Of urgent concern for philosophers, political theorists, and activists, the twin notions of precarity and precariousness have recently and necessarily become paradigmatic. Precarity is generally invoked to describe the concrete state of uncertainty in which more and more of the world finds itself, and precariousness emerged in its shadow. Figured largely as a question of ethics, the idea of precariousness suggests our immediate and constitutive defenselessness, and is founded on the recognition that survival is ultimately dependent upon the continued mercy and compassion of others, even as we seek more active interventions. These two modes of instability can alternately coexist and converge; operating separately or in tandem, appearing in their many incarnations, they define the pandemic vulnerability of our world. Myriad potentials rest in this precariousness; we have seen, of course, how easy it has been to react violently and destructively to the recognition of mortality. Yet we are also free (and perhaps also ethically bound) to pursue other avenues. Judith Butler offers one such direction in her collection of essays, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence; she encourages us to chart “other passages” and emphasizes the necessity of “reimagining the possibility of community on the basis of vulnerability and loss.”

The daylong conference is scheduled to coincide with Michael Hardt’s lecture and seminar on January 18-19, 2007, organized by OSU’s Working Group for Cultural Difference and Democracy.

We welcome papers that consider the following topics or others in terms of their relationships to precarity and/or precariousness:

• Consumption
• The nation
• Sex and sexuality
• Activism
• Religion and faith
• Housing, dwelling, and architecture
• Science or scientism
• Confrontations with death and finitude
• Myths and folklores
• Safety and security
• Gender
• ‘Natural’ disasters
• Media and culture
• Art and literature
• Environmentalism
• Embodiment
• History, history, and historiography
• Language
• Identity
• Migrancy
• Visuality
• Fear and terror
• Psychoanalysis
• War and militarization

Please send 250-word abstracts for individual 20-minute papers to precarityconference2007@hotmail.com. The deadline for submissions is November 5th, 2006. Accepted applicants will be notified by November 30th, 2006. In the body of the e-mail, please include the following information:

Presenter(s) name(s):
Institutional affiliation(s):
Level of graduate study:
Title of paper:
Contact information: