UC Irvine's School of Humanities will bring five well-known critical theorists to campus in May for a series of public talks on subjects ranging from suicide bombing to how laws are interpreted. Their lectures are intended to challenge everyday assumptions about the world.

Among the speakers will be Stanley Fish, a prolific writer on topics ranging from literature to law, who pens a column on university affairs for The Chronicle of Higher Education and blogs about politics and society for The New York Times. A controversial figure in literary theory, Fish is also known for his personality - he served as the inspiration for the amorous speedster Morris Zapp, a fictional English professor in David Lodge's academe-based trilogy Changing Places. Fish is currently the Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University Professor of Humanities and Law at Florida International University. In his long academic career, he was recognized for recruiting celebrity academics to build brand-name programs in the humanities at Duke University and Johns Hopkins.

Other speakers visiting campus in May are Talal Asad, Judith Butler, Achille Mbembe and Gayatri Spivak. Sponsored by the Critical Theory Emphasis, the events are free and open to the public.
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May 6: Judith Butler and Gayatri Spivak - leading feminist thinkers

* "Global States" keynote addresses, 4:30 p.m., Saturday, May 6, Humanities Hall 178.

Known for her writing on feminism, sexual politics, psychoanalysis, philosophy and literary theory, Judith Butler is the Maxine Elliot Professor in the Departments of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley. She currently is working on essays about Jewish philosophy, focusing on pre-Zionist criticisms of state violence. Gayatri Spivak is the Avalon Foundation Professor in Humanities at Columbia University. An activist as well as educator, she is involved in international women's movements, rural education in Asia and human rights. Butler and Spivak are keynote speakers at "Global States," a conference sponsored by graduate students in the Department of Comparative Literature. For more information, call 949-824-6712 or visit www.humanities.uci.edu/complit/globalstates/.
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May 10-12: Stanley Fish - language and interpretation

* "The Position, May 2006," 5 p.m., Wednesday, May 10, Humanities Instructional Building Room 135.

Fish will explore some of the topics that have made him controversial over the decades - interpretation, truth, politics, and history - and discuss his views in light of contemporary public debates. This is the annual Koehn Endowed Lecture in Critical Theory. For more information, call (949) 824-6720.

* "There Is No Textualist Position," noon, Thursday, May 11, MPAA 406.

In a workshop with the Center in Law, Culture and Society, Fish argues against the position taken by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia that laws should be interpreted based on the written words themselves rather than the lawmakers' intended meaning. For more information, visit www.seweb.uci.edu/cls/research/workinggroup/index.uci.

* "Is It Good for the Jews: Liberalism, Religion, Politics," 4-5:30 p.m., Friday, May 12, Administration Building Room 338.

Fish will discuss religion and politics at a conference called "At the Margins of Belief." For more information, call (949) 824-3638 or visit www.humanities.uci.edu/hctr/.

May 12: Achille Mbembe - colonialism and globalization

* "Reasons of Faith," 10 a.m., Friday, May 12, Administration Building Room 338.

Achille Mbembe, professor at the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, is a political and social theorist whose work explores violence, postcolonialism and globalization. His most recent book, On the Postcolony, explores the relationship between dictators and oppressed people in his native Cameroon. He will discuss faith in this lecture during the "At the Margins of Belief" conference. For more information, call (949) 824-3638 or visit www.humanities.uci.edu/hctr/.
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May 15-17: Talal Asad - religion and secularism

* "Thinking About Suicide Bombing," 5-7 p.m., Monday-Wednesday, May 15-17. Humanities Hall Room 161.

Talal Asad, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at CUNY Graduate Center, has researched the integral role of religion - and secularism - in the modern world, and their relationship to human rights. He is also interested in the revival of religion in the Middle East. His books include Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam and Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam and Modernity. Asad's three public talks are sponsored by the Wellek Library Lectures, which bring internationally distinguished critical theorists to UCI each year. For more information, call 949-824-5583 or visit www.humanities.uci.edu/critical/.

About the Critical Theory Emphasis: The Critical Theory Emphasis is a graduate program for students interested in exploring and developing theoretical models to analyze and critique cultural forms, from literature and art to more general systems of information; social relations; and symbolic categories of race, gender and ethnic identity. CTE aims to promote the study of shared assumptions, problems and commitments of the arts, humanities and social sciences. UCI is ranked second in the nation in literary criticism and theory by U.S. News and World Report.

About the University of California, Irvine: The University of California, Irvine is a top-ranked university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Founded in 1965, UCI is among the fastest-growing University of California campuses, with more than 24,000 undergraduate and graduate students and about 1,400 faculty members. The second-largest employer in dynamic Orange County, UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $3.3 billion. For more UCI news, visit www.today.uci.edu.