We are seeking participants for a reading group and seminar series that will explore ‘representation’ across a range of disciplines—from art-history to political theory—and in a variety of media—visual, literary, and embodied. The series hopes to ask whether the work of ‘representation’ serves to exacerbate, as well as to heal, political rupture: When and how does representation fall into crisis? Are we living through aesthetic, as well as political and economic, emergencies? What alternative practices of representation can we recover that might put our own under pressure? And, ultimately, can representation be imagined anew?

The seminar and reading group will continue next term. Confirmed speakers include Professors Malcolm Bull and Quentin Skinner, and we will be expanding our discussions to encompass such concepts as sovereignty, revolution, and power. The reading group will bring together scholars from a variety of disciplines, to cultivate a dialogue around theoretical concepts. We hope that this format enables an egalitarian discussion between speakers and researchers at all stages of their careers. The subjects discussed will be of particular interest to political-theorists, historians, art-historians, literary scholars, social-scientists, and artists. Interested graduate students, and researchers, should contact Gautham.shiralagi@wadham.ox.ac.uk, or Saul.Nelson@wadham.ox.ac.uk, for information, as well as to register for participation.