CFP: "Nietzsche's ECCE HOMO: a Centenary Conference," Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of London, November 27-28, 2008.

Update: For the full programme, visit the conference homepage at http://www.swan.ac.uk/german/conferences/eh.htm. Original Post (January 31, 2008): Keynote speakers include: Keith Ansell Pearson, Steven Aschheim, Paul Bishop, Lesley Chamberlain, Daniel Conway, Carol Diethe, Rüdiger Görner Friedrich Nietzsche’s intellectual autobiography Ecce Homo has always been a controversial book. Nietzsche prepared it for publication just before he became incurably insane in early 1889, but his sister and literary executor, Elisabeth, held it back until after his death, and it finally appeared only in 1908. For much of the first century of its reception, Ecce Homo met with a sceptical response and was viewed as merely a testament to Nietzsche’s incipient madness. It occupied a tenuous position in the canon of his works, and a definitive scholarly edition was published as late as 1969. In recent decades, though, there has been increased interest in the work, especially in the English-speaking world, where R. J. Hollingdale’s 1979 translation gained it a substantial new readership. Two more English translations have appeared in recent years, and another is pending. Ecce Homo represents in many respects both a summation of Nietzsche’s philosophical outlook and a supreme example of his stylistic strengths and weaknesses. Almost half the book is devoted to a reappraisal of his earlier works, often from a highly partial perspective. He is deliberately outrageous with the ‘megalomaniacal’ self-advertisement of his chapter titles, and brazenly claims ‘I am not a man, I am dynamite’ as he attempts to explode one preconception after another in the Western philosophical tradition. This centenary conference will re-assess Ecce Homo from both philosophical and philological viewpoints. Papers (in English or German, max. 30 minutes) are invited on any aspect of the text and its contexts, for example its:

• genesis, composition and complex publication history
• key concepts and philosophical arguments
• historical (in)accuracy and relation to Nietzsche’s earlier works
• intertexts, from the Bible to Paul Bourget
• rhetorical and narrative strategies
• hybrid generic status as literary-philosophical autobiography
• projected readership and reception by later writers
• contemporary relevance and relation to more recent philosophical developments
• theoretical interpretation (feminism, psychoanalysis, deconstruction …)

It is anticipated that selected papers from the conference will be published. Please submit proposals (max. 500 words) by 31 March 2008 to both of the organisers:

Professor Duncan Large (d.a.g.large@swan.ac.uk), School of Arts/German, Swansea University, Singleton Park, GB-Swansea SA2 8PP

and

Dr Nicholas Martin (n.c.martin@bham.ac.uk), Department of German Studies, University of Birmingham, Ashley Building, GB-Birmingham B15 2TT

INSTITUTE OF GERMANIC & ROMANCE STUDIES School of Advanced Study University of London Room ST272, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU Telephone: +44 (0)20-7862 8966 Fax: +44 (0)20-7862 8672 Email: jane.lewin @sas.ac.uk Website: http://igrs.sas.ac.uk/