The Hawthorn Archive and the Utopian Margins
The philosopher Ernst Bloch declared that ‘all given existence and being itself has utopian margins which surround actuality with real and objective possibility.’ The Hawthorn Archive gathers the histories and practices of those who have long challenged the modern racial capitalist system from the utopian margins. In this talk, Avery Gordon will discuss the Hawthorn Archive, explore some of what haunts the utopian archive as we know it, and consider the utopian margins where running away, marronage, vagrancy, rebellion, soldier desertion and other often illegible forms of escape, resistance and alternative ways of life predominate.
was a Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, for thirty years and is currently a Visiting Professor at Birkbeck School of Law, University of London. She is the author of The Hawthorn Archive: Letters from the Utopian Margins (2018); The Workhouse: The Breitenau Room (with Ines Schaber, 2015); Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination (1997/2008) and Keeping Good Time: Reflections on Knowledge, Power and People (2004), among other works.
In English
Workshop by Avery F. Gordon on Sat 23.03., 13.00–17.00, as part of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna PhD in Practice programme.
In English. Limited number of participants. Please register at aleon@tqw.at.