Events

How much work does it take to make art seem effortless, the laboring body absent? Works By attempts to answer this question by bringing together four Chicago-based artists who share an interest in the many meanings of “labor.” The centerpiece of the exhibition is a floor drawing by Tony Lewis, performatively produced on site. A sculpture by Devin T. Mays features pallets collected during his wanderings around Chicago’s South Side. Erased: (Unrelated), a 2012 photograph by Bethany Collins, captures a cloud of chalk dust released into a black void—the remnants of the word “unrelated” repeatedly written on a blackboard and then erased. A large photo by Ellen Rothenberg depicts a work boot; another captures a giant lump of crumpled paper that was once a Barbara Kruger mural. The fruits of these artists’ labors will be on view from May 1 (International Workers’ Day) through July 14 (Bastille Day)—two dates that commemorate landmark events in the history of the working class.

Curated by Dieter Roelstraete.

Ecological Thought and Practice Across the Disciplines

THIS IS AN IN-PERSON EVENT AND WILL NOT BE LIVE STREAMING.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

Ecology has become a subject of increasing concern among social and natural scientists in Japan as a result of climate change and disaster management. At the same time, the trend toward specialization of fields in university programs has made it rare for researchers in the social and natural sciences to meet and share ideas, let alone work together in the field. This symposium responds to this dilemma by creating a space for dialogue concerning ecology between the natural and social sciences in Japan. Drawing inspiration from thinkers such as Imanishi Kinji, whose research and writings bridged practice and theory, this group aims to develop an interdisciplinary conversation on topics related to ecology and the natural environment in Japan. To this end, the symposium brings together researchers from the social sciences and natural sciences.

PROGRAM SCHEDULE

Friday, May 10 | 10:00 am-5:30 PM | Venue: Joseph Regenstein Library, Room 122 (1100 E. 57th Street, Chicago, IL 60637)

[A reception will be held upon the conclusion of the event and will be open to all registrants]

PHOTOGRAPHY/VIDEOGRAPHY

Please note that there may be photography taken during this educational event by the University of Chicago Center for East Asian Studies for archival and publicity purposes. By attending this event, participants are confirming their permission to be photographed and the University of Chicago’s right to use, distribute, copy, and edit the recordings in any form of media for non-commercial, educational purposes, and to grant rights to third parties to do any of the foregoing.

2024 LAUREN BERLANT 3CT GRADUATE STUDENT CONFERENCE

Friday, May 10, 10:00am–6:00pm
Saturday, May 11, 10:00am–4:30pm

KEYNOTE PRESENTATION: JODI DEAN

Capitalism, endowed with remarkable elasticity and propagandistic power, is a mode of production whose drive aims to devour the planet, subsuming all other forms of life under its logic. It tolerates no antagonistic other alongside itself. However, it is also the first economic form that is unable to stand alone, without a non-capitalist outside as its necessary lifeline: surplus populations, speculative non-market spheres, unpaid labor, the precariat, economies of waste, carceral extraction, money markets, and technoeconomic platforms are only a few illustrative realms.

As Rosa Luxemburg argued more than a century ago, the uneven relation between capitalist and non-capitalist formations is not merely a prerequisite for capital’s genesis but an essential condition for its ongoing accumulation and maturation. Capital draws life from the erosion of its very sine qua non. As it rides varying vectors and velocities, one fraction of capital might undermine the endurance of another, if not interrupt its own conditions of possibility altogether (Gidwani, 2008; Wark, 2019). Capitalism, thus, finds itself in chronic exertion against entropy.

From the viewpoint of such contradictions and excesses, as matters of inner determination (Mészáros, 2012; Saito, 2022) and systematic necessity, how has capitalism’s outside been reconfigured, and what has it come to extrude in the world today? How does it bear upon twenty-first-century capitalist logic, social relations of production, and attendant ideological workings? Given especially shifts in the labor market, ecological rifts on massive scale, phenomena like “cloud capital” (Varoufakis, 2023) and “bullshit jobs” (Graeber, 2018), how can the various manifestations and pressures of capital’s necessary excesses be theorized? Has capitalism perfected its modus operandi, managing so well its own fallout, that it has begun to morph beyond itself? Are we amid fundamental shifts in capitalist regimes of value and their profit-driven logic? Or is this yet another stage of an ever-aging capitalism?

Visit the event page on 3CT’s website for the full conference schedule.

Organized by Hadeel Badarni, Arwa Awan, and 3CT with support from the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture; the Pozen Family Center for Human Rights; the Committee on Environment, Geography, and Urbanization; and the Department of Political Science.

This event is free and open to the public,and registration is recommended.

Speakers: Bryan Garcia (PhD Student, Mark Sheffield Lab, UChicago); Michelle Miller (PhD Student, Brent Doiron and David Freedman Lab, UChicago)

Ecological Thought and Practice Across the Disciplines

THIS IS AN IN-PERSON EVENT AND WILL NOT BE LIVE STREAMING.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

Ecology has become a subject of increasing concern among social and natural scientists in Japan as a result of climate change and disaster management. At the same time, the trend toward specialization of fields in university programs has made it rare for researchers in the social and natural sciences to meet and share ideas, let alone work together in the field. This symposium responds to this dilemma by creating a space for dialogue concerning ecology between the natural and social sciences in Japan. Drawing inspiration from thinkers such as Imanishi Kinji, whose research and writings bridged practice and theory, this group aims to develop an interdisciplinary conversation on topics related to ecology and the natural environment in Japan. To this end, the symposium brings together researchers from the social sciences and natural sciences.

PROGRAM SCHEDULE

Saturday, May 11 | 10:00 am- 12:00 PM | Venue: Franke Institute for the Humanities, located inside the Joseph Regenstein Library (1100 E. 57th Street, Chicago, IL 60637)

PHOTOGRAPHY/VIDEOGRAPHY

Please note that there may be photography taken during this educational event by the University of Chicago Center for East Asian Studies for archival and publicity purposes. By attending this event, participants are confirming their permission to be photographed and the University of Chicago’s right to use, distribute, copy, and edit the recordings in any form of media for non-commercial, educational purposes, and to grant rights to third parties to do any of the foregoing.

Friday I’m in Love tells the story of Numbers Nightclub, a historic gay disco and alternative music venue in Houston, Texas. The documentary celebrates a legacy of acceptance through events like the AIDS crisis, police brutality against LGBTQ communities, and the rise in hate crimes during the ’80s and ’90s.

Following the screening of the film, there will be a panel discussion with the filmmaker Marcus Pontello, a former Numbers DJ, and Professor Kristen Schilt (Sociology). 

Doors open at 5:30pm / Screening begins at 6:00pm at the Screening Room (201) at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts (915 East 60th Street). This event is free and open to the public.

Presented by the Ethnography Incubator, the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, and the Society for Social Research at the University of Chicago.

How much work does it take to make art seem effortless, the laboring body absent? Works By attempts to answer this question by bringing together four Chicago-based artists who share an interest in the many meanings of “labor.” The centerpiece of the exhibition is a floor drawing by Tony Lewis, performatively produced on site. A sculpture by Devin T. Mays features pallets collected during his wanderings around Chicago’s South Side. Erased: (Unrelated), a 2012 photograph by Bethany Collins, captures a cloud of chalk dust released into a black void—the remnants of the word “unrelated” repeatedly written on a blackboard and then erased. A large photo by Ellen Rothenberg depicts a work boot; another captures a giant lump of crumpled paper that was once a Barbara Kruger mural. The fruits of these artists’ labors will be on view from May 1 (International Workers’ Day) through July 14 (Bastille Day)—two dates that commemorate landmark events in the history of the working class.

Curated by Dieter Roelstraete.

Supreet Kaur, UC Berkeley
Topic: TBA