LSE Literary Festival 2013: EUROPP Special Edition Preview Podcast

Podcast: LSE: Public Lectures and Events
Date: March 4, 2013
Host: LSE Film and Audio Team
Featured Guests: Dr. Paul Stock, Elke Krasny

Episode Overview

This special preview episode spotlights key themes and speakers from the 2013 LSE Literary Festival, themed "Branching Out." The festival commemorated the 300th anniversary of Enlightenment thinker Denis Diderot and included discussions about urban transformation and curatorial practice. The podcast features Dr. Paul Stock, chair of the festival's main Diderot event, and Elke Krasny, curator and senior lecturer, who speaks about curatorial practice and urban change.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Legacy of Denis Diderot and the Enlightenment (00:00–04:11)

Dr. Paul Stock introduces the Diderot Event

• Festival Theme: “Branching Out” both references the growth of knowledge and Diderot’s 300th anniversary.
• Panel Composition: Three experts with diverse specialities related to Diderot:
  • Professor Russell Goldborn (University of Leeds): Diderot as a man of letters, novelist, dramatist, art critic; his literary works and translation.
  • Dr. Tim Hochstrasser (LSE): Specialist in political thought; Diderot’s Encyclopédie and its ambitious aim to summarize human knowledge and democratize access; impact and influence on knowledge organization.
  • Dr. Paul Keenan (LSE): History of 18th-century Russia; Diderot’s notable visit to Catherine the Great and the intersection of philosophy with absolute power.
• Conceptual Metaphor: The tree, symbolizing branching knowledge, directly inspired by Diderot and d'Alembert’s structure for the Encyclopédie:

  "In the modern period, we now conceptualize knowledge, the idea that particular branches of learning lead to other sub-disciplines... graphically represented in the Encyclopédie itself" — Dr. Paul Stock (03:50)

• Modern Relevance: The organization of knowledge in subfields, stemming from Enlightenment concepts, endures in contemporary academic and intellectual practice.

2. Curatorial Practice and Urban Transformation (04:11–08:39)

Elke Krasny on Curatorship, Cities, and Storytelling

• Focus: The intersection of curatorial work and urban transformation, especially whose stories are collected and represented.
  • "How to deal with urban transformation processes and in whose interest, from whose perspective stories are being told, respectively collected..." — Elke Krasny (04:13)
• Historical Case – Vienna (late 19th century):
  • The demolition of city fortifications led to both urban expansion and the founding of the history museum—the lapidarium—to preserve the city's physical memory.
  • Krasny shifts from collecting stones to collecting "underrepresented stories" relating to agency and political activism in urban change today.
• Contemporary Project – Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside:
  • Collaborative project with the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre, focusing on First Nation and Chinese women.
  • Emphasis on unearthing history through the lens of demands: demonstrations, manifestos, and ongoing struggles against gentrification.

  "What I did together with them is unearthing their history… their ongoing struggle to maintain the shelter in this… pressure cooker of gentrification." — Elke Krasny (06:16)

• Urban Surface Messages Collection:
  • Ongoing collection of informal urban messages found on city surfaces, such as labor/housing ads and ephemeral notes—reading the city as "a body of collective writing."

  "...the message that speaks through the citizens itself." — Elke Krasny (07:23)

• Challenge of Documenting Urban Change:
  • Seeks intellectual scenarios that communicate both anxieties and potentialities of urban transformation, highlighting heterogeneity over binary narratives.
  • Points out the linkage between biography and urban acceleration:

  "Biographies come under pressure because the cities are under pressure." — Elke Krasny (08:14)

• Pedagogical Link:
  • Ties her curatorial practice to teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts, encouraging students to think of public space as both physical and as a public sphere shaped by visible and invisible changes.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “What Diderot and d'Alembert did in conceptualizing knowledge... is actually do something that was quite sophisticated and quite modern, and something which has subsequently directed a lot of the ways that we now, in the contemporary world, think about knowledge and subspecialism.” — Dr. Paul Stock (03:49)
• "I'm not interested in collecting stones, but I'm interested in underrepresented stories of people who try to have agency, political agency within urbanization processes today." — Elke Krasny (05:53)
• “What I find challenging at this point in time is how to address transformationality itself. How can you actually capture it? And how can you create scenarios, intellectual scenarios, that make it possible for others to share what the anxieties are, but also the potentialities.” — Elke Krasny (07:57)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–00:47 — Introduction: Festival theme and guests
• 00:47–04:11 — Dr. Paul Stock previews the Diderot event, explains the connections between Enlightenment knowledge structures and the festival
• 04:11–08:39 — Elke Krasny discusses curatorial strategies, urban history, and contemporary social agency

Episode Tone and Style

The tone is intellectual and exploratory, with a strong emphasis on the intersection of history, culture, and contemporary practice. Both speakers deliver information with enthusiasm and clarity, focusing on the resonance of Enlightenment thought with current challenges in knowledge organization and urban life.

Summary

This preview podcast delves into the festival’s engagement with Diderot's legacy as a model for organizing and democratizing knowledge—a theme echoed in both historical and modern curatorial work. Dr. Paul Stock’s segment centers on the multidimensional impacts of Diderot and the Encyclopédie, while Elke Krasny explores how urban transformation is documented, whose narratives are prioritized, and the lived consequences of rapid city change. Both segments underline the festival’s dedication to branching out—not only thematically but through truly interdisciplinary inquiry.