Upheaval as Method: Unsettling the Conditions of Knowing
Critical Formations of the Field
Abstract
This paper proposes that upheaval is not merely the object of cultural studies inquiry. It is also a method of inquiry. This does not mean that disruption is inherently emancipatory, but we must recognize our own implication in the structures we examine and remain open to having our assumptions unsettled by other ways of knowing. Critique risks reproducing the authority it seeks to challenge when its own methods remain unchanged. For cultural studies, the task is not simply to understand upheaval in the world, but to consider what must be upheaved within our own research, our methods and the very ways through which we have come to know.
Presenter
Kathryn Last
Kathryn is an abstract expressionist painter by definition but her work blurs the line between intention and artistic categorization. Her paintings can be defined more so by their improvisatory nature and her philosophical training which allows her to treat colour, matter, and paint as discrete agents within the artistic process.