PAST SECTS

The Seminar in Experimental Critical Theory (SECT) is an intensive two-week summer program offered by the University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI). SECT convenes distinguished instructors with a group of 40-60 faculty, graduate students, independent scholars, and public intellectuals from both the US and the international community. Neither an introductory survey nor an advanced research seminar, SECT functions as a ‘laboratory’ where participants at all levels of experience can study with scholars at the leading edge of creative theoretical thought. The hallmark of SECT is its attention to both ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ modes of contemporary critical theory.

SECT's topic changes each year. Announcements for application to participate in the year's seminar are disseminated in the fall; applications are due in early winter.

First announced in 2004, UCHRI's summer seminars focused on the following topics:

• SECT I
  "Psychoanalysis, Politics, and the Event" (August 16-27, 2004)
  Alain Badiou, Joan Copjec, Slavoj Zizek, and Alenka Zupancic
  

• SECT II
  "Present Tense Empires, Race, Bio-Politics" (August 15-26, 2005)
  Ien Ang, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Lisa Lowe, Achille Mbembe, Mary Louise Pratt, and Ella Shohat
  

• SECT III
  "TechnoSpheres/FutureS of Thinking" (August 14-25, 2006)
  Anne Balsamo, David Theo Goldberg, Julian Bleecker, John Seely Brown, Craig Calhoun, Lisa Cartwright, Cathy N. Davidson, Scott Fisher, Tracy Fullerton, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Katherine Hayles, Lynn Hershman, Norman Klein, Geert Lovink, Tara McPherson, Michael Naimark, Saskia Sassen, and Larry Smarr
  

• SECT IV
  "Cartographies of the Theological-Political" (August 6-17, 2007)
  Charles Hirschkind, Saba Mahmood, Wendy Brown, Judith Butler, Mohammad Fadel, Richard Thompson Ford, Kirstie McClure, Gauri Viswanathan, and Michael Warner

• SECT V
  "Creative Societies/Cultural Industries/New Humanities?"
  (August 11-22, 2008)
  Toby Miller, Kate Oakley, Paula Chakravartty, John Hartley, Dick Hebdige, Michael Keith, Richard Maxwell, Angela McRobbie, Lisa Parks, Andrew Ross, George Yudice, and Yuezhi Zhao

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