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The Graduate Certificate Program in Critical Theory is pleased to host Dr. Martin Shuster for a two-day critical theory event. We invite all interested faculty and  graduate students to join us for an exciting lecture on Thursday Feb 21st and for a engaging seminar-style discussion on Friday Feb 22nd.

Martin Shuster is Assistant Professor, Director of Judaic Studies, and a faculty member in the Center for Geographies of Justice, at Goucher College. He is an accomplished philosopher and interdisciplinary scholar whose research and teaching interests span philosophy, Judaic studies, religion, genocide studies, media studies, and critical theory. He is the author of New Television: the Aesthetics and Politics of a Genre  (University of Chicago Press, 2017) and Autonomy after Auschwitz: Adorno, German Idealism, and Modernity (University of Chicago Press, 2014)

Thursday February 21, 2019 at 5:15pm (McKenna 112)

Public lecture: The Newness of New Television: Ontology, Storytelling, and the World

This talk will examine the aesthetic and political significance of ‘new television’ (the plethora of new television series like The Sopranos, Mad Men, The Wire, and many others), and will argue that the sorts of aesthetic objects these shows present (their ontology) and the ways in which they tell their stories (their storytelling) places them into broader debates around aesthetic modernism. The talk will conclude with a brief consideration of how such a placement helps us understand the political character of new television. Light refreshments will be provided.

Friday February 22, 2019 at 3:15pm-5pm (Macky 230)

Seminar session: Dialectic of Enlightenment

After a brief presentation, Dr. Shuster will lead a seminar-style discussion of Adorno and Horkheimer’s classic text, Dialectic of Enlightenment, and its standing as a fundamentally post-Kantian text, intimately concerned thereby, as many such texts in this tradition, with the philosophical theme of apperception. Seminar texts will also include selections from Sigmund Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle, as well as recent commentary by Shuster and Owen Hulatt. This event is open to CU faculty and graduate students. For electronic copies of the readings, please email lauren.stone@colorado.edu

Reception to follow

The Center for Western Civilization, Thought and Policy funds research and educational initiatives that contribute to critical reflection on the development of Western civilization. All CU Boulder faculty and students are eligible to apply. If you are interested in applying for a CWCTP faculty grant, deadlines are rolling throughout the year.