‘Bouquet of Eyes’, Hannah Hoch (1930)

How does language shape our understanding of politics? How are we to conceptualise desire in relation to law and language? What collaborations can be established between politics, law and language?

This two-day Birkbeck conference will seek to engage with the idea of desire, as expressed through politics and the state on the one hand, and the idea of language on the other. Beginning with the Lacanian term Lalangue, we will seek to explore that which remains beyond representation. Themes include: minor literature as a form of resistance, desire as the driving force of capitalism, the language of the unconscious, the dream as constitutive of the ethico-political subject and the ‘mot d’ordre,’ as conceptualised by Deleuze and Guattari, in relation to politics and unconscious desire. Our keynote speakers will participate in both days of the conference, engaging with Lalangue and desire on the one hand, and politics and the state on the other.

Confirmed speakers include: Jean-Claude Milner (Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the Université de Paris-VII), Guillaume Sibertin-Blanc (Associate Professor at the University of Toulouse II le Mirail), Véronique Voruz (University of Leicester), Laurent de Sutter (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), Elena Loizidou (Birkbeck), Ed Pluth (California State University), Nathan Moore (Birkbeck), James Martin (Goldsmiths), Leticia Paes (Birkbeck), Serene Richards (Birkbeck)

Day One: Lalangue, Psychoanalysis and Schizoanalysis

Jean-Claude Milner will begin our conference with a discussion on lalangue and the work of the late Lacan. Looking in particular at the question of homophony, illustrating its function through the poem, science and mathematics.

Guillaume Sibertin-Blanc will close proceedings and consider the delirium of language, in particular the question of the “mot d’ordre” passing through relevant texts from Lenin, Fanon, Benveniste & Milner.

Free event open to all: Book your place on Day One

Day Two: Politics and Revolution

G. Sibertin-Blanc will begin by presenting parts of his book “State and Politics: Deleuze and Guattari on Marx.” Here, Sibertin-Blanc measures how Deleuze & Guattari engage with the upheavals of their time by confronting their thought with its main interlocutor, Marxism, through the lens of its tripartite schema: historical materialism, political economy and class struggle.

J-C. Milner will conclude the conference proceedings with a presentation of his latest work “Relire la Révolution.” Here Milner re-interrogates the French revolution and the notion of ‘revolutionary belief’ to argue that if the French revolution touches the real it is not through Terror, but discourse, not through the death penalty but words that this was made possible.

Free event open to all: Book Your Place On Day Two

Organised by Dr. Nathan Moore, Dr. Maria Aristodemou, Leticia Paes and Serene Richards