On February 13 and 14, 2018, the Humanities Council’s Gauss Seminars in Criticism will host Professor Catherine Malabou (Kingston University), who will present her latest research under the general title of “Epigenetic Philosophy.”
The Director of the Gauss Seminars, Andrew Cole, remarks that “Professor Malabou is among the most original and compelling thinkers writing today. She truly leads the way in venturing forth into the interdisciplinary terrain between philosophy and science. It’s a tremendous honor to welcome her to campus for a two-day visit, which includes an opportunity for our colleagues across the disciplines to exchange ideas with her in an intimate seminar setting.”
There will be two events related to her visit—a lecture and a seminar. Her lecture, entitled “Floating Signifiers Revisited: Post-Structuralism Meets Neurolinguistics,” will be held on Tuesday, February 13 at 5 pm in 101 McCormick Hall. In this talk, Professor Malabou will reassess some longstanding ideas about language in the poststructuralist tradition—chiefly, ideas based on the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Jacques Lacan.
On Wednesday, February 14, Malabou will conduct a seminar entitled “Transcendental Biology.” Here she will extend the claims both of her Gauss lecture and her recent book, Before Tomorrow: Epigenesis and Rationality. The seminar will be held at 12:00 pm and lunch will be provided.
NOTE: To reserve a seat for the February 14 seminar, please email both Andrew Cole (acole@princeton.edu) and Barbara Leavey (blleavey@princeton.edu).
Catherine Malabou is Professor of Philosophy at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University, as well as Professor in Comparative Literature and European Languages and Studies at the University of California—Irvine, and fellow at the European Graduate School in Saas Fee. On the publication of such works as The Future of Hegel: Plasticity, Temporality and Dialectic (2004; Paris, 1996); What Should We Do With Our Brain? (2009; Paris, 2004), and Plasticity at the Dusk of Writing: Dialectic, Destruction, Deconstruction (2009; Paris, 2005), Malabou became internationally recognized for her interdisciplinary work on “plasticity” in domains ranging from aesthetics and psychoanalysis to contemporary biology and neuroscience.
