[Bilimsel Haber] ASCA International Workshop "Engaging Objects", Amsterdam, March 26-28, 2008

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

	*ASCA International Workshop "Engaging Objects", Amsterdam, March
26-28, 2008*

	

	

	

	

Engaging Objects
ASCA International Workshop, Amsterdam, March 26-28, 2008

Things in the world, objects of art and of everyday use, have functioned
as core referents in contemporary cultural theory. Since the “linguistic
turn”, technological devices and philosophical texts, dirty windows,
typewriter-erasers, and cyber-space, have been proposed and contested as
possible sites for re-encountering material reality. The 2008 ASCA
International Workshop is a space open to reflect on the methodological
nuances, theoretical consequences and political implications of engaging
objects within the humanities.

“Engaging Objects” refers to the object’s possibilities of seduction and
resistance, of compromise and failure. Objects engage researchers: they
attract our interest, involve us and position us as scholars in relation
to their cultural emergence. Similarly, while engaging with objects we,
as theorists, also produce them as objects of study. We further engage
with culture at large through artistic or mundane, actual or virtual
objects—they work as mediators of social relationships and as
translators between imaginary and lived culture. This sense of
engagement can be found in the root of the verb “to engage”. According
to the Oxford English Dictionary, a gage is “a valued object deposited
as a guarantee of good faith”, as well as “a pledge, especially a glove,
thrown down as a symbol of a challenge to fight”. Thus, engagement can
be understood as an object’s promise, its act of commitment or
provocation. The concept of engagement gains its sense metaphorically,
developing from a concrete action in which the object stands in for a
socially charged gesture. The mediatory role of objects may also be
abused, although objects are always already engaged with the world in
ways that exceed our scholarly framing of them.

The relationship between object and researcher is not only limited to a
metaphorical promise; it is also an actual intervention. “Engaging
Objects” is thus concerned with the act of engagement. This engagement
is not with the respective parties of a relation, but with the
relationship itself. “Engaging Objects” aims to investigate the politics
of relating within scholarly practices. Thinking of this relationship as
a site where the known and the knower are partly produced, we may focus
on the fractures, irregularities and inconsistencies that are
constitutive of our own production of knowledge today within fields such
as visual culture, literature, history, art, music, performance,
anthropology, theory, and politics.

These issues will be discussed in four panels:

# Engaging theory
This panel seeks to position theory as an object of study. In
considering theory as an object, its material aspects are brought to the
fore. Yet the material aspects of theory are not the same for scholars
across different disciplines or schools of thought. Post-structuralist
scholars, for example, might locate theory’s materiality in the actual
language used to construct abstract concepts. Their more
Marxist-oriented critics, however, might use the term “material” to name
the wider socio-cultural and political networks within which the
theoretical text is inserted. Creatively re-articulating these different
traditions may make our own engagements with theory more politically and
intellectually productive. This panel invites participants to think
through the metaphor of the “engaging object” in order to explore theory
as a literary text, as a cultural object, as a social promise and as a
political act.

# Sensory disruptions
Sensory perception is the primary way in which we encounter objects. The
senses are culturally conditioned, and each society tends to privilege
certain types of sensory engagement. Modernity has often been
characterized by the dominance of visuality, which posits a distant,
distinct and disembodied viewer, and as such is presumed to underlie
Western epistemology and theories of subjectivity. This panel seeks to
explore alternatives to this, arguably still prominent, mode of sensory
engagement. How can it be disrupted through the intervention of other
senses (as in haptic visuality)? What kinds of engagement do the other
senses, and their different interrelations, bring about? What
alternative relationships between the object and the researcher do they
generate (e.g. affective, ethical, erotic)? These questions imply a
change of sensibility that is both perceptual and conceptual. What are
the theoretical consequences of this shift from the visual to the aural,
the tactile, to kinesis and proprioception? What can be gained from
thinking synaesthetically? And, more generally, what art of knowing is
produced in this new, sensuous engagement?

# Bodily interventions
The living body has, as Crary and Kwinter (1992) state, a “menacing and
delirious concreteness” and serves as a complex and fascinating object
of study in cultural theory. Especially within academic research around
minority subjectivities (including queer and feminist theory, disability
and race studies), the body acquired an important role: it became a site
for alternative modes of knowledge production. This focus on
extraordinary forms of embodiment politicized certain traditions of
thought. But to the extent that specifically marked bodies might feature
as seductive and spectacular objects of study, it is essential to
reflect on the relationship between the shape of our theories and our
conceptions of embodiment. This panel further aims to explore how a
critical analysis of the “unmarked” (white, male, “standard”) body helps
to investigate the failures of cultural theory. Where are the
limitations of treating the body in theory as meaningful object? How do
particular cultural engagements with the body expose and/or expand the
boundaries of theory?

# Comparison engagée
No matter what discipline we work in, when we engage with our objects of
study, we are always involved in some form of comparison. With “parity”
at its etymological root, comparison is usually understood as a
methodology based on similarity and equality. But comparison is a
dangerous activity, one that often conceals universalist and
essentialist suppositions and whose terms are never neutral. To deal
with comparison in an engaged (engagé) way, it is important to reflect
on our terms of comparison. How do we decide on these terms and how do
we incorporate this decision process within the practice of comparison
itself? This draws attention to the necessity for scholars to
acknowledge their own role in positioning objects in relation to each
other and themselves. Is it possible to stand back and let objects
engage with each other, or is this engagement only possible through us?
If so, how does such a mediating role affect our research position? In
this panel, we would like to discuss ways of dealing with the politics
of comparison and to explore how and to what extent the objects we study
can affect both our terms and methodologies of comparative engagement.

This workshop is the latest in a series of ASCA International Workshops
and is inspired by the 2006-2007 ASCA theory seminar “Ways of Writing:
The Object Speaks Back”.

We welcome participants from any discipline. Please e-mail or send your
one-page proposal (300 words maximum) and a short biographical note *by
October 31, 2007* to the ASCA office: asca-fgw at uva.nl
or
Dr. Eloe Kingma, Managing Director
Oude Turfmarkt 147
1012 GC, Amsterdam
tel: +31 20 525 3874

Please indicate which panel theme (out of the four mentioned above) you
believe your proposal would best fit in.

Selected participants will be asked to send their 3000 words papers by
January 31, so that papers can be distributed among participants in
advance. To allow enough time for discussion, papers will not be read
during the workshop. Instead, participants are expected to give a 10
minute summary, relating their argument to that of their fellow panelists.

We are also looking for performances to be presented during the workshop
that are relevant to the workshop theme of “engaging objects”. Please
send a proposal (500 words maximum) indicating duration, number of
participants and technical requirements. We also require a sample of
your work (hard copy or electronic reference). Please send your
proposals *by October 31, 2007* to the ASCA office: asca-fgw at uva.nl
or
Dr. Eloe Kingma, managing Director ASCA
Oude Turfmarkt 147
1012 GC, Amsterdam
tel: +31 20 525 3874

Organizers: Paulina Aroch Fugellie, Tereza Havelkova, Jules Sturm,
Astrid Van Weyenberg

	Dr. Eloe Kingma (Managing Director)
Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis
University of Amsterdam
Oude Turfmarkt 147
1012 GC Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Phone: +31 20 525 3874
Fax: +31 20 525 4773
Email: asca-fgw at uva.nl <mailto:asca-fgw at uva.nl>
Visit the website at http://www.hum.uva.nl/asca