Wellek Library Lectures

Since 1981, the Critical Theory Institute has sponsored an annual lecture series, named in honor of Professor Emeritus René Wellek (Yale University), whose library of works in critical theory is housed in the main library of the University of California, Irvine. Each year, we have invited an internationally distinguished critical theorist to visit the campus to deliver a series of three lectures in which he or she develops his or her critical position and relates it to the contemporary theoretical scene. Each set of lectures is generally published in our Wellek Library Lecture series. The Wellek Library Lectures were generously supported by Dr. Michael Koehn from 2001 to 2005.
The following is a chronological list of past as well as planned Wellek Library Lectures.
Dr. Eddie Yeghiayan’s Wellek Library Lectures page provides more information concerning the individual lectures as presented, as well as links to the comprehensive bibliographies he has prepared for each speaker. Please see our calendar for the most recent information on dates and locations.

Elizabeth Grosz (Women's and Gender Studies, Rutgers, The State Univerisity of New Jersey, New Brunswick)
"Chaos, Territory, Art"
May 2007

Talal Asad (Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center)
"Thinking about Suicide Bombing"
May, 2006

David Harvey (Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center)
"Geographical Knowledges/Political Powers"
May, 2005

Achille Mbembe (Institute for Social & Economic Research, University of the Witwatersrand)
"The Political Life of Sovereignty"
October, 2004

Angela Davis (History of Consciousness, UC Santa Cruz)
"Lectures on Abolition"
May 19, 20, & 22, 2003

Paul Gilroy (Sociology & African American Studies, Yale U)
“Elements of Post-colonial melancholia”
May 13, 14 & 16, 2002

Homi Bhabha (English & Afro-American Studies, Harvard U)
“Scrambled Eggs & a Dish of Rice”
November 5, 6 & 8, 2001

Gayatri Spivak (English and Comparative Literature, Columbia)
“The New Comparative Literature.” 2000.

Jean Baudrillard
“The VItal Illusion.” 1999.

Judith Butler (Rhetoric, UC, Berkeley)
“Antigone's Claim: Kinship, Aberration and Psychoanalysis.” 1998.

Harry Harootunian (East Asian Studies, History, New York University)
“History's Disquiet: Modernity and Everyday Life.” 1997.

Etienne Balibar (Philosophie, Politique et Morale, U. Paris-X, Nanterre)
“On Politics and History: Presence, Cruelty and the Universals.” 1996.

Rosalind Krauss (Art History, Columbia)
“Formless: A Feat.” 1995.

Wolfgang Iser (English & Comparative Literature, UC Irvine)
“Variables of Interpretation: Iterations of Translatability.” 1994.

Evelyn Fox Keller (Rutgers)
“Metaphors of Twentieth- Century Biology.” 1993.

Geoffrey Hartman (English and Comparative Literature, Yale)
“Three on ‘Culture.’” 1992.

Fredric Jameson (Literature, Critical Theory, Duke)
“The Constraints of the Postmodern.” 1991.

Hélène Cixous (Writer and Professor, U. Paris, VIII)
“Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing.” 1990.

Edward Said (English, Columbia)
“Musical Elaborations.” 1989.

Murray Krieger (English and Comparative Literature, UC Irvine)
“A Reopening of Closure: Organicism Against Itself.” 1988.

Louis Marin (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris)
“Pascalian Propositions for Today.” 1987.

Jean-François Lyotard (French & Italian, UC Irvine)
“The Law, the Form, the Event.” 1986.

J. Hillis Miller (English and Comparative Literature, Yale)
“The Ethics of Reading.” 1985.

Jacques Derrida (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales)
“Mémoires: Three Lectures for Paul de Man.” 1984.

Frank Kermode (Fellow, King’s College, Cambridge; Visiting Profession Columbia U)
“Forms of Attention.” 1983.

Perry Anderson (Historian, Historical Sociologist; Editor, New Left Review)
“In the Tracks of Historical Materialism.” 1982.

Harold Bloom (English and Comparative Literature, Yale) [or Humanities]
“The Breaking of the Vessels: In Defense of Antithetical Criticism.” 1981.