Launch event: Viral Theory, e-flux journal Issue #130
Also on Zoom:
deakin.zoom.us/j/87591099865?pwd=Q3UyeFBRQk96NythdElxQldTb0pLZz09#s

Viruses have lurked on the margins of cultural theory ever since Deleuze and Guattari suggested that “our viruses make us form a rhizome with other creatures.” Haraway wrote about the potential of viruses to induce symbiogenesis in her classic essay on “The Promises of Monsters” —referring to the way that AIDS activists were able to create a symbiotic relationship with HIV through alliances with journalists, politicians, pharmaceutical companies, and scientists. In the age of the internet virality became “a form of communication and transmission across various domains: the biological, the cultural, the financial, the political, the linguistic, the technical, and computational,” in the words of Patricia Clough and Jasbir Puar. This special issue of e-flux journal nudges viral theory from the margins towards the center of contemporary discourse. Essays in the collection offer an array of tactics and strategies for living among a multitude of invisible viral agents that lay in wait—ready to disrupt, detour, and reroute established modes of life.

Speakers: Sria Chatterjee (Paul Mellon Centre), Stephan Guttinger (University of Exeter), and Eben Kirksey (University of Oxford)

Read the texts by Chatterjee, Guttinger, and Kirksey, and the full special issue on-line:

www.e-flux.com/journal

Stay tuned for future events with other viral theorists in the collection: Hannah Landecker (UCLA), Mel Chen (Berkeley), Caitlin Berrigan (Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna), Rachel Vaughn (UCLA), & Tim Dean (Illinois)

Zoom Link: deakin.zoom.us/j/87591099865?pwd=Q3UyeFBRQk96NythdElxQldTb0pLZz09

Time: Friday, Oct 21, 2022 05:30 PM Oxford (for a 5:45 start)
BERLIN, Germany 6:45pm start
NEW YORK, United States,12:45pm start
LOS ANGELES, United States,9:45am start
Date: 21 October 2022, 17:30 (Friday, 2nd week, Michaelmas 2022)
Venue: 64 Banbury Road, 64 Banbury Road OX2 6PN
Speakers: Sria Chatterjee (Paul Mellon Centre), Stephan Guttinger (University of Exeter), Eben Kirksey (University of Oxford)
Organising department: School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography
Organiser contact email address: kate.atherton@anthro.ox.ac.uk
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Public
Editor: Kate Atherton