CAPPE
Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics, and Ethics
Critical Theory & Radical Politics Seminar
1st March | 4.00pm | G5, Grand Parade
Debord, Time, & Spectacle
This will be a one-off seminar engaged with a close reading of the Introduction and Chapter 1 of a recently published text, Debord, Time & Spectacle: Hegelian Marxism and Situationist Theory. In this book, Tom Bunyard provides a detailed philosophical study of the theoretical work of Guy Debord and the Situationist International. Drawing on evidence from Debord’s books, films, letters and notes, Bunyard reconstructs the Hegelian and Marxian ideas that support Debord’s central concept of ‘spectacle’. This affords a reconsideration of Debord’s theoretical claims, and a reinterpretation of his broader work that foregrounds his concerns with history and lived time. By bringing Situationist theory into dialogue with recent reinterpretations of Marx, this book also identifies problems in Debord’s critique of capitalism. It argues, however, that the conceptions of temporality and spectacle that support that critique amount to a philosophy of praxis that remains relevant today.
All are welcome. Please contact German Primera <G.PrimeraVillamizar@brighton.ac.uk> to receive a copy of the relevant reading, which participants will be expected to have prepared in advance
