The Institute for Critical Social Inquiry will open part of its programming to the public – a series of lectures taught by this Summer's faculty cohort of Eyal Weizman (Goldsmiths), Kendall Thomas (Columbia University), and McKenzie Wark (The New School).

McKenzie Wark's lecture is entitled: "The Transsexual Exception"

How does the phenomena of transsexuality trouble or modify existing social categories of analysis? Not surprisingly, transsexuality puts pressure on what we take sec or gender or sexuality to be. That is perhaps the place to start a trans critique of social science and social movements alike for which these are key terms. But we can look beyond that to less obvious interactions between transsexuality and social thought. How does it interact with, and even modify, understandings of race and class? And finally, what pressure does it put on the concepts of nature and techniques? This talk gives an overview of what a systematic critical inquiry from the trans point of view might yield, as well as making the case for the relevance of such a standpoint for both trans and cis scholars and activists alike.

About the Institute:
The Institute for Critical Social Inquiry (ICSI) is designed to provide advanced graduate students and junior faculty from around the world with the opportunity to spend one week at the New School’s campus in Greenwich Village working closely with some of the most distinguished thinkers shaping the course of contemporary social inquiry. Each of these scholars will teach a week-long seminar on a foundational thinker or topic of contemporary concern in a series of hands-on, intensive, and intimate sessions.