Body, Memory and Representation

Seminar

This two-day conference includes presentations by Judith Butler, a professor in the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature departments at the University of California, Berkeley, and Adriana Cavarero, professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Verona. Their talks will be preceded by an artistic intervention in which two performers will introduce the theoretical basis. The idea behind the conference is to open up a space for plural, diverse dialogue around female-based thought, rooted in the experience that is generated in and through the body.

Judith Butler is the Maxine Elliot Chair professor in the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature departments at the University of California, Berkeley. She has previously taught at Wesleyan and Johns Hopkins universities. Butler has made significant contributions to the fields of feminism, queer theory, political philosophy and ethics, and is considered to be one of the most influential intellectuals in the world. Her recent works include Precarious Life (2006), Undoing Gender (2006), Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (2007), Vulnerability, Survivability (2008) and Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? (2010).