Since 1981, the Critical Theory Institute has sponsored an annual lecture series, named in honor of René Wellek (Yale University), whose library of works in critical theory is housed in Langson Library at the University of California, Irvine.

Each year, we have invited an internationally distinguished critical theorist to visit the campus to deliver a series of three lectures in which he or she develops his or her critical position and relates it to the contemporary theoretical scene. Each set of lectures is generally published in our Wellek Library Lecture Series.

To the right is a chronological list of past and upcoming Wellek Library Lectures.

For Wellek Library Lecturer Bibliographies and other Series information (1981-2009), click on this link.

The Wellek Library Lectures were generously supported by Dr. Michael Koehn from 2001 to 2005

Donna Haraway (Professor Emerita, History of Consciousness,
University of California, Santa Cruz)
"Playing Cat's Cradle with Companion Species"
May 2, 3, & 5. 2011, 5:00-7:00 PM in Humanities Gateway room 1030

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine)
"The Hegelian Lord and Colonial Bondsman: Literature and the Politics of Knowing"
May 17, 19 & 21, 2010, 5:00-7:00 PM in Humanities Gateway, Room 1030

Rosalyn Deutsche (Art History, Barnard College)
"Hiroshima after Iraq: Three Studies in Art and War"
May 2009

Joan W. Scott (Harold F. Linder Professor, School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton)
"Politics and Academic Freedom"
May 2008

Elizabeth Grosz (Women's and Gender Studies, Rutgers, The State Univerisity of New Jersey, New Brunswick)
"Chaos, Territory, Art"
May 2007

Talal Asad (Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center)
"Thinking about Suicide Bombing"
May, 2006

David Harvey (Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center)
"Geographical Knowledges/Political Powers"
May, 2005

Achille Mbembe (Institute for Social & Economic Research, University of the Witwatersrand)
"The Political Life of Sovereignty"
October, 2004

Angela Davis (History of Consciousness, UC Santa Cruz)
"Lectures on Abolition"
May 2003

Paul Gilroy (Sociology & African American Studies, Yale U)
“Elements of Post-colonial melancholia”
May 2002

Homi Bhabha (English & Afro-American Studies, Harvard U)
“The Quasi-Colonial: Scrambled Eggs and a Dish of Rice”
November 2001

Gayatri Spivak (English and Comparative Literature, Columbia)
“The New Comparative Literature.” 2000

Jean Baudrillard
“The VItal Illusion.” 1999

Judith Butler (Rhetoric, UC, Berkeley)
“Antigone's Claim: Kinship, Aberration and Psychoanalysis.” 1998

Harry Harootunian (East Asian Studies, History, New York University)
“History's Disquiet: Modernity and Everyday Life.” 1997

Étienne Balibar (Philosophie, Politique et Morale, U. Paris-X, Nanterre)
“On Politics and History: Presence, Cruelty and the Universals.” 1996

Rosalind Krauss (Art History, Columbia)
“Formless: A Feat.” 1995

Wolfgang Iser (English & Comparative Literature, UC Irvine)
“Variables of Interpretation: Iterations of Translatability.” 1994

Evelyn Fox Keller (Rutgers)
“Metaphors of Twentieth- Century Biology.” 1993.

Geoffrey Hartman (English and Comparative Literature, Yale)
“Three on ‘Culture.’” 1992.

Fredric Jameson (Literature, Critical Theory, Duke)
“The Constraints of the Postmodern.” 1991

Hélène Cixous (Writer and Professor, U. Paris, VIII)
“Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing.” 1990

Edward Said (English, Columbia)
“Musical Elaborations.” 1989

Murray Krieger (English and Comparative Literature, UC Irvine)
“A Reopening of Closure: Organicism Against Itself.” 1988

Louis Marin (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris)
“Pascalian Propositions for Today.” 1987

Jean-François Lyotard (French & Italian, UC Irvine)
“The Law, the Form, the Event.” 1986

J. Hillis Miller (English and Comparative Literature, Yale)
“The Ethics of Reading.” 1985

Jacques Derrida (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales)
“Mémoires: Three Lectures for Paul de Man.” 1984

Frank Kermode (Fellow, King’s College, Cambridge; Visiting Profession Columbia U)
“Forms of Attention.” 1983

Perry Anderson (Historian, Historical Sociologist; Editor, New Left Review)
“In the Tracks of Historical Materialism.” 1982

Harold Bloom (English and Comparative Literature, Yale) [or Humanities]
“The Breaking of the Vessels: In Defense of Antithetical Criticism.” 1981