Keynote Addresses
“Standing Before the Law: Toward a Theory of Immanent Normativity,” Resistance and Breaking the Law, SUNY Binghamton, Department of Philosophy, Graduate Studen Conference, November 4, 2017.
“War of Images & Images of War: From Frederick Douglass and Emmett Till to #BLM and Beyond,” Dissent and Its Discontents, Loyola University Chicago, Department of Philosophy, Graduate Student Conference, June 6, 2017.
“The Political Plurivocity of Aesthetics: Equality and Empire in Whitman’s Poetic Revolution,” Resistance, Radicalisms and Aesthetics, Northwestern University, Department of French and Italian, Graduate Student Conference, June 2, 2017.
“Social Semiology and the Circulation of Images,” Fabula, Text Image Sound Space (TBLR), New York, May 3, 2016.
“Reframing Technological History and the Aesthetics of the Apparatus,” Aesthetic Technologies, Text Image Sound Space (TBLR), New York, May 22, 2015.
“Curatorial Politics and the Cultural Cold War: An Examination of the Social Politicity of ‘Apolitical’ Art,” Curating and Politics: In Theory, University of Oslo, Norway, April 5, 2014.
“What Is an Intervention? Critical Reflections on the Art of the Commonplace,” Jacques Rancière and the Politics of A-disciplinarity, SUNY Binghamton, Comparative Literature Graduate Student Conference, March 28, 2014.
“Vanguard Death, Avant-Garde Demise: Two Ends of Illusion?” Mobilizing the Past: The Politics of Contemporary Aesthetics, Universitetet Agder, Zürich, Switzerland, January 16, 2014.
“Overcoming the Contradiction of the Art of the Commonplace,” But Is It Art?, La Maison Française, French Department, New York University, March 9, 2013.
“L’art entre le réel: Critique of the Contradiction in Terms of Political Art,” On Jacques Rancière, Text Image Sound Space (TBLR), University of Bergen, Norway, November 29-30, 2012.
“Rethinking Revolution: Transformative Social Power in the Supposed End Times,” Revolution: Past and Present, Graduate Student Conference, Philosophy Department, Depaul University, March 31, 2012.
“Immanence and Intervention: Toward a Radical Historicist Analytic of Practice,” Politics and Aesthetics, Graduate Student Conference, Philosophy Department, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, February 18, 2012.
Invited Lectures
“Aesthetic Revolution.” Marxism and New Materialisms, Depaul University, April 27, 2018.
“Making a Specter Out of Marx: The Reformist Agenda of Contemporary Critical Theory.” Critique in German Philosophy, Depaul University, November 11, 2017.
“Knowledge/Power behind the Scenes.” Modern and Contemporary Studies Initiative
Summer Institute, Penn State, June 15, 2017.
“Comment sortir de la prison du temps present?” Économies de l’existence, École Normale Supérieure, Paris,June 9, 2017.
“Counter-History and the Transformation of Political Imaginaries.” Anachronisms, New York University, April 14, 2017.
“Never Just an Image: From the Camera as Sensible Weapon to a Critique of Simulacra.” Theorizing, University of Pennsylvania’s Comparative Literature Lecture Series, September 30, 2016.
“The Camera as a Sensible Weapon: Ontology and Politics of the Photographic Image.” Grinnell College, May 2, 2016.
“Five Hypotheses on Privilege and Violence.” Thinking Privilege, Mellon Symposium, Haverford College, April 8, 2016.
“Five Hypotheses on Privilege and Violence” (updated version). Theorizing, Rowan University’s Lecture Series, October 7, 2016.
“Writing Revolution: Whitman’s Literary Democracy.” American World Literature, The Society for Critical Exchange at the Slought Foundation, February 5-6, 2016.
“Remaking Machines: Pragmatics and Politics of Photography.” Penn State’s Comparative Literature Luncheon Series, October 26, 2015.
“Temporal Vertigo: Cinema in the Remaking.” Centennial Filiations: Theory, Aesthetics and Politics of Literary and Cinematic Fiction, University of New Mexico, March 26-27, 2015.
