! Libidinal Economy 28.05.15, 09:00-19:00, room: B29 Workshop organized by RA3 & RA6 (GCSC) »The English unemployed did not become workers to survive, they hang on tight and spit on me, enjoyed the hysterical, masochistic, whatever exhaustion it was of hanging on in the mines, in the foundries, in the factories, in hell . . . enjoyed the mad destruction of their organic body . . . the decomposition of their personal identity . . . the dissolution of their families and villages . . .« proposed Lyotard, at the time provocatively, in his seminal Libidinal Economy. In the wake of post-68 failure, referring to Marx's analysis of early industrial capitalism and his political project as being marked by a peculiar libidinal investment in capitalism, he proposed a kind of unfruitful expenditure of libidinal energies as a means of disavowal from within. Taking cue from such notions, we would like to propose a one-day workshop, the aim of which is rethinking the connection between desire and political economy within late capitalism. Is Lyotard's notion of joyful investment in work still hold and what form does it take in cognitive, affective, relational labour? Can desire be reinvested otherwise? How have late capitalist modes of investment of desire changed sexual politics proper? What kinds of norms are being put into place and through what economic, political, biological, biochemical etc. Dispositifs? What role does sexual industry and sexual work play in contemporary regimes of investment of desire? And most importantly: how could desire be invested otherwise? Realizing desire and sexuality play a crucial role in contemporary modes of power operation and articulations of political economy, in contemporary 'pharmakopornocapitalism, to borrow Beatriz Preciado's term, the workshop on Libidinal Economy proposes to engage with this and more questions, with the aim of creating an open platform for the discussion of issues that tackle our bodies and subjectivities most intimately. From the molecular to the subjective, what are contemporary normative economies of desire and how could we work towards their destabilization? In order to tackle these and more related questions, we organize a one-day long seminar retreat with three intensive reading sessions and three discussions, opened by impulse talks on the topic, given by Prof. Greta Olson, Prof. Gerald Siegmund, and Prof. Encarnación Gutiérrez-Rodriguez. Program 9:00 Introduction (Marcel Wrzesinski) 9:15-10:00 Workers and other Whores. Reading Session chaired by Marcel Wrzesinski and Katja Čičigoj ! 10:15 -11:45 13:00-14:00 Lusting after Patriarchy: Fifty Shades of Grey, False Consciousness, and the Negotiation of the Heterosexual Economy. Prof. Dr. Greta Olson Hot Slut Orgies, Testo-junkies, and other Commodities. Reading Session chaired by Veronika Zink and Danae Gallo González ! 14:15- 15:45 ! 16:00-17:30 Labour & Affect. Prof. Dr. Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez. Memory, Technology, and Sublimation: The Libidinal Economy of Desire. Prof. Dr. Gerald Siegmund ! 18:00-19:00 Revolution beyond the Pleasure Principle: Dethroning Sex. Reading Session chaired by Katja Čičigoj and Veronika Zink. ! Readings Workers and other Whores. - Lyotard, J.F. "A desire named Marx” Libidinal Economy: Bloomington. Indiana University Press, 1993: 95- 122. - Bennet, David. “Libidinal economy, prostitution and consumer culture” Textual Practice 24(1), 2010, 93–121. Lusting after Patriarchy: Fifty Shades of Grey, False Consciousness, and the Negotiation of the Heterosexual Economy. - James, EL. Fifty Shades of Grey I(2011). Any edition and language. - West, Robin L. "The Erotic Appeal of Submission"en The Difference in Women’s Hedonic Lives: A Phenomenological Critique of Feminist Legal Theory, Wisconsin Women's Law Journal 15 (2001): 199-209 - Illouz, Eva. “Epilogue: Sadomasochism as a Romantic Utopia" en Hard-Core Romance: Fifty Shades of Grey, Best-Sellers, and Society. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2014: 63-77. Hot Slut Orgies, Testo-junkies, and other Commodities. - Marcuse, Herbert. “The Transformation of Sexuality into Eros“ and “Eros and Thanatos”. Eros and Civilization. Beacon Press, Boston, MA, 1955: 197-238 - Beatriz Preciado. “Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics” Eflux (2013) http://www.eflux.com/journal/testo-junkie-sex-drugs-and-biopolitics/ Labour & Affect. “Domestic Work and Affective Labor”, Women's Studies International Forum. 46 (2014) 45–53. Optional readings: Chapters 4 and 6. Migration, Domestic Work and Affect: a Decolonial Approach on Value and the Feminization of Labor. New York: Routledge, 2010. Memory, Technology, and Sublimation: The Libidinal Economy of Desire. - Bernard Stiegler: Denken bis an die Grenzen der Maschine, Berlin/Zürich; Diaphanes Verlag, 2009: 60-110 - Bernard Stiegler: Hypermaterialität und Psychomacht, Berlin/Zürich: Diaphanes Verlag, 2010: 35-69 Revolution beyond the Pleasure Principle: Dethroning Sex. - Noys, Benjamin "The End of the Monarchy of Sex: Sexuality and Contemporary Nihilism” Theory, Culture & Society 2008 (SAGE, Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, and Singapore), 25(5): 104–122 - Malabou, Catherine:"Towards a Plasticity of the Compulsion to repeat," "The Subject of the Acident" and "Conclusion" from The New Wounded - From Neurosis to Brain Damage. Fordham Universty Press.2012. 189 - 217. !