Reading Groups
Research and Reading Groups
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The Ego Tunnel
POST-DECONSTRUCTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS: BEYOND THE BOUNDS OF DERRIDA, DELEUZE OR BADIOU
ON THE COLLAPSE OF "THEORY AND CRITICISM" AS SUCH.
(THE EGO-TUNNEL READING-GROUP)
The black box of the brain has finally been cracked open. If cognitive science has even a fraction of the success in functionally decoding the 'innermost structures' of our existence as the other natural sciences have had decoding its 'outermost structures', then we can expect our modes of intentional inner-/self-interpretation to suffer the same sorts of cognitive delegitimization as those suffered by intentional modes of interpreting the outer world.
All the fences raised by the brain's former inscrutability are being torn down, and the intellectual ecosystems they once protected are literally threatened with utter collapse. A conceptual revolution has begun, one which could prove to be the most profound, and perhaps the most tragic, in the history of human self-understanding. One need only consider the ongoing revolution in marketing to realize that the social and institutional consequences of contemporary cognitive science are not only snowballing but as extreme as can be.
Institutions will fall, and your institution -- that of theory and criticism's hallowed humanism -- stands high on the list of probable victims. Given the astounding insularity of academia's interpretative communities, there's a good chance that the latest revolutions in the domain of cognitive science are little more than a rumour to members of the CSTC community, if not dismissed with throw-away remarks about 'scientism', 'positivism', and the like. The idea behind the Ego Tunnel reading group is simply to gain a sense of the 'cog-sci revolution' and perhaps to read an ominous tea-leaf or two.
You will never look at yourself or your interpretative practice the same way again!
Join us every other Thursday from 3 to 6 pm in Somerville House 2348 for
The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self
A reading group discussing the work of Thomas Metzinger
Conducted by Dan Mellamphy, CSTC Postdoctoral Fellow
and R. Scott Bakker, Author and CSTC Alumnus
Beginning Thursday, February 4th, 2010
TO SIGN UP, SIMPLY TYPE YOUR NAME IN A 'COMMENT' TO THE FOLLOWING
WEB-LINK (C/O THE CSTC FACEBOOK PAGE)
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Kierkegaard: Politics and the Modern Scandal of Religion
A reading group conducted by Leo Stan, SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow
