2013 Winter School: Acts to Ground: On the Politics of the Humanities
Laborie, Paarl, Western Cape, 1-19 July 2013 (retreat 8-12 July)
Convenors: CHR, UWC; SARChI Chair in Social Change, University of Fort Hare; Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change (ICGC), University of Minnesota
Following from the 2012 Winter School, and arising from the recurring demand that the humanities address themselves to the political, this Winter School centred around the dual concepts of “grounding/ground” and “acting/act,” which need to be philosophised, theorised and thought around considerations of their limits and constraints, as well as around considerations of their possibilities in relation to debates about the meaning of politics and political society in the contemporary world.
The retreat, which was held in Paarl in the Western Cape, lies at the heart of the Winter School, and was organised around presentations on the themes and the central theoretical concepts pertinent to the debate on the politics of the humanities. These included:
- The Political Unconscious of the Humanities
- Visual Cultures and the Humanities
- Techne and Aesthetics
- The Politics of Humanistic Inquiry
- Culture and Society
All participants in the 2013 Winter School were asked to read Michel Foucault’s, The Courage of Truth (Lectures at the College De France, 1983-1984) (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
