Friday, October 6, 2023 | 10 am – 5 pm
3335 Dwinelle Hall
The study of elements (air, water, and land) is at the center of intersecting discourses (posthuman and anticolonial) in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Climate change and the COVID pandemic have made it urgent to address the ways in which these elements might inform our analyses of bio- and necropolitics, while helping us imagine alternative relationalities.
Please join us for a day-long symposium on the elements, with Mario Telò (Organizer; Rhetoric, Comparative Literature, Ancient Greek and Roman Studies), Shane Butler (Johns Hopkins), Sharad Chari (Geography), Anne-Lise François (English), Sean Gurd (UT Austin), Louise Hornby (UCLA), Salar Mameni (Ethnic Studies), James Porter (Rhetoric, Irving Stone Chair in Literature), Alex Purves (UCLA), Debarati Sanyal (French), Jean-Thomas Tremblay (York University), and Victoria Wohl (University of Toronto, Sather Professor), Dora Zhang (English and Comparative Literature).
Programming Information:
10 AM – 1 PM
1. WATER
Alex Purves (UCLA), “Water/Color”
Sharad Chari (UC Berkeley), “Gramsci at Sea: The Storm”
Jean-Thomas Tremblay (York University, Toronto), “Infrastructures of Sabotage”
2. EARTH, STONE, AND FIRE
Salar Mameni (UC Berkeley), “Terracene”
Sean Gurd (UT Austin), “Fire, Breath, and the Social Pathology of Metaphors”
Victoria Wohl (University of Toronto, Sather Professor), “The Writing of Stone”
2:15AM – 5:15PM
3. FEMINIST ATMOSPHERES
Louise Hornby (UCLA), “The Weather and Suicide”
Mario Telò (UC Berkeley), “Flushy Atmospheres”
Jim Porter (UC Berkeley), “Bespaloff’s Elementality”
4. AIR, BREATH, AND ASHES
Anne-Lise François (UC Berkeley), “Winds, Tides, Exhalations”
Shane Butler (Johns Hopkins), “First Atmosphere: Ashes”
Admission Information:
3335 Dwinelle is ADA-accessible. Please view this website for more details about accessing Dwinelle Hall. If you require an accommodation for effective communication (ASL interpreting/CART captioning, alternative media formats, etc.) or information about campus mobility access features in order to fully participate in this event, please contact Victoria Jaschob at victoriajaschob@berkeley.edu with as much advance notice as possible and at least 7-10 days in advance of the event.
Co-sponsored by the Rhetoric Department and the Center for Interdisciplinary Critical Inquiry.