Thursday 26 November 2009, 18.30–20.00

On the 100th anniversary of the Futurism Manifesto, join critical thinkers Terry Eagleton, Simon Critchley, Kate Soper, Eyal Weizman, and chair Alberto Toscano in exploring a century of radical thinking and the arts - and debating what lies ahead. The recent Futurism exhibition at Tate Modern reminds us of an age when politics and aesthetics were densely interwoven in an explosive rejection of the past. This distinguished panel will assess the legacy of modernism to ask how today's radical thinkers might understand the role of the arts at the dawn of the twenty first century and beyond.

Speakers:

TERRY EAGLETON is Professor of English Literature at the University of Lancaster. His many books include Walter Benjamin: Or, Towards a Revolutionary Criticism in Set 4 of Radical Thinkers, Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate and the forthcoming The Task of the Critic: Terry Eagleton in Dialogue

SIMON CRITCHLEY is Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York and author of  Ethics-Politics-Subjectivity: Derrida, Levinas and Contemporary French Thought in Set 4 of Radical Thinkers, Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance, The Book of Dead Philosophers, On Humour and Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction.

 KATE SOPER is a Professor in the Department of Humanities, Arts and Languages at London Metropolitan University and author of To Relish the Sublime? Culture and Self-Realization in Postmodern Times.

EYAL WEIZMAN is an architect and Director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths College, University of London and author of Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation.

Chair: ALBERTO TOSCANO, editor of Historical Materialism, lecturer in sociology at Goldsmiths College, University of London and author of The Theatre of Production: Philosophy and Individuation Between Kant and Deleuze and the forthcoming Fanaticism: On the Uses of an Idea.

In collaboration with Verso to coincide with the of launch of Set 4 of Verso's Radical Thinkers series

Tate Britain  Auditorium
£8 (£6 concessions), booking recommended