Critical Theory

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About UCI Critical Theory

UCI Critical Theory is the institutional home for events, research, and study related to critical theory at the University of California, Irvine. Critical Theory at UCI has a long and celebrated history, which includes the original iteration of the School of Criticism and Theory (now at Cornell University), as well as the Critical Theory Institute, which was home to such luminaries as Jacques Derrida, J. Hillis Miller, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Jean-François Lyotard, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Etienne Balibar. UCI Critical Theory offers a graduate emphasis in Critical Theory and is often ranked as the top critical theory program nationally. Our core programming includes the Wellek Library Lectures, the Koehn Public Lecture, and the Critical Theory Mini-Seminars.

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"Before the Look of Law" Art Exhibition & Public Program
Event

Before the Look of Law revisits The Look of Law, the 2006 exhibition organized by Simon Leung at the University Art Gallery. Organized during the height of the United States' "War on Terror" and military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, the earlier exhibition examined the relationship between state power and the psyche. Twenty years later, this project returns to those questions while shifting its focus toward collective forms of resistance and political imagination. The conference accompanying the original exhibition was later published by the College Art Association in Art Journal, and Leung's introductory essay received the journal's award for the year's most distinguished contribution.

Exhibiting Artists: Cameron Rowland, Tarik Garrett, York Chang, Ashley Hunt, Lincoln Tobier, Tiffany Sia, Samar Al Summary, Zoe Leonard, Paul McCarthy, Kiyan Williams, Na Mira, Sheila Pinkel, Alberto Lule, and Kim Zumpfe & Luke Quezada.

Before the Look of Law is a joint project between Critical Theory and the Claire Trevor School of the Arts with the support of Poetic Justice, Terra Foundation, the Glasser Center, and the Claire Trevor Society. 

"Before the Look of Law" Art Exhibition & Program