The Spontaneity of Freedom hosts an annual conference: this year, the theme will be “sex,” the first in a planned three-year series exploring sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll.

Due to space and budgetary constraints, attendance at this workshop is by invitation. If you would like to attend, please write to philosophy.spont@ucl.ac.uk and we will accommodate you if possible.

Location: Room LG17, Univeristy College London, Bentham House, 4-8 Endsleigh Gardens, London WC1H 0EG

*Preliminary* Schedule

Tuesday, 7 July

19.00 Informal dinner for speaker and commentators – The Victoria, 110 Grove Rd., Bow, London E3 5TH (Venue subject to change)

Wednesday, 8 July

9.45 Breakfast

10.00 Andreja Novakovic (University of California, Berkeley)– Frock Consciousness in The Second Sex

Commentator: Ellie Anderson (Pomona College)

11.45 Ry Smith (Columbia University) – Who Cares about the Rules Anyway? Rendering BDSM Philosophically Legible

Commentator: Ann Pellegrini (New York University)

13.15 Lunch

14.30 Nick Clanchy (University of Oxford) – ‘Dreaming of a World Exempt from Meaning’: Roland Barthes on Love

Commentator: Federica Gregoratto (University of Lucerne)

16.00 Coffee break

16.15 Tim Dean (University of Illinois) – Libidinal Economies of Fascism

Commentator: Ayesha Chakravarti (University College London)

19.00 Dinner – The Lady Ottoline, 11A Northington St, London WC1N 2JF (Venue subject to change)

Thursday, 9 July

9.45 Breakfast

10.00 Francey Russell (Barnard College and Columbia University) – Opacity and Intimacy: Kant on Sex and Friendship

Commentator: Jeremey David Fix (Keble College, University of Oxford)

11:45 Elena Comay del Junco (University of Connecticut) – Why Desire Is Better than Sex: Some History

Commentator: Simon Shogry (University of Oxford)

13.15 Lunch

14.30 Lizzy Holt (University College London) – On Lesbian ‘Sex’

Commentator: Kirstine La Cour (University of Oxford)

16.00 Coffee break

16.15 Keynote: Avgi Saketopoulou (NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis) – Race Play, Refracted: Trauma and Sexuality in Stalag Fiction

Commentator: Jonathan Gingerich (University College London and Rutgers University)

19.00 Dinner – Boulevard Brasserie, 40 Wellington St, London WC2E 7BD (Venue subject to change)

Organisers

Daniela Dover (Rutgers University), Jonathan Gingerich (University College London and Rutgers University), Francey Russell (Barnard College and Columbia University) & David Chandler (University College London)