Theorizing is an experimental forum for thinking through literature, philosophy, and culture beyond disciplinary boundaries.

Founded and organized by students at the University of Pennsylvania since 1996, Theorizing is a non-profit lecture series. The programis coordinated by graduate students in Penn's Program in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory. Our coordinators for 2011-2012 are Kate Aid, Avi Alpert, Alison Howard, Kristen Meylor, Robin Seguy, and Maya Vinokour.

Our series is made possible by the generous support of the Program in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory and our many generous departmental and institutional co-sponsors.

Anne Anlin Cheng
Naked Fugitivity

Anne Anlin Cheng is Professor of English and African American Studies at Princeton University. Professor Cheng's talk is co-sponsored by the Asian American Studies Program, the English Department, the Center for Africana Studies, and the Program in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory.

François Rastier
Between philology and hermeneutics: from the document to the work [oeuvre]

François Rastier is professor in Linguistics at CNRS, Paris. His talk is co-sponsored by Cinema Studies, the English Dept, French & SASGov. The talk will be in English.

Branka Arsic
Shocking Experience: Thoreau on Sound

Professor Arsic will discuss Thoreau's critique of music in general, and opera in particular. She will also discuss connections between Thoreau and critical theories of music in Adorno and Lacoue-Labarthe. Finally, she will pose some reflections on Thoreau's relationship to musical practice in the work of John Cage.

Alex Galloway
Ten Theses on the Digital (François Laruelle & the One)

Alex Galloway is a visiting professor in Cinema Studies.

Daniela Bini
Carlo Michelstaedter Today: The Burden of Truth and the Proliferation of Rhetoric

Inspired by Michelstaedter’s distinction between rhetoric, defined as the fossilized form of concepts, and persuasion, the perfect coherence of ideals and actions, Professor Bini (University of Texas, Austin) will debate the current status of the so-called “crisis of language” and investigate the possibility of authenticity.

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