What would we lose, Raimond Gaita asks, if we lost the concept of evil? One thing we would lose would be a certain potential for art. Why? If good and evil are preeminently religious and moral concerns, they also provide the matter of art — and do so in a myriad of ways. If we know that ‘evil don’t look like anything,’ art consistently attempts to present unexpected ways in which evil both obtrudes and withdraws from perception, how it attracts and seduces us. This lecture will try to identify some of the points at which art and morality touch.
Associate Professor Justin Clemens gained his PhD from the University of Melbourne. He has published extensively on psychoanalysis, contemporary European philosophy, and contemporary Australian art and literature. His recent books include Lacan Deleuze Badiou (Edinburgh UP 2014), with A.J. Bartlett and Jon Roffe; Psychoanalysis is an Antiphilosophy (Edinburgh UP 2013); and Minimal Domination (Surpllus 2011). He was founding Secretary of the Lacan Circle of Melbourne (2004-2009), and was the art critic for the Australian magazine The Monthly (2004-2009). In addition to his scholarly work, he is well-known nationally as a commentator on Australian art and literature, and his essays and reviews have appeared inThe Age, The Australian, The Monthly, Meanjin, Overland, Arena Magazine, TEXT, Un Magazine, Discipline, The Sydney Review of Books, and many others. He is currently Senior Lecturer in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne.
When:
Wednesday, 12 August 2015 | 6.30pm-7.30pm
Where:
Public Lecture Theatre
The Old Arts Building
The University of Melbourne
PARKVILLE VIC 3010
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