"Stanley Cavell and Literary Studies," Humanities Center, Harvard University, October 14-16, 2010.

Bernie Rhie writes:

As some of you know, Richard Eldridge and I are coediting a collection of newly commissioned essays — entitled Stanley Cavell and Literary Studies: Consequences of Skepticism — which will explore the relevance of Cavell’s writings for literary theorists and critics (to be published in 2011 by Continuum). Over the past few months, we’ve been organizing a 3-day conference related to this volume, which will take place at Harvard’s Humanities Center, October 14-16, 2010.

The primary focus of the conference will be the presentation and discussion of draft versions of the commissioned chapters for the volume. But it will begin, the evening of October 14th, with a celebration of the publication of Cavell’s forthcoming philosophical autobiography, Little Did I Know: Excerpts from Memory (Stanford Univ. Press, forthcoming in October). Following an introduction by the Center’s director, Homi Bhabha . . . there will be brief responses to selected passages from Cavell’s memoir, presented by five distinguished philosophers who have close, and long-standing ties, to Prof. Cavell:

•Norton Batkin (Bard College)
•James Conant (University of Chicago)
•Arnold Davidson (University of Chicago and University of Pisa)
•Paul Franks (University of Toronto)
•Sandra Laugier (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)

After their brief presentations, there will be a discussion and Q&A session (open to members of the audience) moderated by Nancy Bauer (Tufts University). Prof. Cavell will attend the Oct. 14 event (as well as the rest of the conference), and plans to be available to sign copies of his memoir after the evening’s discussion comes to a close.

The next two days of the conference — Friday Oct. 15 and Saturday Oct. 16 — will consist of presentations of the commissioned chapters (grouped into panels of two or three papers at a time), each set of papers to be followed by some comments and/or questions from an invited respondent. We will be sure to allot substantial time for discussion of each set of papers. . . .

See the schedule at the conference website here: http://olponline.wordpress.com/2010/05/16/october-14-16-conference-at-harvard-on-cavell-literary-studies/.