Carlisle, Clare. Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling: a Reader's Guide. London: Continuum, 2010.
The Continuum Reader's Guides aim to give "clear and accessible introductions to classic works of philosophy." The author of this Guide makes it clear that she has planned to write an "accessible commentary" on Fear and Trembling. Commentaries and introductions are not the same. Introductions give you the lay of the land, guides (commentaries) are detailed maps that assist progress through the landscape. Like following a scenic route with a map and historical vade mecum, reading Fear and Trembling with a guide book in hand will seem out of place to many. Clare Carlisle's book is full of useful information and fruitful reflection, but it would be a shame to offer it to someone who has yet to read Fear and Trembling. For others it has much to offer and chew over. Introduction? No.
Carlisle's commentary, forming the second of the book's three chapters ("Reading the Text"), is nearly three times longer than the other two combined. Readers who prefer "a shorter overall discussion" are invited to skip this chapter, moving directly from "Overview of Themes and Context" to "Reception and Influence". Since the outside chapters are, to this reviewer's mind, more open to critical comment than the extended commentary, the main focus here is on these, with only the following brief account of the second chapter. . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22689.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Cfp: 8th Annual Meeting, California Roundtable on Philosophy and Race, University of Massachusetts, Boston, September 23-24, 2011.
The California Roundtable on Philosophy and Race announces a call for papers for its seventh annual roundtable. This roundtable brings together philosophers of race, and those working in related fields in a small and congenial setting to share their work and to help further this sub-discipline of philosophy. Philosophical papers are invited on any issue regarding race, ethnicity, or racism, and including those that take up race in the context of another topic, such as feminism, political philosophy, ethics, justice, culture, identity, biology, phenomenology, existentialism, psychoanalysis, metaphysics, or epistemology.
Submissions are especially encouraged from junior scholars and philosophers of color. We seek to foster a productive and intellectually stimulating environment for those working in philosophy and race. The Roundtable also aspires to bring together junior and senior scholars to develop and enhance constructive mentoring relationships.
Visit: http://www.caroundtable.webs.com/.
Submissions are especially encouraged from junior scholars and philosophers of color. We seek to foster a productive and intellectually stimulating environment for those working in philosophy and race. The Roundtable also aspires to bring together junior and senior scholars to develop and enhance constructive mentoring relationships.
Visit: http://www.caroundtable.webs.com/.
Cfp: "Marx and Aristotle," Eighth Annual Conference, Marx and Philosophy Society, Institute of Education, University of London, June 4, 2011.
Main Speakers:
Jon Pike (Open University)
Tony Burns (Nottingham)
Scott Meikle (Glasgow)
The Marx and Philosophy Society aims to encourage scholarly engagement with, and creative development of, the philosophical and foundational aspects of Marx's work. The society welcomes contributions from any philosophical or political position.
Visit: http://www.marxandphilosophy.org.uk/.
Jon Pike (Open University)
Tony Burns (Nottingham)
Scott Meikle (Glasgow)
The Marx and Philosophy Society aims to encourage scholarly engagement with, and creative development of, the philosophical and foundational aspects of Marx's work. The society welcomes contributions from any philosophical or political position.
Visit: http://www.marxandphilosophy.org.uk/.
Webber, Jonathan. Review of Joseph S. Catalano, READING SARTRE. NDPR (February 2011).
Catalano, Joseph S. Reading Sartre. Cambridge: CUP, 2010.
Anglophone readers of Jean-Paul Sartre's major philosophical treatises have long been indebted to the work of Joseph Catalano. His commentaries on Being and Nothingness and Critique of Dialectical Reason together provide a detailed map of the complicated terrain of Sartre's thought and have proved indispensable to students and academics alike since their first publication in 1974 and 1986 respectively. This cartographic exegesis has grounded his own careful contributions to debates in the philosophy of mind and action, well represented by his collection Good Faith and Other Essays and his monograph Thinking Matter.
His latest book, Reading Sartre, is arguably his most ambitious, drawing together into a single narrative arc not only the two major theoretical treatises on which he has published commentaries, but also the largest two of Sartre's biographical works, the hefty Saint Genet: Actor and Martyr and the gargantuan yet unfinished The Family Idiot: Gustave Flaubert 1821-1857. Although he has brought these works together before, in the final chapter of Good Faith and Other Essays, his aim here is much broader in scope and deeper in detail. The goal of this thorough study, he tells us, is to 'rethink Sartre': although he is trying to clarify the basic structures of Sartre's theory of the place of the individual in the social and material world, he admits that he will inevitably develop only a particular perspective on that theory (p. x). His tone is thus frequently tentative and exploratory and he regularly reminds his readers to take his work as an invitation to 'read more deeply' and allow Sartre's thought to help them, as it has helped him, 'to think more clearly and more honestly' (pp. ix, xii).
