What does "the abnormal" refer to? How is our understanding of the term mediated by cultural, legal or religious practices, and institutions? What are the social, political, and historical implications of thinking in terms of norms? And finally, what is t
In Abnormal: Lectures at the Collège de France 1975-76, Michel Foucault traces the genealogy and conceptual power of "the abnormal," which he situates within a medical and a juridical discourse. As Arnold Davidson suggests, what Foucault succeeded in doing was to trouble the term's perceived natural and inevitable status. How, then, does the abnormal disrupt normative assumptions within our respective disciplines? What happens to seemingly stable and inherent categories when we think of them in terms of norms? And how has "the abnormal" evolved since Foucault?
CLIFF BRIEF PROGRAM
RACKHAM GRADUATE SCHOOL
EAST CONFERENCE ROOM
—FRIDAY MARCH 13TH, 2009—
KEYNOTE & RESPONSE (1 pm-3pm)
Keynote Speaker: Karma Lochrie, Professor of English, Indiana University.
Respondent: Valerie Traub, Professor of English, University of Michigan.
Panel 1: Looking Back: Reincarnations & Evolutions of the “Abnormal” (3:30 pm-5:30 pm)
What happened to the recalcitrant child? : Principles of Discontinuity in Foucault’s Abnormal Lectures
Delivered by: Brittany Murray, Northwestern University, Department of French and Italian
Title: Oops! I Wrote ‘Death’: Rainer Maria Rilke and the Accidentally Grotesque
Delivered by: Richard Pierre, University of Michigan, Department of Comparative Literature
Title: The Spectral Work of Art in the Age of Posthumous Production
Delivered by: Colligan, Craig, University of Michigan, Linguistic Anthropology
MARCH 14TH, 2009
10:00 am
BREAKFAST
Panel 2: Let’s Talk About Sex! Sexuality, Desire, and the Abnormal (10:30 am-12:30 pm)
Title: (from Abstract): Lacanian “Normalcy” and Robert Musil's Man without Qualities
Delivered by: Spencer Hawkins, University of Michigan, Department of Comparative Literature
Title: Abnormal Embodiment/Normative Sexuality? Or, How to Do Things With a Toe-Penis
Delivered by: Joanne Quimby, Indiana University, Department of Comparative Literature and East Asian Languages and Cultures
Title: (from Abstract): Djuna Barnes' Nightwood
Delivered by: Nicholas Chuha, University of Cincinnati
Panel 3: The Abnormal and Other Mobilities (1:30pm-3:30pm)
Title: Women’s Mobility in the Urban Space: Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and Eileen Chang’s Sealed Off
Delivered by: Mei-Chen Pan, University of Michigan, Department of Comparative Literature
Title: Making Subjectivity Matter: Escaping Appropriation and Choosing One's Own Success According to One's Conviction
Delivered by:Maria Hadjipolycarpou, University of Michigan Department of Comparative Literature
Title: Mental hygiene and the Roma Integration Project in Post-Socialist Hungary
Delivered by: Heather Tidrick, University of Michigan, Social Work and Anthropology
Title: The Criminal as a Social Norm: Narrative Voice in Plata quemada
Delivered by: Jennie Daniel, University of California, San Diego, Literature Department
Panel 4: Monsters, Cannibals, Robots: Fantasy and the Abnormal (3:45 pm-5:45pm)
Title: Assembly Line Humans and the Robot-Without-Organs
Delivered by: Christopher Meade, University of Michigan, Department of Comparative Literature
Title: (from Abstract): Literary and Cinematic Portrayal of the Abnormal in the Form of the Cannibal
Delivered by: Claire van den Broek, Indiana University, Department of Comparative Literature
Title: (from Abstract): Monsters and Monstrous Children: Politics of Materialism in Europe in the 18th Century
Delivered by: John Rowland, University of Michigan, Department of Comparative Literature
CLOSING REMARKS AND DINNER FOR PARTICIPANTS
