Cfp: EROS 2010, 3rd Biennial Conference in the Human Condition Series, Nipissing University, Muskoka Campus, May 21-22, 2010.

“On the face of it at least, our civilization possesses no ars erotica. In return, it is undoubtedly the only civilization to practice a scientia sexualis…” Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction. Though a human nature may not exist, there is comfort in the notion that a unifying force should subsist within all humankind: that is the will to live. Sigmund Freud thoughtfully named the driving impulse Eros. If humankind does possess, as a matter of our continuance as a species, an impulse for life, a drive to overcome all adversity in order to reproduce itself, what does this say of the human condition? How can desire, pleasure and love lead to social bonds that ensure the perpetuation of the species in healthy abundance? What types of relations cultivate worth and esteem in the individual, and how can destructive elements of these same tropes damage the psyche and dissolve the very relations that lead to a healthy self-concept? More specific to historical circumstances, how have male, hetero and white notions of love led individuals to abandon their genuine selves? How does pathos reveal itself in minds and in societies and how can we know when there is satisfaction in love or if an alternative object has been found through sublimation? The Human Condition Series invites you to consider the concept of Eros, and to share original and revisited thoughts which transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries. We encourage expressions about how culture, habit, language, science and art, embody, remedy or fail Eros. Without prescription, we urge theorizations and analyses which seek to look beyond the here and now towards the possibilities to come. Themes include but are not limited to: •The concept of Eros in the work and scholarship of Luce Irigaray •Heroines and Heroes of Eros •The Eros of War •The Eros of Motherhood •Representation, construction, reproduction or analysis of Eros, Chaos or other mythological deities •Subject/Identity formation and constructions of gender, sex and sexuality •Eros and parthenogenesis in history and literature •Categories of normativity, disorder, pathology or deviance in desire •Eros as nature, power, cosmology, mythology, and society. •Eros and the transformation of consciousness, near-death and dreamlike states. •Sacred marriage, immortal/mortal love •Sex tourism, sex trafficking •From Eros as mythos to Eros as logos •The sensuous in the human world •Eros and Gaia in the marketing of holistic healing •Contemporary Families and Eros •Eros in women’s literature as a distinct tradition •The role of Eros in different religious and spiritual traditions •Semiotic approaches to Eros and culture, place, space, time. Featured Speaker, Luce Irigaray We are delighted to have Luce Irigaray deliver an original presentation for the EROS Conference via satellite from Paris. In Thinking the Difference, she writes “Poor Eros!…What has become of us, that we are so poor in love?” [1], inviting reconsideration of the Freudian position that relationships must be broken for civilization to exist. In her view, relations must be restored if we are to save ourselves and the earth from total annihilation. Irigaray’s ideas challenge the necessity of breaking the bonds of love, for it is human ties, like those shared by mother and daughter that are the “missing pillars of our culture”. Film Feature Eros (2004) is the collection of three short films exploring the subjects of love, sexuality, and desire: Il filo pericoloso delle cose, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, Equilibrium, directed by Steven Soderbergh, and The Hand, directed by Kar Wai Wong. Apply to Present If your work addresses these themes specifically or the topic of Eros in general, please submit a working title, an abstract of 300-400 words, and a short biography, before January 25th, 2010, to Erosthehumanconditionseries@gmail.com or Erosthehumancondition@gmail.com. Selected presenters will be notified by February 25th, 2010. Presenters are required to submit a 10-15 page summary paper and pay early bird registration by April 1st in order to appear on the conference schedule. Presenters will have until June 25th, 2010 to prepare their manuscripts for submission to the double-blind review process for possible publication. For further inquiries regarding the Eros conference please contact: Toivo Koivukoski, Associate Professor of Political Science Nipissing University, North Bay Campus 100 College Drive Northbay, ON P1B 8L7 Canada. Erosthehumanconditionseries@gmail.com