ASCA Lecture ‘Radical Formalism and the Problem of Horror’

On Friday May 10th, from 3-6pm, Professor Eugenia Brinkema (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) will give a talk entitled “The Violence of Fascination: Martyrs, Torture and Form.” In her talk, which will take place at the Potgieterzaal in the University Library (UvA) in Amsterdam, Brinkema will focus on Pascal Laugier’s 2008 new-extremist horror film Martyrs, arguing that the film generates a formal violence that is coextensive with the very aesthetic fascinations that structure it, rendering an account of violence that is monstrative and creative, cinematically demonstrating not the violation of body but the impersonal, non-embodied violence of a fascination with formal possibility, one shared by horror and metaphysical philosophy. The workshop will explore issues of radical formalism, ethics, violence, and negative affect in film and critical theory. All are welcome. To receive workshop readings, please email Abe Geil at a.m.geil@uva.nl.

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