University of California, Irvine, Critical Theory Institute records, 1980-2021

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Summary

Creators:

University of California, Irvine. Critical Theory Institute

Abstract:

This collection documents events, people, projects, and administration of the UC Irvine Critical Theory Institute (CTI). It comprises audio and video recordings of selected events including the Irvine Lectures in Critical Theory and the Wellek Library Lectures, as well as other lectures, conferences, and discussion sessions organized by CTI. The collection also contains several lectures given off campus by UCI faculty associated with CTI. An unprocessed addition to this collection contains mostly paper files documenting the lectures, events, scholars, and administration of the CTI, including information on budget matters, review and planning, the Wellek Lecture Series, workshops, and more.

Extent:

2.6 Linear Feet (10 boxes) and 16.9 unprocessed linear feet. and 9.45 Gigabytes (245 digital files)

Language:

English .

Preferred citation:

University of California, Irvine, Critical Theory Institute records. MS-C010. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California. Date accessed.

For the benefit of current and future researchers, please cite any additional information about sources consulted in this collection, including permanent URLs, item or folder descriptions, and box/folder locations.

Background

Scope and content:

Biographical / historical:

The Critical Theory Institute (CTI) is an interdisciplinary, collaborative research group at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), comprising 15 to 20 active members from various UCI departments in the humanities and social sciences. CTI began in the early 1980s as an informal reading group and since 1987 has operated as an organized research unit. CTI is closely allied with UCI's curricular program in critical theory.

Every three to four years, CTI organizes research projects focusing on a particular theme. Around this theme, CTI organizes several presentations and discussions of work of both CTI members and invited guests in its Irvine Lectures in Critical Theory series. Past themes have included "Politics, Theory, and Contemporary Culture" and "Forces of Globalization." Books are compiled after the research projects are complete and have included many of the Irvine Lectures in Critical Theory.

Since 1981 CTI has sponsored the Wellek Library Lectures, an annual lecture series named in honor of Professor Emeritus René Wellek (Yale University), whose papers and library of works in critical theory are housed at UCI's Special Collections and Archives. Each year CTI invites internationally distinguished critical theorist to deliver a series of three lectures at UCI in which he or she develops a critical position and relates it to the contemporary theoretical scene.

Chronology of Themes for the Research Projects and Irvine Lectures in Critical Theory
Date	Event
1982-1985	The Aims of Representation
1985-1988	The States of "Theory"
1988-1991	Politics, Theory, and Contemporary Culture
1991-1995	"Culture" and the Problem of the Disciplines
1995-1999	Forces of Globalization
1999-2003	Futures of Property and Personhood
2003-2008	In Security
2008-2012	Poor Theory

