On Monday, May 1 and Tuesday, May 2, 2000, a two-day cross-disciplinary workshop sponsored by the SOM Foundation took place at Columbia University's Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture.
May 1–2, 2000
Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture
Columbia University
1172 Amsterdam Ave., New York, NY 10027
The workshop was dedicated to thinking about a set of emergent social and cultural problematics related to what William James called “things in the making.” What is the potential of pragmatist thought to address these issues of our time? Alternatively or additionally, what other perspectives or critical strategies might be brought to bear on them?
Introductory Remarks
Casey Nelson Blake
Joan Ockman
John Rajchman
Session 1: The Public
How might we rethink/reconstruct the relationship between private and public life today? Between public life and democracy? If a public sphere is essential to any conception of democracy, should our model of democracy be consensual? Contestatory? Something else?
Speakers:
Rosalyn Deutsche
Kenneth Frampton
Gerald Frug
Chantal Mouffe
Moderator:
Gwendolyn Wright
Session 2: Geographies of Citizenship
Are new forms of “citizenship” arising today that transcend national boundaries? How should we rethink issues of identity, rights, and civic responsibilities in the context of globalization and deterritorialization?
Speakers:
Teresa Caldiera
Saskia Sassen
Sandhya Shukla
Mabel Wilson
Moderator:
Andreas Huyssen
Session 3: The Past / The Future
Do classic narratives of the twentieth century need to be rewritten? Is the “American Century” over? How should the past be reimagined? How should we imagine the future?
Speakers:
Jean-Louis Cohen
David Lapoujade
Nadia Urbinati
Moderator:
Andres Stephanson
Session 4: Aesthetics / Experience
Evening Event
Paul Miller a.k.a. DJ Spooky
Richard Shusterman
Bernard Tschumi
Session 5: Technologies / Techniques / Perception
How are questions of perception, experience, and knowledge to be rethought in light of accelerating technological change? How are scientific methodologies to be restructured in light of new logics of organization, information, and temporality? How are changing relations between knowledge and power to be analyzed?
Speakers:
Jonathan Crary
Manuel De Landa
Peter Galison
Liz Grosz
Brian Massumi
Moderator:
Reinhold Martin
Session 6: Place
How can we best address the new problems of place emerging today? How can a sense of community be sustained within contemporary urban and "posturban" settings?
Speakers:
William Leach
Hashim Sarkis
Richard Sennett
Abdou Maliq Simone
Moderator:
Okwui Enwezor
Session 7: Social Life and the Everyday World
What might a pragmatist city look like? What types of interactions, what forms of participation and spectatorship would it foster? How might everyday places like airports, train stations, subways, streets—and the internet—get transformed?
Speakers:
Stanley Aronowitz
Marshall Berman
Sandra Buckley
Isaac Joseph
Martha Rosler
Moderator:
Mary McLeod
Concluding Discussion
Cover, The Pragmatist Imagination.
Ockman, Joan, ed. The Pragmatist Imagination: Thinking About Things in the Making. New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 2000.
What would it mean today to think or to imagine, to design or to construct, in relation not to “things made” but to “things in the making”? This question, first posed by the philosopher William James, was the point of departure for The Pragmatist Imagination. The volume brings together position statements, theoretical speculations, and critical commentary by thirty-three leading thinkers and makers from over a dozen disciplines. Based on the proceedings of an workshop held at Columbia University in spring 2000 under the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, the contributions traverse a set of questions about the future that range from the relationship between art and experience to the impact of new technologies on human consciousness, from transformations in everyday life to problems of public space, and from the destiny of the nation-state to emergent forms of transnationalism.
With an introduction by John Rajchman and an afterword by Casey Nelson Blake, essay contributors include Stanley Aronowitz, Marshall Berman, Casey Nelson Blake, Sandra Buckley, Teresa Caldeira, Jean-Louis Cohen, Jonathan Crary, Rosalyn Deutsche, Kenneth Frampton, Gerald E. Frug, Peter Galison, Elizabeth Grosz, Andreas Huyssen, Isaac Joseph, David Lapoujade, Reinhold Martin, Brian Massumi, Mary McLeod, Paul Miller a.k.a. DJ Spooky, Chantal Mouffe, Joan Ockman, John Rajchman, Martha Rosler, Hashim Sarkis, Saskia Sassen, Sandhya Shukla, Richard Shusterman, Abdoumaliq Simone, Anders Stephanson, Bernard Tschumi, Nadia Urbinati, Mabel Wilson, and Gwendolyn Wright.
