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Pandemic: Online Course in collaboration with BICAR

Theoretical Explorations Module VI
By Prof. Rohit Goel
In collaboration with Project 88, Mumbai

Date: May 9 till June 10, 2020
Wednesdays and Saturdays (10 Sessions)
6:30PM – 8:30PM India Standard Time
Worldwide Registration Open

This course explores the COVID-19 pandemic in global historical perspective, from the Black Death and the Dancing Plague to recurring famines, rounds of imperialism, fascism and populism, the collapse of representative political systems and the accumulation of money, from the emergence of capitalism in the late 15th century till our post-Cold War contemporary.

We will consider the relations between structures and events, crisis and capitalism, repetition and singularity, as well as human life, death, and need/desire, while paying mind to nature and ecology. We will read and discuss historical and contemporary analyses by, inter alia, Marx, Weber, Giovanni Arrighi, Carlo Ginzburg, Kojin Karatani, Alain Badiou, Slavoj Zizek, Raymond Brassier, Catherine Malabou, Adam Tooze, Naomi Klein, and William H. Sewell, Jr.

About the Teacher:
Rohit Goel is Director/Professor of the Bombay Institute for Critical Analysis and Research (BICAR). He is the co-editor of Lacan contra Foucault: Subjectivity, Sex, Politics (Bloomsbury) and has taught courses in critical theory, historiography, and politics at the University of Chicago, Sciences Po Paris, the American University of Beirut, and Jnanapravaha Mumbai. He received a BA from Harvard College and, as Harvard University’s Paul Williams Fellow to Emmanuel College, an MPhil in Social and Political Sciences from the University of Cambridge. He also received an MA in Political Science from the University of Chicago.

About Project 88:
From it’s inception in 2006 and under the adventurous directorship of Sree Banerjee Goswami, Project 88 has developed a context for the exhibition of experimental and ambitious work in all media by artists with strong conceptual foundations. This gallery inhabits 4000 square feet of what was formerly a century old metal printing press in Colaba, Mumbai, restored and renovated by noted Rahul Mehrotra. Project 88 remains committed to the discovery and nurturing of emerging talent, even as it works with cutting-edge, intelligent, and internationally known mid-career artists from South Asia and elsewhere. The gallery regularly participates in various art fairs, including Frieze London and New York, FICA, Arco, Art Basel Hong Kong, Art Dubai and India Art Fair.