Atrocities and Elevators
Bruce Robbins, Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities, Columbia University
November 10, 2022 at 3:00 in Posner Hall 340, Posner Grand Room
Political criticism is interesting, and worth learning to do well, because so many of its objects are not political in the strong sense, or (like the “political novel”) resist politics, or even tend to dissolve political classifications and suggest their irrelevance. This paper will take up two categories of cultural objects that defy simple location on the classic left/right spectrum and yet demand to be considered in political terms: infrastructure and atrocity.
Bruce Robbins is Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. His latest book, Criticism and Politics: A Polemical Introduction, has just been published by Stanford UP. He is also author of The Beneficiary (Duke UP 2017), (Duke, 2012), (Princeton, 2007), (NYU, 1999), Secular Vocations: Intellectuals, Professionalism, Culture (Verso, 1993) and (Columbia, 1986; Duke pb 1993).
Seminar with Professor Robbins
November 11, 2022,12:00-1:15, BH 254Q
Readings from his new book Criticism and Politics and Zadie Smith's short story "The Embassy of Cambodia".
Lunch provided. Registration is required.