Public Lecture by Professor Alenka Zupančič
About this Event
Lecture Title: 'Desire in the Ruins'
Desire in the Ruins
Thursday, September 10, 2026, 4-6 PM
Location: Room EM 119, Emmanuel College
78 Queens Park, Toronto, ON
Abstract:
We are told, with growing frequency, that we stand at the close of an era — that the world as we knew it is ending, if not the world itself. Politicians, pundits, and public intellectuals speak in the same breath of a crumbling order, and many emphasize the need to adapt to a new reality. What subject, though, is called forth by such pronouncements? What forms of subjectivation do they assume, generate, or foreclose? Drawing on philosophy and psychoanalysis, this lecture investigates the social and political forms through which subjects respond to the collapse of familiar horizons. It asks whether desire and subjectivity can arise precisely where the conditions for them appear to have been destroyed — in a landscape marked by paralysis, disorientation, and dread. The lecture also examines the role of artificial intelligence in this constellation, focusing on how AI increasingly mediates our sense of agency, knowledge, desire, and the real, while generating new and often ambiguous forms of subjectivation.
The Northrop Frye Professor in Literary Theory is selected annually, to bring innovative comparative scholars to deliver one or two public lectures to the University of Toronto community, offer workshops and seminars at the Centre for Comparative Literature, and meet with faculty and students.
We would appreciate it if you could RSVP for the public lecture on Eventbrite.
For questions or to request accessibility accommodations, please email the Centre for Comparative Literature ([email protected]).
Doors will open at 3:45 PM. We look forward to welcoming you at our event!
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
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