Catalano illustrates Sartre's thought with aspects of our social and political life, such as the state of heightened security in which the western world has been operating for the past decade, as well as more personal dimensions of our lives, such as our childhoods and relations with our own children. He may well be right that our lives can be enriched by the ability to see it in Sartrean perspective and is certainly right to imply that we ought to be more philosophical about our quotidian concerns than is usually the case. But in emphasising this import of his book, Catalano downplays the major contribution the book is set to make to academic discussions about or informed by Sartre's existentialism.
In drawing together Sartre's four largest publications, written about a decade apart and together spanning almost his entire career, and in viewing Sartre's major biographical writings as works that develop as well as apply his philosophy, Reading Sartre sets a fresh agenda for the scholarly study of Sartre's writings and for the use of his thought to inform ongoing philosophical, psychological, and political debates. Through careful analysis of the structure and central claims of Sartre's four most substantial works, two of which have so far received scant philosophical attention, and by laying bare the theoretical relations between these works, Catalano facilitates the pursuit of this new agenda just as his earlier commentaries have facilitated discussion of Sartre for nearly four decades. . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22649.
Anglophone readers of Jean-Paul Sartre's major philosophical treatises have long been indebted to the work of Joseph Catalano. His commentaries on Being and Nothingness and Critique of Dialectical Reason together provide a detailed map of the complicated terrain of Sartre's thought and have proved indispensable to students and academics alike since their first publication in 1974 and 1986 respectively. This cartographic exegesis has grounded his own careful contributions to debates in the philosophy of mind and action, well represented by his collection Good Faith and Other Essays and his monograph Thinking Matter.
His latest book, Reading Sartre, is arguably his most ambitious, drawing together into a single narrative arc not only the two major theoretical treatises on which he has published commentaries, but also the largest two of Sartre's biographical works, the hefty Saint Genet: Actor and Martyr and the gargantuan yet unfinished The Family Idiot: Gustave Flaubert 1821-1857. Although he has brought these works together before, in the final chapter of Good Faith and Other Essays, his aim here is much broader in scope and deeper in detail. The goal of this thorough study, he tells us, is to 'rethink Sartre': although he is trying to clarify the basic structures of Sartre's theory of the place of the individual in the social and material world, he admits that he will inevitably develop only a particular perspective on that theory (p. x). His tone is thus frequently tentative and exploratory and he regularly reminds his readers to take his work as an invitation to 'read more deeply' and allow Sartre's thought to help them, as it has helped him, 'to think more clearly and more honestly' (pp. ix, xii).
Catalano illustrates Sartre's thought with aspects of our social and political life, such as the state of heightened security in which the western world has been operating for the past decade, as well as more personal dimensions of our lives, such as our childhoods and relations with our own children. He may well be right that our lives can be enriched by the ability to see it in Sartrean perspective and is certainly right to imply that we ought to be more philosophical about our quotidian concerns than is usually the case. But in emphasising this import of his book, Catalano downplays the major contribution the book is set to make to academic discussions about or informed by Sartre's existentialism.
In drawing together Sartre's four largest publications, written about a decade apart and together spanning almost his entire career, and in viewing Sartre's major biographical writings as works that develop as well as apply his philosophy, Reading Sartre sets a fresh agenda for the scholarly study of Sartre's writings and for the use of his thought to inform ongoing philosophical, psychological, and political debates. Through careful analysis of the structure and central claims of Sartre's four most substantial works, two of which have so far received scant philosophical attention, and by laying bare the theoretical relations between these works, Catalano facilitates the pursuit of this new agenda just as his earlier commentaries have facilitated discussion of Sartre for nearly four decades. . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22649.
"Fiction on Fiction: Metafictions and Reflexive Representation -- Philosophy, Film, Art, Literature," Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), University of Cambridge, April 15-16, 2011.
This conference focuses on metafiction, taken to cover any fiction which represents itself as a fiction.
Confirmed speakers include:
- Mark Currie(School of English and Drama, Queen Mary, University of London)
- Ruth Ronen (Department of Philosophy and Culture Research, University of Tel Aviv)
- Murray Smith (Department of Film Studies, University of Kent)
- Kendall Walton (Department of Philosophy, University of Michigan)
- Patricia Waugh (Department of English Studies, University of Durham)
Possible topics include:
- How to accommodate metafictions within an account of truth in fiction
- Audience engagement with metafictional representations
- Metafictional narrative techniques
- Metafiction in literature, film or the visual arts
- Whether metafictions place constraints on the ontology of fiction and the nature of fictional objects.
