Conducted by Prof. Dr Ivan Šprajc, an archaeologist and research fellow at ZRC SAZU (Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts), this lecture will address the archaeological expeditions he has been leading for the past three decades in the heart of the Yucatán Peninsula. They have uncovered numerous previously undocumented archaeological sites, including major urban centres. This year, his team continued its research in the central part of the Mexican state of Campeche, where a final major gap in the archaeological map of the Maya cultural region has recently been filled. 

Using laser scanning (LiDAR) data, they first discovered a previously unknown site which, while not particularly large, surprised them with a series of relief-carved stone monuments on which some depictions and hieroglyphic inscriptions are still discernible. On previous expeditions, the team had relied on old logging trails – which, though abandoned and overgrown, could be cleared to allow off-road vehicles to reach their target locations. This time, however, there were no such trails in the wider vicinity of the site, so they named it Minanbé, which in Yucatec Maya translates as “No Path”. The second site, also surveyed this season, lies relatively close to a populated area and was known to the locals, who call it El Yesal; however, neither its details nor its extent were known. Only now have the scientists realised that El Yesal is one of the largest Maya cities in the Yucatecan lowlands. The talk will focus on the fieldwork, highlighting the distinctive features of both sites.
 

Robert Stillman, saxophone; Chelsea Carmichael, saxophone; tbc, cello; Tom Herbert, double bass; Tom Skinner, drums 

Tomaž Gajšt, trumpet, Fluegelhorn; Boštjan Simon, saxophone, modular synth; Andrej Kobal, live electronics; Šimun Matišić, vibraphone, drums, percussion; Kristijan Krajnčan, cello, drums, percussion

Sylvie Courvoisier, piano; Ned Rothenberg, klarinet, alto saxophone, shakuhachi; Nasheet Waits, drums

Tomoki Sanders, tenor saxophone, electronics; Ian Finkelstein, klaviature; Mwanzi Harriott, electric guitar; Christian Napoleon, drums

Amirtha Kidambi, vocal, harmonium, electronics; Matt Nelson, soprano saxophone, electronics; Alfredo Colon, tenor saxophone; Nick Dunston, double bass; Jason Nazary,  drums, electronics 

Alex Sipiagin, trobenta; Jaka Kopač, alt saksofon; Joe Locke, vibrafon; Joshua Ginsburg, kontrabas; Vladimir Kostadinović, bobni

How can we persevere in a time when progress has stalled, when the ghosts of the past weigh heavily upon us, and when no resolution is in sight? To persist – not as a moral stance or a capitalist imperative, but rather as a way of opening the possibility of a new temporality from which it may become possible to rethink our own Zeitgeist.

The new book On Persistence by Canadian philosopher and comparatist Rebecca Comay bears witness to such persistence in the face of the ruins of the past, which keep us in a state of perpetual mourning – a deadlock that may perhaps be broken not through action, but through the concept itself. Rebecca Comay is the author of several exceptional monographs, most notably Mourning Sickness: Hegel and the French Revolution (Stanford University Press, 2011) and The Dash – The Other Side of Absolute Knowing (co-authored with Frank Ruda; MIT Press, 2018).

Dr Mirt Komel, philosopher and writer at the Department of Cultural Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, will be in conversation with the guest. The event is organised in collaboration with the Aufhebung International Hegelian Association.

Rebecca Comay is professor of philosophy and comparative literature, a core member of the Literature and Critical Theory Program (Victoria College), and an associate member of the Germanic Languages and Literatures Department and the Centre for Jewish Studies. Her research interests include Hegel and 19th century German philosophy; theatricality; Marx and Marxism (including Frankfurt school); psychoanalysis; contemporary French philosophy; trauma and memory; iconoclasm and destruction of art; contemporary art and art criticism; Proust and Beckett. She is currently working on a book on the temporality of deadlines, as well as a project on dramaturgy and dialectic.
 

Laeticia Hormuth, soprano 
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Eva Kokot, soprano

We will be joined by Blaž Šef, Jasmina Jerant and a surprise guest.