Chronology of Wellek Library Lectures
Date	Event
1981	Bloom, Harold. "The Breaking of the Vessels: In Defense of Antithetical Criticism"
1982	Anderson, Perry. "In the Tracks of Historical Materialism"
1983	Kermode, Frank. "Forms of Attention"
1984	Derrida, Jacques. "Mémoires: Three Lectures for Paul de Man"
1985	Miller, J. Hillis. "The Ethics of Reading"
1986	Lyotard, Jean-François. "The Law, the Form, the Event"
1987	Marin, Louis. "Pascalian Propositions for Today"
1988	Krieger, Murray. "A Reopening of Closure: Organicism Against Itself"
1989	Said, Edward. "Musical Elaborations"
1990	Cixous, Hélène. "Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing"
1991	Jameson, Fredric. "The Constraints of the Postmodern"
1992	Hartman, Geoffrey. "Three on 'Culture'"
1993	Keller, Evelyn Fox. "Metaphors of Twentieth-Century Biology"
1994	Iser, Wolfgang. "Variables of Interpretation: Iterations of Translatability"
1995	Krauss, Rosalind. "Formless: A Feat"
1996	Balibar, Etienne. "On Politics and History: Presence, Cruelty and the Universals"
1997	Harootunian, Harry. "History's Disquiet: Modernity and Everyday Life"
1998	Butler, Judith. "Antigone's Claim: Kinship, Aberration and Psychoanalysis"
1999	Baudrillard, Jean. "The Vital Illusion"
2000	Spivak, Gayatri. "The New Comparative Literature"
2001	Bhabha, Homi. "Scrambled Eggs and a Dish of Rice"
2002	Gilroy, Paul. "Elements of Post-colonial Melancholia"
2003	Davis, Angela. "Lectures on Abolition"
2004	Mbembe, Achille. "The Political Life of Sovereignty"
2005	Harveym, David. "Geographical Knowledges / Political Powers"
2006	Asad, Talal. "Thinking about Suicide Bombing"
2007	Grosz, Elizabeth. "Chaos, Territory, Art"
2008	Scoot, Joan W. "Politics and Academic Freedom"
2009	Deutsche, Rosalyn. "Hiroshima after Iraq: Three Studies in Art and War"
2010	Thiongʾo, Ngũgĩ wa. "The Hegelian Lord and Colonial Bondsman: Literature and the Politics of Knowing"
2011	Haraway, Donna. "Playing Cat's Cradle with Companion Species"
2012	Latour, Bruno.
2013	Sloterdijk, Peter. "Bastards, or Self-made Men and Women"
2014	Morton, Timothy. "Dark Ecology: For a Logic of Future Ecognosis"
2015	Malabou, Catherine. ""Metamorphoses of Intelligence"
2016	Hayles, N. Katherine. "Precarious Narratives"
2017	Ahmad, Aijaz. "Return of the Repressed: Figurations of the National"
2018	Brown, Wendy. "Authoritarian Liberalism and Moral Nihilism"
2019	Didi-Huberman, Georges. "How Try Tell? A Short Journey in the Papers of the Warsaw Ghetto"
2021	Mamdani, Mahmood. "Studying Trans-African Slaveries: Pitfalls of the Atlantic Model"

Acquisition information:

Transferred periodically by the Critical Theory Institute. Transferred by Danilo Caputo, 2019. Transferred by Ryan Gurney, 2021.

Processing information:

Processed by Ernesto Bassi and Cyndi Shein in 2008. Additions made by Joanna Lamb in 2009 and 2010; additions made by Audra Eagle Yun, 2012; additions made by Alexandra Bisio 2014; additions made by Sarah Glover, 2019 and 2021.

Arrangement:

This collection is arranged in three series:

Series 1. Irvine Lectures in Critical Theory, 2002-2008
Series 2. Wellek Library Lectures, 1987-2007
Series 3. Other Conferences and Lectures, 1988-2004

The collection also contains two unprocessed additions:

Accession 2016-020. Critical Theory Institute records unprocessed addition, 1980-2011. 14.2 linear feet
Accession 2019-061. Critical Theory Institute records unprocessed addition, 1989-2011. 2.6 linear feet

Accruals:

Accruals are expected.

Rules or conventions:

Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Indexed terms

Subjects:: Wellek Library lecture series at the University of California, Irvine -- Archives.
Critical theory -- Archives.
Critical theory -- Audio-visual aids.
Video recordings -- 20th century.
DVDs -- 21st century.
Lectures -- 20th century.
Lectures -- 21st century.
Video recordings -- 21st century
Audiocassettes -- 20th century.
Names:: University of California, Irvine. Critical Theory Institute -- Archives

Access and use

Restrictions:: The collection is minimally processed, but is open for research. Unprocessed additions may contain restricted materials. This collection also contains digital materials. Access to original tapes and digital media is restricted; researchers may request use copies. Please contact the Department of Special Collections and Archives in advance to request access.
Terms of access:: Property rights reside with the University of California. Copyrights are retained by the creators of the records and their heirs. For permission to reproduce or to publish, please contact the Head of Special Collections and Archives.