Over the last few years, corporations and individuals have given more money to charitable organizations than ever before. What could possibly be the downside to gift-giving?

In a Chats in the Stacks book talk, Timothy Campbell, professor of Italian in the Department of Romance Studies and member of the graduate fields of Comparative Literature and Film and Video Studies, will discuss contemporary giving and its social forms.

His new book, The Techne of Giving (Fordham University Press, January 2017), investigates how we hold the objects of daily life in relation to neoliberal forms of gift-giving. Moving between visual studies, Winnicottian psychoanalysis, Foucauldian biopower, and apparatus theory, Campbell will discuss alternative ways to conceive of generosity. In his analysis of political philosophy and classic Italian films by Visconti, Rossellini, and Antonioni, he highlights new forms of gratitude that contemporary biopower cannot ignore.

This event is sponsored by Olin Library. Refreshments served.