<div dir="ltr"><div style="font-size:12.8px">Dear CSAAers </div><div style="font-size:12.8px"><br></div><div style="font-size:12.8px">A reminder that the <span style="font-size:12.8px">Philosophies of Difference Seminar Series starts Wednesday, 9</span><sup>th</sup><span style="font-size:12.8px"> March with a talk by Helen Ngo at 6pm at the RMIT City Campus. Details below.</span></div><div style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">All welcome!</span></div><div style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">Best</span></div><div style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">Tania</span></div><div style="font-size:12.8px"><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">PoD #1: <b><span style="font-size:14pt">“Racist Habits: A Phenomenological Analysis of Racism and the Habitual Body”: Helen Ngo (Deakin University)</span></b><span style="font-size:14pt"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Abstract:</p><p class="MsoNormal">This lecture will examine how the phenomenological concept of habit can be productively deployed in the analysis of racism, in order to propose a reframing of the problem. Racism does not unfold primarily in the register of conscious thought or action, I argue, but more intimately and insidiously in the register of bodily habit. This claim, however, relies on a reading of habit as bodily orientation – or habituation – as developed by Merleau-Ponty in the<i> Phenomenology of Perception</i>. Drawing on his account, I turn to two salient dimensions of racist praxis which I argue are better understood through the frame of habit: bodily gesture or response, and racialised perception. Building on the analyses of contemporary critical race thinkers, I argue that racism is habitual insofar as it is embedded in bodily modes of responding to the presentation of racialised ‘others’ and in ‘sedimented’ modes of racialised seeing. However, this is not to suggest that the acquisition of racist habits is passive, or that such habits foreclose the possibility of change. In the final section, I revisit the concept of habit and its usual characterisation as ‘sedimentation’ or ‘calcification’. I argue that while such a reading gives voice to the anchoring weight of the temporal past in habit, a more prospective rendering of the concept is available to us through a rereading of sedimentation as active passivity; habits are not only acquired, they are also <i>held</i>. This in turn will allow us to recast the question of responsibility in relation to one’s racist habits.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br></p><p class="MsoNormal">Bio: </p><p class="MsoNormal">Dr. Helen Ngo is an Honorary Fellow in Philosophy at Deakin University. She completed her PhD at Stony Brook University, USA, specialising in phenomenology, critical philosophy of race, and feminist philosophy. She is currently engaged in teaching and research at Monash University, and is also working on a forthcoming book based on her doctoral dissertation, <i>The Habits of Racism</i>. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US">WHEN</span></b><span lang="EN-US">:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">6pm – 7:30pm, Wednesday 9<sup>th</sup> March 2016</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US">WHERE</span></b><span lang="EN-US">:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Building 9, Room 9.3.4A</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">RMIT City Campus (cnr Bowen & Franklin)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US">ABOUT</span></b><span lang="EN-US">:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The Philosophies of Difference group (PoD) are a Melbourne-based group of scholars working in continental philosophy and interested in problems that have been marginal to the dominant traditions of Western thought. We engage with approaches including: critical philosophy of race, decolonial thought, feminist theory, Indigenous studies, philosophy of disability, philosophy of nature, queer theory and trans philosophy. <br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">The PoD Seminar Series is supported by the Communication, Politics and Culture Research Centre in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US">MORE</span></b><span lang="EN-US">:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://philosophiesofdifference.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">philosophiesofdifference.wordpress.com</a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://facebook.com/philosophiesofdifference" target="_blank">facebook.com/philosophiesofdifference</a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="mailto:philosophiesofdifference@gmail.com" target="_blank">philosophiesofdifference@gmail.com</a></span></p><br clear="all"></div><span style="font-size:12.8px">We hope you can make it!</span><br clear="all" style="font-size:12.8px"><div style="font-size:12.8px"><br></div><span style="font-size:12.8px">-- </span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><div style="font-size:12.8px"><div dir="ltr">Dr Rebecca Hill<div>Senior Lecturer in Literary Studies</div><div>Academic Advisor for Creative Writing</div><div><br></div><div>School of Media and Communication </div><div>RMIT University</div><div>GPO Box 2476V </div><div>Melbourne VIC 3001</div><div>Australia</div><div><br></div><div>Tel: 61 3 9925 2985</div><div>Room: 9.5.42</div></div></div><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Associate Professor Tania Lewis</span></div><div dir="ltr"><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Deputy Dean Research and Innovation</span></div><div dir="ltr"><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">School of Media & Communication</span></div><div dir="ltr"><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80);font-size:13px">RMIT University - Building </span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80);font-size:13px">9, Level 4, Room 15</span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80);font-size:13px">GPO Box 2474, Melbourne, VIC 3001, </span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80);font-size:13px">Australia</span></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"><div><a href="http://www.rmit.edu.au/staff/tania-lewis" target="_blank">www.rmit.edu.au/staff/tania-lewis</a><br style="color:rgb(80,0,80);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><div><br></div><div><b style="font-size:12.8px;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">New articles</b><br></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2752/175174415X14190821960798#.VeERJbzzphA" target="_blank">Supermarket wars, celebrity chefs & ethical consumption</a><br></span></div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://ics.sagepub.com/content/18/3/347" target="_blank">Researching green transformations</a><br></div><div><br></div><div><div><b style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Research Projects</b> </div><div><a href="http://www.ethicalconsumption.org/" target="_blank">www.ethicalconsumption.org/</a></div><div><a href="http://www.telemodernities.org/" target="_blank">www.telemodernities.org/</a><br></div><div><a href="http://www.rmit.edu.au/thinkgreen/supp" target="_blank">http://www.rmit.edu.au/thinkgreen/supp</a></div><div><br></div><div><b style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Research Groups</b><br></div></div></div><div>Digital Ethnography Research Centre: <font color="#500050"><a href="http://www.digital-ethnography.net/" target="_blank">www.digital-ethnography.net/</a></font><div><font style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Beyond Behaviour Change: </font><a href="http://www.rmit.edu.au/research/urban/beyondbehaviour" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" target="_blank">www.rmit.edu.au/research/urban/beyondbehaviour</a></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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