“Declarations and the Meanings of Revolutions.” Thinking with Balibar, New York, Columbia University, November 13-14, 2014.
“A quoi sert ‘la démocratie’? Urgence d’une question inopportune.” Séminaire de recherche “Pratiques sociales et émergence de sens” (LASCO), Sorbonne, Paris, June 26, 2014.
“Revolutions Past and Present: Towards a Reconsideration of Social Transformation,” “Denaturalizing Space and Time” and “Spaces of Resistance.” Atelier – Centre Franco-hongrois en Sciences Sociales, Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary, May 2013.
“Kulturkampf and the CIA: A Case Study in the Social Politicity of ‘Apolitical’ Art.” National Center for Contemporary Arts, Moscow, June 2012.
“Rancière’s Productive Contradictions: From the Politics of Aesthetics to the Social Politicity of Art.” University of Pennsylvania, Department of Musicology, Philadelphia, January 2011.
“Through the Looking Glass: Jacques Rancière’s Subversion of the Modernist Doxa.” University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, April 2011 (respondent: Jean-Michel Rabaté).
“Critical Reflections on the Ontological Illusion: Rethinking the Relation between Art and Politics.” Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, March 2011.
“The Imaginary and the Social-Historical: An Introduction to Cornelius Castoriadis’ Historical Ontology,” “For a New Logic of History: A Metaphilosophical Critique of Contemporary Philosophic Practice,” “Through the Looking Glass: Jacques Rancière’s Subversion of the Modernist Artistic Doxa,” “The Historicization of Knowledge in the Long 19th Century: Rival Accounts and Explanations” and “Marxist Historiography in the ‘Era of Globalization’: Toward A New End of History?” Invited lecture series at the Atelier – Centre Franco-hongrois en Sciences Sociales, Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary, November 2010.
“L’ontologie de l’actualité: Foucault et les Lumières.” Conference series Parcours d’histoire de la philosophie: La mémoire et l’histoire, Institut Catholique de Paris, June 2008.
“Politics and Ethics of Alterity in Postwar France and America.” Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, Workshop on “Matters of Others: Care, Solicitude, Domination, Alienation,” April 2007.
“Culture et civilisation: Histoire conceptuelle et enjeux politiques.” New York University in France, March 2007.
“Historical Accounts of Postwar Philosophy and the Problem of What Follows Post-Structuralism: Badiou and Rancière.” Villanova University, February 2007.
“The Right of Philosophy and the Facts of History: New Perspectives on the Foucault/Derrida Debate.” Fordham University, New York, February, 2006.
“Les Signes de l’histoire chez Jean-François Lyotard.” Research seminar on “Arts, technologie, nouveaux média” directed by the research team “Arts, appareils, diffusion,” Maison des Sciences de l’Homme – Paris Nord, December 2005.
“Histoire et méthode de la traduction.” New York University in France, July 2005.
“Qu’est-ce qu’une communauté intellectuelle? Le cas de l’antiplatonisme moderne.” Centre International d’Etude de la Philosophie Française Contemporaine, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, May 2005.
“The Image of the Present: September 11th.” New York University in France, November 2001.
Conference Papers
“Revolutionizing Aesthetics” (with Jennifer Ponce de León). Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present, New Orleans, October 18, 2018.
“Radicalizing Critical Theory Beyond the Eurocentric Lodestone of Frankfurt.” Annual Conference of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, Memphis, October 19, 2017.
“Toward a Counter-History of Democracy.” Annual Conference of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, September 2, 2016.
“Radical and Critical Theory.” What Critique, Umass Amherst, April 23, 2016.
“Radical and Critical Theory” (updated version). Annual Conference of the Society forPhenomenology and Existential Philosophy, Salt Lake City, October 20, 2016.
“Radical and Critical Theory” (updated version). Critical Theory Roundtable, Penn State University, November 13, 2016.
“Restoring Revolution to Its Proper Place: Politics and the Social Question in Arendt.” Arendt Circle, March 12, 2016.
