Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory

Technocracy Conference
March 5–6 | Levis Faculty Center

Speakers: Soumya Dasgupta (Architecture, UIUC) • Taisuke L. Wakabayashi (Landscape Architecture, UIUC) • Chris Wiley (Information Science, UIUC) • Theodore Dreyfus Ledford (Information Science) • Michelle N. Huang (English, Northwestern) • Brian Jordan Jefferson (Geography, UIUC) • Jeffrey S. Nesbit (Architecture, Temple) • Anita Say Chan (Information Science, UIUC) • Swati Srivastava (Political Science, Purdue) • Isak Ladegaard (Sociology, Hong Kong) • Brett Zehner (Communication, Exeter)

Keynote: Fred Turner (Stanford)

Hosted by the Unit for Criticism.

Co-sponsored by the Unit for Criticism, the PhD Program in Architecture and Landscape Architecture hosts a keynote lecture by Hi’ilei Julia Hobart (Native and Indigenous Studies, Yale) as part of the symposium “Creativity in Modern Heritage.” Hobart is author of Cooling the Tropics: Ice, Indigeneity, and Hawaiian Refreshment (Duke University Press, 2022). The lecture takes place in Plym Auditorium, Temple Hoyne Buell Hall, with a reception following in the atrium and exterior patio.

On February 19, Carlos Alberto Torres, Distinguished Professor at UCLA and former director of UCLA’s Latin American Center, will give a lecture celebrating the extraordinary humanitarian career of Paulo Freire, author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, in which he analyzed the analogous relationship of colonizer and colonized to that of teacher and student. Torres is the leading expert on Paulo Freire, Brazilian educator and philosopher of ethics in education. The lecture will take place at 5:15 PM at the Plym Auditorium in Temple Buell Hall. A reception will follow the lecture.

John Levi Barnard (English, UIUC) and Pollyanna Rhee (Landscape Architecture, UIUC) will deliver a lecture on the topic of Environmental Humanities as the conclusion of the Fall 2025 Modern Critical Theory Lecture Series. We look forward to seeing you there!

Julian Go (Sociology, University of Chicago) will deliver a lecture on the topic of postcolonial theory as part of the Fall 2025 Modern Critical Theory Lecture Series. We look forward to seeing you there!

Stephen M. Best (English, University of California, Berkeley) will deliver a lecture titled “The Limits of Racial Critique,” as part of the Fall 2025 Modern Critical Theory Lecture Series. We look forward to seeing you there.

Ciro Incoronato (Italian, UIUC) will deliver a lecture on Biopolitics, as part of the Fall 2025 Modern Critical Theory Lecture Series. We look forward to seeing you there.

Timothy McCarthy (Education, Harvard University) will deliver a lecture on Q***r Theory, titled “Q***r Theory in an Age of Urgency” as part of the Fall 2025 Modern Critical Theory Lecture Series. We look forward to seeing you there.

Sofía Zaragocín (Geography & GIS, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) will deliver lectures on feminism (Latin America/Latinx Feminist Geographies). We look forward to seeing you there.

François Proulx (French & Italian, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) will deliver lecture on Post-structuralism as part of the Fall 2025 Modern Critical Theory Lecture Series. We look forward to seeing you there!

Anna Hunt (German Languages & Literatures, UIUC) and Verena Erlenbusch-Anderson (Philosophy, UIUC) will deliver lectures on Walter Benjamin in the collaborative format of dialogue. We look forward to seeing you there.