect on the nature of contemporary politics, including:

• Achille Mbembe
  University of the Witwatersrand
  Democracy and the Ethics of Mutuality
• Jean Comaroff
  University of Chicago
  The Politics of Faith
• John Comaroff
  University of Chicago
  The Politics of Law
• Adi Ophir
  University of Tel-Aviv
  What Is the Political?
• Ariella Azoulay
  Bar Ilan University
  The Civil Contract of Photography
• Ackbar Abbas
  University of California at Irvine
  Aporias of the Chinese Socialist Capitalist Economy
• David Theo Goldberg
  University of California at Irvine
  De-Militarizing Society
• Michael Hardt, Jeremy Cronin, Ashwin Desai and Prishani Naidoo
  The End of Neo-Liberalism?
• William Kentridge
  The Politics of Aesthetics After Apartheid
• Shalini Randeri
  University of Zurich
• Peter Geschiere
  University of Amsterdam
  The Paradoxes of Community and Belonging
• Sarah Nuttall and Isabel Hofmeyr
  University of the Witwatersrand
  Culture of Politics After Apartheid

Also including Thomas Blom Hansen, Kamari Clark, Franco Barchiesi, Kelly Gillespie, Julia Horberger, Andile Mngxitama, Steven Robins, Phillip Bonner, Noor Nieftagodien, Zackie Achmat, and others.

The deadline for applications is April 20, 2009. Admissions to The Workshop are announced on May 1, 2009.

Tuition fees have been broken down in sliding categories in order to insure a financial scheme that accommodates global resource inequities.

Visit www.jwtc.org.za for more information and application forms.