“Who Is the Subject of Politics? Revolutionary Declarations and Discursive Fields of Struggle.” Critical Theory Roundtable, Yale University, October 3, 2015.
“Origins and Foundations in Genealogical Critique” for the Foucault Circle at the Eastern Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, Philadelphia, December 29, 2014.
“Genealogy as Normative Critique: Nietzsche and Foucault” for the panel “Genealogy and Critical Theory: Nietzsche, Foucault, and the Frankfurt School.” Annual Conference of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, New Orleans, October 25, 2014.
“Toward a Counter-History of Democracy: Untimely Questions for Revolutionary Times.” Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association, New York University, March 22, 2014.
“Rancière between Kant and Hegel” for the panel “Political Aesthetics.” Annual Conference of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, Eugene, OR, October 26, 2013.
“Castoriadis’ Historical Ontology: Between Phenomenology and Critical Theory” for the panel “Toward a Historical Ontology.” Annual Conference of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, Rochester, NY, November 2012.
“L’art entre le réel: critique de la contradiction in adjecto de l’art politique.” L’idee d’avant-garde et la critique institutionnelle: pratiques et théories, Proekt Fabrika, Moscow, June 2012.
“Qu’est-ce que la méta-discrimination? Critique du multiculturalisme vulgaire et de ses représentations esthétiques.” Le multiculturalisme et la reconfiguration contemporaine de la diversité/unité, Université de Tours, May 2012.
“How to Think the Present? From the Ontology of Actuality to Ontology without Being” for the panel “Thinking the Present for and against Foucault” at The Theory Reading Group’s conference, Actuality and the Idea, Princeton University, May 2012.
“Le destin des avant-gardes.” Les artistes et l’avant-garde: Transformations historiques et contemporaines, Paris, Collège International de Philosophie, March/April 2011.
“Critique of the Ontological Illusion: Rethinking the Relation between Art and Politics.” Widerständiges denken – politisches lesen / Thinking – Resisting – Reading the Political, Giessen, Germany, November 2010.
“La politique révolutionnaire du réalisme classique: Sur la pertinence contemporaine de l’esthétique de Lukács.” La pensée de Georg Lukács dans la perspective contemporaine, Institut Français, Budapest, Hungary, October 2010.
“The Aesthetic Transformation” on the panel “Rancière and the 19th Century.” Modern Language Association Annual Conference, Philadelphia, PA, December 2009.
“Rancière’s Copernican Revolution” on the panel “Through the Looking Glass: Rancière’s Rejection of the Narrative of Representation.” Annual Conference of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, Arlington, VA, October 2009.
“Rethinking Art and Politics: For a Radical Historicist Analytic of Practice” on the panel “Beyond the Crisis of Critique: Rethinking Politics and Art in the Era of the ‘End of Utopias.’” Radical Philosophy Association Conference: Art, Praxis and Social Transformation: Radical Dreams and Visions, San Francisco State University, November 2008.
“Un spectre hante le concept de mondialisation.” Technologies de contrôle dans la mondialisation: Enjeux politiques, éthiques et esthétiques, New York University in France, June 2008.
“De la philosophie de la différence à la politique de la différence: Contextualisation et critique.” Théories de la reconnaissance et philosophie française: Vers la reconstitution d’un dialogue, Université de Paris X-Nanterre, May 2008.
“Démocratophilie: Histoire de la démocratie et émergence du régime d’égalité artistique.” Littérature et démocratie: Politiques de l’esthétique, Lyon, April 2008.
“The Recent History of Politicized Art in France.” American Society for Aesthetics, Philadelphia, April 2008.
“L’Emergence de pratiques cinématographiques.” Le Milieu des appareils, Maison des Sciences de l’Homme – Paris Nord, October 2006.
“Political History and Literary History in the Work of Jean-Paul Sartre.” Annual Conference of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, Salt Lake City, October 2005.
“Démocratie moderne et révolution. Quelques réflexions sur la causalité historique.” Jacques Rancière et la philosophie au présent, Colloque du Centre Culturel International de Cerisy la Salle, May 2005.
