The Individual and the West: A Discussion
12:25 PM
The Individual and the West:
A
Discussion
with
John Lobell
(Architecture)
and
Suzanne Verderber
(Humanities and Media Studies)
Tuesday, September 17,
12:30 to 2:00
Alumni Reading Room,
Library,
Pratt Brooklyn Campus
In the West we have seen the
emergence of “the individual” in a form seen nowhere else. Why
did this occur, and what is this individual?
Join us for two presentations that approach this question in
contrasting ways, and then please participate in a discussion. Lobell
will argue in favor of the Western individualism as a form of
subjectivity that promotes moral action, whereas Verderber will
propose that individualism itself is a subjective formation sustained
by specific arrangements of power.
LOBELL’S PRESENTATION:
Moral Agency
Cultures are the stories we tell
ourselves about ourselves. In the West, these story can be seen in
the Arthurian Romances, in Huck Finn, and in just about every action
movie, all placing moral agency in the heart of each individual.
About Lobell:
- M. Arch., University of Pennsylvania, Thesis on Architecture and Structures of Consciousness • M. Arch., University of Pennsylvania, professional degree
- B.A., University of Pennsylvania
Current projects: Timeship,
extreme life extension (Timeship.org); myths and movies
(CinemaDiscourse.com); Visionary Creativity (CulturalDiscourse.com).
More at JohnLobell.com.
VERDERBER’S PRESENTATION:
The Medieval Fold: Power,
Repression, and the Emergence of the Individual
Medievalists who study the West have grappled with a curious
phenomenon, what has been spoken of as the apparent emergence of the
individual during the twelfth century. In this presentation, I argue
that the inquiry into the emergence of the individual during the
twelfth-century has been hindered by reliance upon a model of the
subject that is too rigid, based upon the establishment of a boundary
between the interior self and the external world, and propose a new
theoretical model, that of the folded subject, which allows for a
nuanced understanding of how interactions between institutions,
power, and the unconscious resulted in the production of the
internalized, individuated subject.
About Verderber:
- B.A., Dartmouth College; Female Agency in the Social Fictions of Marguerite de Navarre
- Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania; Subjective Vision and Fragmentation in Late Medieval France, Burgundy, and Flanders
Current project: Perspective and the Emergence of the Humanist
Subject
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