[ecrea] Public conference 'New Materialism: Naturecultures'

Public conference 'New Materialism: Naturecultures' with LeineRoebana 
and opening of art exhibition 'Companion Sculptures'



On 7 April, 2011 the Centre for the Humanities at Utrecht University 
organises a conference around Donna Haraway's concept 'naturecultures'. 
Apart from scholars (from all around the world) who will rewrite 
Haraway's concept in various practices, dance company LeineRoebana will 
perform fragments of recent work expressing a similar problematics. The 
concepts given rise to (through dance) will be elaborated upon by the 
choreographers themselves. On the same day the art exhibition 'Companion 
Sculptures' opens which brings together the scholarly work of Donna 
Haraway and the artistic production of sculptor Piet van de Kar. Several 
sculptures will be on display in the buildings around Drift in Utrecht. 
Donna Haraway, one of the most significant science, technology and 
culture scholars in the world, will be visiting the Centre for the 
Humanities at Utrecht University from 4 to 14 April (see 
http://www.uu.nl/faculty/humanities/NL/Actueel/nieuws/ 
Pages/20110218-donna-haraway.aspx).

The conference takes place in the Nicolaï Church, Nicolaaskerkhof 8, 
Utrecht from 9:30 to 17:00 on April 7, 2011. All lectures and 
discussions are plenary events.

Participation is free of charge. Please register via (cfh /at/ uu.nl) with 
subject 'Conference Materialisms'.
For more information: please contact (I.vanderTuin /at/ uu.nl) or (R.Dolphijn /at/ uu.nl)


CONFERENCE
One of the conceptual innovations stirred by debates in contemporary 
cultural theory that want to rewrite the linguistic turn concerns 
'naturecultures'. This concept is created by Donna Haraway in The 
Companion Species Manifesto (2003) in order to write the necessary 
entanglement of the natural and the cultural, the bodily and the mind, 
the material and the semiotic, et cetera. 'Naturecultures' offers us an 
important route to rewrite these modernist oppositions in such a way 
that rather than representing parts of the world, a transcription with 
the world is being proposed. Concepts thus do not capture or mirror what 
is 'out there', but are fully immersed in immanence. 'Naturecultures' 
rewrites not only femininity but in the end all subversive material 
practices as an ethical break through of for instance 
phallologocentrism. Karen Barad would call this 
'ethico-onto-epistemological'.

This conference uses 'naturecultures' as a point of departure. We intend 
to study conceptual innovation in contemporary cultural theory from 
seemingly different 'disciplinary' and 'paradigmatic' angles in order to 
demonstrate how similar movements in thought are at work in the emerging 
paradigms of what we call a 'new materialism', but what is also referred 
to as a post-humanism, an agential realism, and of which traces can be 
found in many contemporary intellectual movements that traverse 
philosophy, the humanities and the natural sciences.


Programme:

Morning Sessions: Rick Dolphijn (chair)
9:30-10:00		Introduction: Dr. Iris van der Tuin (UU)

10:00 - 10:45	Playing Cat's Cradle with Companion Species: 
Naturecultures-in-the-making
			Prof. Donna Haraway (UCSC)
10:45 - 11:00	Respondent: Dr. Cecilia Åsberg (Linköping University)

11:00 - 11:45  	"Originary Humanicity": Rethinking Anthropocentrism
			Dr. Vicki Kirby (UNSW)
11:45 - 12:00	Respondent: Prof. Rosemarie Buikema (UU)

12:00 - 13:00	Performance by LeineRoebana (featuring Heather Ware and 
Tim Persent)
			With a discussion between Andrea Leine and Dr. Rick Dolphijn

Lunch break (not provided)

Afternoon Sessions: Iris van der Tuin (chair)
14:15 - 14:45	'Open life'? Embodied data and devices in the making of 
bio-digital materialism
			Dr. Adrian MacKenzie (Lancaster University)
14:45 - 15:15	Media Milieus, or Why Does Nature Do It Better?
			Dr. Jussi Parikka (Anglia Ruskin University)
15:15 - 15:30	Q&A

15:30 - 16:00	Vocalities as environmental rhythmics on a nature-culture 
continuum: Rethinking voice studies with new materialism
			Dr. Milla Tiainen (Anglia Ruskin University)
16:00 - 16:30	'Civilizing' Modern Abstractions? A.N. Whitehead and the 
Importance of Religious Vision
			Melanie Sehgal (Potsdam University)
16:30 - 16:45	Q&A

16:45 - 17:00	Closing: Prof. Rosi Braidotti (UU)

Reception and opening of exhibition 'Companion Sculptures'


LEINEROEBANA
During the conference LeineRoebana, the modern dance company of Andrea 
Leine and Harijono Roebana, will "dance theory" and comment on several 
important concepts raised in their recent work (the mind-body problem, 
Otherness, the earth) posed to them by dr. Rick Dolphijn. The dances 
will be performed by Tim Persent and Heather Ware, who was recently 
awarded the Gouden Zwaan for the most impressive dance performance of 2010.


COMPANION SCULPTURES
The public exhibition 'Companion Sculptures' brings together the 
scholarly work of Donna Haraway and the artistic production of Piet van 
de Kar. The project entails the exhibition of several sculptures of Van 
de Kar in the buildings around Drift in Utrecht.


ORGANIZATION
The conference is organised by Dr Iris van der Tuin and Dr Rick 
Dolphijn. The first 'New Materialism' conference, organized by Dr. Jussi 
Parikka and Dr. Milla Tiainen, took place in June 2010 at Anglia Ruskin 
University/ CoDE in Cambridge, the UK. This second conference is an 
initiative of the Center for the Humanities, the Graduate Gender 
Programme, and the Department of Media and Culture Studies, all located 
at the Faculty of Humanities of Utrecht University. It is funded by 
these three partners, as well as by the Netherlands Organisation for 
Scientific Research, the Posthumanities Hub (Tema Genus, Linköping 
University), the Center for the Study of Digital Games and Play (Utrecht 
University), and the Research Institute for History and Culture (Utrecht 
University).
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