Theory Colloquium

The Theory Colloquium is a co-led graduate student organization that seeks to broaden the ongoing discussion of critical theories of literature, gender, race, and power. It is particularly interested in expanding the theoretical discourses surrounding these cultural domains and their intersections, and hosts a series of speakers each year, each of who shed new light on the meaning and uses of “Theory.” Past invited speakers for the Theory Colloquium include Joan Copjec (Brown) and Rey Chow (Duke). Our upcoming series on “Race, Memory, and Aesthetics” will focus on the work of Asian American scholars who theorize genealogies of imperialism, and attend to the far-reaching implications of racial melancholia and the politics of mourning. The keynote speakers for this series are David Eng (U Penn) and Sunny Xiang (Yale). For more information on the 2023-24 events or to get involved, please contact Paola Del Toro, Eliana Rozinov, or colloquium advisor Paul Nadal.

Upcoming Events

Theory Colloquium
Apr 4, 2024, 12:30 pm

This talk contemplates the ripple effects of a seemingly bizarre episode in American history: the years of U.S. martial law in the territory of Hawai‘i when all residents were required to carry a gas mask. I frame U.S. gas mask policies between 1941-1945 as a means of habituating Hawai‘i civilians to militarized rule rather than as an…

Location
East Pyne 010

Past Events

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Theory Colloquium
Feb 7, 2024, 4:30 pm

Asian Americans are conventionally described as “middle-man minorities,” outside of dominant racial paradigms of white and Black, adjunct to white privilege and exempt from the brunt of systemic violence directed against Black people. Historical accounts trace the origins of the in-betweenness of Asian Americans to the…

Location
East Pyne 010
Speaker
2023 - 2024
Theory Colloquium
Mar 6, 2023, 4:30 pm

Joan K. Copjec is an American philosopher, theorist, author, feminist, and prominent American Lacanian

Location
East Pyne 111
Speaker
2022 - 2023
Theory Colloquium and East Asian Studies Program
Oct 27, 2021, 4:30 pm

Professor Chow will discuss her recent book, A Face Drawn in Sand: Humanistic Inquiry and Foucault in the Present (Columbia University Press, 2021), with follow up discussion with the author.

Register: 

Location
Virtual--requires registration. See registration link below.
Speaker
2021 - 2022
Theory Colloquium--CANCELED
Mar 5, 2020, 4:30 pm

This event has been canceled.

Location
Speaker
2019-2020
Theory Colloquium
Apr 23, 2019, 4:30 pm

Avicenna and the Aristotelian Left: A Q&A Discussion

Reception in the Thorp Library to follow talk.

Location
Hinds Library (Room B14), McCosh Hall
Speaker
2018-2019
Medieval Colloquium and Theory Colloquium
Mar 13, 2019, 4:30 pm

Old English Scribbles: The Intersection of Materiality and Performativity

Reception in the Thorp Library to follow talk.

Location
Hinds Library (Room B14), McCosh Hall
Speaker
2018-2019
Theory Colloquium
Dec 5, 2018, 12:00 pm

Meaning in Context

Location
Hinds Library (Room B14), McCosh Hall
Speaker
2018-2019
Theory Colloquium
Nov 29, 2018, 12:00 pm

Applied Historical and Corpus Linguistics

Location
Hinds Library (Room B14), McCosh Hall
Speaker
2018-2019
Theory Colloquium
Oct 15, 2018, 12:00 pm

Meaning in Language:  A Computer's Perspective

Location
Hinds Library (Room B14), McCosh Hall
Speaker
2018-2019
Theory Colloquium
Sep 25, 2018, 4:30 pm

Disciplines of Language

Co-sponsored by the Theory Colloquium and the Princeton University Graduate School.

 

Location
010 East Pyne
Speakers
2018-2019
Renaissance Colloquium and Theory Colloquium
Dec 7, 2017, 4:30 pm

Lyric Thinking: Humanism, Poetry, Modernity

Please review introduction prior to talk.  Introduction available from Mary Prokop ([email protected])

Reception in Thorp Library following talk.

Location
40 McCosh Hall
Speaker
2017-2018
Renaissance Displacements: Migrants and Truth Production, 1400-1700.
May 5, 2017, 4:30 pm

Migrants and Truth Production, 1400-1700

A daylong conference on the significance of migration to the literary, cultural, and intellectual history of the early modern period, featuring a keynote from Christopher Wood, Professor of German at New York University.

Speaker
2016-2017
Paul North, "The Yield: Kafkaâ's Atheological Reformation."
Apr 24, 2017, 4:30 pm

A conversation with Paul North, Professor of German at Yale, about his 2015 study of Franz Kafkaâ's ZÃrau Aphorisms.

Speaker
2016-2017
Inversion: On Some Poetics and Politics in the Discourse of the Sublime
Oct 25, 2016, 5:00 pm

This event was a collaboration between our colloquium and Comparative Literature, German, Renaissance and Early Modern Studies, and the Theory Colloquium. Professor Balfour gave a lively presentation on the aesthetics of the sublime and inversion.

Affiliated Institution: 

18th C./Romantic Studies…

Location
East Pyne, Room 205
Speaker
2016-2017