2023 Summer Semester Bauhaus Guest Professor is Political Theorist Jane Bennett
Each year, the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar announces a new Bauhaus Guest Professor. For the 2023 summer semester, the university will have the privilege of hosting Professor Jane Bennett, who is the Andrew Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, with appointments in the Department of Comparative Thought and Literature and also in the Department of Political Science. The focus of Bennett’s work lies in political theory; her research interests include ecological philosophy, political thought in the United States, political rhetoric and belief, and contemporary social theory.
She is one of the founders of the political theory journal »Theory & Event« and was the editor of »Political Theory: An International Journal of Political Philosophy«. Professor Bennett is Affiliate Professor of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen, and has held fellowships at Oxford University (Keble College), the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities (University of London) and at the Humanities Research Centre of the Australian National University. She was a senior fellow at the International Research Institute for Cultural Technologies and Media Philosophy (IKKM) in 2017 from April to June, where she carried out research for the »Über das Einwirken« project. Her works include Influx and Efflux: Writing up with Walt Whitman (2020); Vibrant Matter (2010); and The Enchantment of Modern Life (2001).
»We are so excited to have Prof. Jane Bennett for a second time at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar; she is an outstanding representative of contemporary philosophical debate. In our current times, her on-site work will surely not only revitalise the discourse in Weimar, but also enrich it with valuable new perspectives«, says Bauhaus-Universität Weimar President Peter Benz.
Prof. Bennett hopes to engage with students and the university public during her time as Bauhaus Guest Professor. She will be in Weimar from 23 May to 7 June 2023 and will be holding a number of lectures and workshops together with doctoral candidates from the Graduiertenkolleg Media Anthropology (GRAMA). The events will take place exclusively in English.
Events
Lecture on 24 May 2023, 7 to 8:30 pm, Oberlichtsaal, Main Building of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
»The Expression of (Ecological) Vitality: Thinking with Paul Klee, Len Lye, and Jordan Tierney«
Hybrid Workshop (GRAMA plenary session) on Thursday, 25 May 2023, 2 to 5:30 pm
Prof. Bennett’s »Tangled Efforts and Middle-Voiced Verbs.« in: Voss/Engell/Othold: Anthropologies of Entanglements. Bloomsbury 2023 (forthcoming) will be discussed, along with the chapter »The Intertwining/The Chiasm« from The Visible and the Invisible by Maurice Merleau-Ponty.
Those wishing to attend can register by e-mailing: christiane.lewe[at]uni-weimar.de
Lecture on 31 May 2023, 7 to 8:30 pm, Oberlichtsaal, Main Building of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
»The Efficacy of the Sparse: Zhuangzi and Lucretius in Times of Ecological Crisis«
Hybrid Workshop (GRAMA plenary session) on Thursday, 1 June 2023, 2 to 5:30 pm
Chapters 2, 3 and 4 from Prof. Bennett’s book Influx and Efflux: Writing up with Walt Whitman. Duke University Press 2020 will be discussed.
Those wishing to attend can register by e-mailing: christiane.lewe[at]uni-weimar.de
For questions, please contact Viola Baser, Academic Affairs and Appointments Advisor, via e-mail to viola.baser[at]uni-weimar.de or by phone at +49 (0) 3645 581117.