Society for Critical Exchange

THEORY INSTITUTE

June 2-5, 2022

FIFTEEN DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS FROM THE U.S. AND EUROPE IN THREE DAYS OF ENGAGING DISCUSSION.

About SCE is North America’s oldest scholarly organization devoted to theory. Our various interdisciplinary projects, conferences, and symposia serve to advance the role of theory in academic and intellectual arenas. Our projects encompass a broad spectrum of disciplines, most prominently literary and cultural studies, legal studies and practices, economics, philosophy, and pedagogy.

The 2022 Institute The Society for Critical Exchange (SCE), this year co-sponsorsed by Stockholm University’s Department of Culture and Aesthetics and the University of Houston-Victoria, is pleased to announce the topic of its thirteenth annual eory Institute: Theory Conspiracy.

Elisabeth Anker

Elisabeth Anker is an Associate Professor of American Studies and Political Science at George Washington University, and Director of the Film Studies Program. She is the author of Ugly Freedoms and Orgies of Feeling: Melodrama and the Politics of Freedom.

“Trickle-Down Domination”

Elisabeth Anker

Sophia A. McClennen

Sophia A. McClennen is professor of international aairs and comparative literature at Penn State University and founding director of the Center for Global Studies. She has published twelve books including Pranksters vs. Autocrats: Why Dilemma Actions Advance Nonviolent Activism with Srdja Popovic and Globalization and Latin American Cinema

“Don’t Look Up, Birds Aren’t Real: Comedy and Conspiracy”

Sophia A. McClennen

Frida Beckman

Frida Beckman is Professor of Literature at the Department of Aesthetics and Culture at Stockholm University, Sweden. Recent work includes the monograph Culture Control Critique, the critical biography Gilles Deleuze, and the edited collection Control Culture.

“It’s All Postmodernism’s Fault”

Frida Beckman

Timothy Melley

Timothy Melley is Professor of English and Georion Family Director of the Humanties Center at Miami University. He is the author of The Covert Sphere: Secrecy, Fiction, and the National Security State, Empire of Conspiracy: The Culture of Paranoia in Postwar America, and numerous essays and stories.

“The Conspiracy Imaginary”

Timothy Melley

Clare Birchal

Clare Birchal is Reader in Contemporary Culture in the English Department at King’s College London. She is the author of Knowledge Goes Pop: From Conspiracy Theory to Gossip and Shareveillance: The Dangers of Openly Sharing and Covertly Collecting Data.

“Vernacular Theory in the Digital Age” (with Peter Knight)

Clare Birchal

Paul Allen Miller

Paul Allen Miller is Carolina Distinguished Professor at the University of South Carolina. He has held visiting appointments at the University of the Ruhr, Paris 13, and Beijing Langage and Culture University. He is the author of ten books and has edited fifteen volumes. His latest book is Foucault’s Seminars on Antiquity: Learning to Speak the Truth

“Being Catiline: Sex, Lies, and Coup d’États”

Paul Allen Miller

Michael Butter

Michael Butter is Professor of American Studies at the University of Tübingen. He is the author of The Nature of Conspiracy Theories and Principal Investigator of the ERC-funded project “Populism and Conspiracy Theory.”

“Foucault and the Conspiracy Theory of Society”

Michael Butter

John Mowitt

JohnMowitt holdsthe LeadershipChairintheCriticalHumanities at the University of Leeds. His publications range widely over the fields of culture, politics and theory. He is a senior co-editor of the journal, Cultural Critique.

“The Kristeva File”

John Mowitt

Elena Chiti

Associate Professor at Stockholm University, Elena Chiti is a cultural historian of contemporary Egypt. She is interested in cultural productions in times of social and political turmoil.

“Unsettling History: How an Egyptian Bandit Myth Defies Historical Evidence”

Elena Chiti

Brian O’Keeffe

Brian O’Keeffe is a Senior Lecturer in the French department of Barnard College, Columbia University

“Conspiracy Critique”

Brian O’Keeffe

Jeffrey R. Di Leo

Jeffrey R. Di Leo is Professor of English and Philosophy at the University of Houston-Victoria. He is founder and editor of symplokē and Executive Director of the Society for Critical Exchange and its Theory Institute. His recent books include Catastrophe and Higher Education and Vinyl Theory

“Conspiring with Theory”

Jeffrey R. Di Leo

Nicole Simek

Nicole Simek is the Cushing Eells Professor of Philosophy and Literature at Whitman College. Her publications include Hunger and Irony in the French Caribbean: Literature, Theory, and Public Life and Eating Well, Reading Well: Maryse Condé and the Ethics of Interpretation. She is the translator of Maryse Condé’s The Belle Créole.

“Anti-colonialism Meets Anti-vax Suspicion”

Nicole Simek

Peter Hitchcock

Peter Hitchcock is a Professor of English at the Graduate Center and Baruch College of CUNY. He is also on the faculty of the Film Studies and Women’s Studies Certificate Progams. He is currently Associate Director of the Center for Place, Culture and Politics at the GC. Recent publications include work on discipline, canons and canonicity, securitization, and the Paris Commune.

“On the Dialectics of Conspiracy”

Peter Hitchcock

Zahi Zalloua

Zahi Zalloua is the Cushing Eells Professor of Philosophy and Literature at Whitman College and Editor of The Comparatist. His recent work engages Critical Black Studies, the Posthuman, and the Palestinian Question

“Conspiracy and Ressentiment”

Zahi Zalloua

Peter Knight

Peter Knight is a Professor of American Studies at the University of Manchester, and currently Visiting Professor at Leiden University. He is the author of Conspiracy Culture, The Kennedy Assassination, Reading the Market, and Invested: The History of Popular Financial Advice.

“Vernacular Theory in the Digital Age” (with Clare Birchal)

Peter Knight

The Institute will take place from Thursday, June 2 to Sunday, June 5 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Stockholm University. Additional details regarding the Society for Critical Exchange or the upcoming Theory Institute can be found at the Society for Critical Exchange’s website (http://societyforcriticalexchange.org/) or by contacting Executive Director Jeffrey R. Di Leo (dileo@symploke.org).