Renderings is a graduate student conference scheduled for October 19th-21st, 2007, organized by the students of the Theory, Culture, and Politics Program at Trent University.

We invite abstracts of 200-300 words on the theme of “renderings.” Papers should be 2500-3000 words, or 20 minutes in length.

What are the renderings of contemporary cultural and political life? Much recent theoretical work examines the impact of rendering(s) in the constitution of cultural and political spaces, explicitly or implicitly. Gilles Deleuze invites us to imagine the rendering of forces as a part of the operation of sensation, while Jacques Derrida traces the force of rendering as the operation of meaning. Judith Butler understands the reiteration of norms as rendering the (gendered) subject, while Michel Foucault delineates how state power can render material bodies and populations subjects of biopolitics. Sherene Razack’s “unmapping” inverts the rendered spaces of colonialism, while Margaret Morganroth Gullette’s work on age and Stuart Hall’s work on race suggest links between the renderings of culture and hegemony.

This conference wants to explore the function of renderings in the theory, culture, and politics nexus. Possible construals of renderings might include: renderings of the visible or sensible; rendering power; rendering the technological; rendering space; rendering subjectivity; rendering the gift; rendering the interstice; rendering the vegetative; renderings of bodies; renderings of law; renderings of concepts; and renderings of art.

Please submit abstracts on the theme of renderings to the conference committee at tcpconf@gmail.com by June 15th, 2007. Further details about the conference, including information about registration and accommodations, will be available soon.

This conference was rendered possible by the generous contributions of Davide Panagia and the Theory, Culture, and Politics Program of Trent University. The conference committee would like to thank both Dr. Panagia and the Theory, Culture, and Politics program for their contributions and enthusiastic support.