The Old Plantation, circa 1785-1795, via Wikimedia Commons

Conference Program

Click on the paper title to view the abstract.
A complete list of the abstracts can be downloaded here.
The program can be downloaded here.

Friday (Rockefeller Institute, 411 State Street)

9:00 - 9:30            Coffee / Breakfast
9:30 - 9:45            Opening Remarks
9:45 - 11:15          Panel 1: Sovereignty and Aesthetics
                                Walter Johnston, Williams College
                                "Achilles' Marble Heel: Anaesthetic Autonomy in Kleist's                                                      Penthesilea"
                                 Craig Carson, Adelphi University
                                "Sovereign Spectacles: From Monarchy to Liberal Democracy"                                            
                                  Anjuli Raza Kolb, Williams College                                                                 
                                 "A So-Called Viral Sovereignty: Global Health, International Law, and Figures of Speech"                                                                                      
11:15 - 11:30       Coffee                                                                                                                    
11:30 - 1:00          Panel 2: Human Rights
                                Jon Mandle, University at Albany
                                "State Sovereignty and Human Rights"
                                Kristen Hessler, University at Albany
                                "Maternal Mortality as a Human Rights Issue"
                                Kamiar Alaei, University at Albany
                                "A Human-Rights Based Approach to Health"
1:00 - 2:00            Lunch
2:00 - 3:30            Panel 3: Derrida and the Death Penalty
                                Katie Chenoweth, Princeton University
                                "Everybody Must Get Stoned: Calculating the Death Penalty with Derrida"
                                Kir Kuiken, University at Albany
                                "'Bidding Up' on the Question of Sovereignty: Derrida Between Kant and Benjamin"
                                David Wills, Brown University
                                "The Future Anterior of Blood"
3:30 - 4:00            Coffee
4:00 - 5:30            Keynote Address: Gregg Lambert, Syracuse University
                                "On the Principles of Vitalpolitik: Between 'Raw' and 'Cooked' Capitalism"

Saturday (Downtown Campus, 135 Western Avenue, 200 Milne)

9:00 - 9:30            Coffee
9:30 - 9:45            Opening
9:45 - 11:15         Panel 4: Unsettling the Body Politic
                                Asma Abbas, Bard College at Simon’s Rock
                                "Provincializing Sovereignty; Or, Why I Must Always Look Up the Meaning of Sovereignty"
                                Barbara Sutton, University at Albany
                                "Clandestinity, Abortion, and Women as 'Bare Life'"
                                Fanny Söderbäck, Siena College
                                "Rethinking Sovereignty through Transnational Surrogacy"
11:15 - 11:30       Coffee
11:30 - 1:00          Panel 5: Rethinking Agamben
                               Kathleen Biddick, Temple University
                                "Messianic Archives: Agamben among the Medieval Rabbis"
                                Richard Barney, University at Albany
                                "Bio-Economic-Politics, or, the Logic of Revolutionary Sovereignty"
                                Kevin Attell, Cornell University
                                “Sovereignty on Trial”
1:00 - 2:00            Lunch
2:00 - 3:30            Keynote Address: Kalpana Seshadri, Boston College
                                "Resituating Sovereignty: Toward a Posthuman Economics"
3:30 - 4:00            Coffee
4:00 - 5:30            Concluding Roundtable

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