“The Recent History of Politicized Art.” Jacques Rancière: Aesthetics and Politics, University of Pittsburgh, March 2005.
“Les Enjeux politiques de la modernité cinématographique.” Deleuze, Guattari et le politique, University of Paris VIII, January 2005.
“The Dissimulation of the Law in the Work of Michel Foucault.” Annual Conference of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, Chicago, October 2002.
“Between Time and History: Deleuze’s Film Theory.” Annual Conference of the International Association for Philosophy and Literature, Rotterdam, 2002.
Round Tables, Panels and Discussions
“Scholar as Activist / Activist as Scholar.” Round Table with Robin Anderson, Jennifer Lee and Liz Ševčenko at the Center for the Humanities at Temple University, Philadelphia, March 24, 2015.
“Repenser l’art et la politique.” Round Table with Roei Amit and Andrès Claro for Thomas Hirschhorne’s exhibition “Flamme éternelle” at the Palais de Tokyo, June 20, 2015.
Book session on Radical History & the Politics of Art : “Art and Politics in the Time of Radical History: A Conversation with Gabriel Rockhill about the Social Dimension of Aesthetic Practices,” with Kevin Platt, Annika Thiem and Jean-Michel Rabaté at the Slought Foundation, Philadelphia, October 7, 2014.
Book session for Radical History & the Politics of Art in the form of a discussion of the keyword “avant-garde” with Avi Alpert and Rit Premnath at the New School for Social Research, in affiliation with Shifter Magazine, New York, October 4, 2014.
“Francophone Philosophy Today.” A Dialogue between Gabriel Rockhill and Diogo Sardinha, Villanova University, December 6, 2013.
“Art et politique: Autour du travail de Jacques Rancière.” Round Table with Jacques Rancière and Patrick Vauday for the 30th Anniversary of the Collège International de Philosophie, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, June 7, 2013.
“Institutions and Interventions: The Problem of Social Emancipation from the Status Quo.” Workshop for “Critical Refusals,” the Fourth Biennial Conference of the International Herbert Marcuse Society, University of Pennsylvania, October 2011.
“Marcuse’s The Aesthetic Dimension.” Performative symposium on art and politics with the Machete Group for “Critical Refusals,” the Fourth Biennial Conference of the International Herbert Marcuse Society, University of Pennsylvania, October 2011.
“Pour une théorie critique de l’art et de la politique: un dialogue entre Gabriel Rockhill et Pierre Rusch.” Research Seminar for the Centre de recherches sur les arts et le langage (CRAL) at the EHESS and the CNRS, Paris, February 2011.
“Rancière’s Nineteenth Century.” La maison française at New York University, November 2009.
“Trans-Individuation, Technology, Politics.” Round Table with Bernard Stiegler during Villanova’s 14th Annual Philosophy Conference on “New French Thought,” Villanova University, April 2009.
“Extraordinary Rendition and the Torture Regime.” Panel with Julie Klein, Villanova University, Center for Peace and Justice, February 2008.
“Les Enjeux de la démocratie aujourd’hui: Castoriadis, Derrida, Rancière, Stiegler.” Round Table at New York University in France, Research Groups ETOS and Politique et culture, June 2007.
“Paradigms of the Present: Re-framing Global Justice, or Why Nancy Fraser Is a Popper in Kuhn’s Clothing,” Response Paper to Nancy Fraser, “Abnormal Justice.” Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, December 2006.
“Radical Democracy and the ‘New World Order’: Round Table with Chantal Mouffe.” American University of Paris, April 2006.
“Cosmopolitics.” Round Table at The American University of Paris, April 2003.
“Les Etudes critiques en France dans l’après-guerre.” Round Table at the Paris Center for Critical Studies, September 2001.
“Foucault, Nietzsche and History.” Round Table organized by Thomas R. Flynn, Annual Conference of the International Association for Philosophy and Literature, Atlanta, May 2001.
GABRIEL ROCKHILL 