For further details and registration, please see the conference homepage: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/1446/.
Confirmed speakers include:
- Mark Currie(School of English and Drama, Queen Mary, University of London)
- Ruth Ronen (Department of Philosophy and Culture Research, University of Tel Aviv)
- Murray Smith (Department of Film Studies, University of Kent)
- Kendall Walton (Department of Philosophy, University of Michigan)
- Patricia Waugh (Department of English Studies, University of Durham)
Possible topics include:
- How to accommodate metafictions within an account of truth in fiction
- Audience engagement with metafictional representations
- Metafictional narrative techniques
- Metafiction in literature, film or the visual arts
- Whether metafictions place constraints on the ontology of fiction and the nature of fictional objects.
For further details and registration, please see the conference homepage: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/1446/.
Sluga, Hans. Review of Peter E. Gordon, CONTINENTAL DIVIDE. NDPR (February 2011).
Gordon, Peter E. Continental Divide: Heidegger, Cassirer, Davos. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2010.
In 2003, Peter Gordon, Professor of History at Harvard University, published a remarkable book on the kinship between two distinctive figures of Weimar culture: the German Jewish philosopher, theologian, and mystic Franz Rosenzweig and the famed author of Being and Time, Martin Heidegger. The inspiration for this book had come from a short piece Rosenzweig had written on a momentous philosophical debate between Heidegger and his colleague Ernst Cassirer that had taken place at Davos, Switzerland, in 1929 in front of a large international audience. Gordon's new book, Continental Divide: Heidegger, Cassirer, Davos, deals directly with this encounter -- with its content, its setting, its antecedents, consequences, and implications. The book can usefully be read as a sequel to Gordon's earlier work, for the two books together draw an extraordinary picture of a unique moment in the history of twentieth-century German philosophy and culture. . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22849.
In 2003, Peter Gordon, Professor of History at Harvard University, published a remarkable book on the kinship between two distinctive figures of Weimar culture: the German Jewish philosopher, theologian, and mystic Franz Rosenzweig and the famed author of Being and Time, Martin Heidegger. The inspiration for this book had come from a short piece Rosenzweig had written on a momentous philosophical debate between Heidegger and his colleague Ernst Cassirer that had taken place at Davos, Switzerland, in 1929 in front of a large international audience. Gordon's new book, Continental Divide: Heidegger, Cassirer, Davos, deals directly with this encounter -- with its content, its setting, its antecedents, consequences, and implications. The book can usefully be read as a sequel to Gordon's earlier work, for the two books together draw an extraordinary picture of a unique moment in the history of twentieth-century German philosophy and culture. . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22849.
Fagan, Melinda Bonnie. Review of Steve Fuller, SCIENCE. NDPR (February 2011).
Fuller, Steve. Science: the Art of Living. Montreal: McGill-Queens UP; Chesham: Acumen, 2010.
Steve Fuller's Science challenges widely held assumptions about scientific values, the relation of science to religion, and the significance of the Intelligent Design movement. The book is part of Acumen's Art of Living series, aimed at a general audience. Each volume in the series is a personal reflection on the question: "How should we live?" as this relates to a specific topic: Work, Pets, Faith -- here, Science (ii). Fuller fulfils his brief with a bracingly heterodox account of the values animating scientific inquiry. Science consists of nine substantive chapters, a brief introduction, and a concluding bibliographic essay. Each chapter expands on an overall thesis: "the art of living scientifically involves taking theology much more seriously than either practicing scientists or religious believers are inclined to do" (1). Fuller construes science as a long-term, social enterprise of knowledge-production, which requires justification and support. He locates values necessary for these in the Western intellectual tradition, specifically Christian theology. This characterization of science underwrites Fuller's polemical claim that intelligent design and creationism are more in tune with the ethos of science than some currently established theories, notably Darwinian evolution. Science is thus a rejoinder to recent popular works championing scientific atheism on Darwinian grounds. Though many of its ideas appear in Fuller's previous publications, Science updates earlier arguments and presents his distinctive views to a general audience. . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22829.
Steve Fuller's Science challenges widely held assumptions about scientific values, the relation of science to religion, and the significance of the Intelligent Design movement. The book is part of Acumen's Art of Living series, aimed at a general audience. Each volume in the series is a personal reflection on the question: "How should we live?" as this relates to a specific topic: Work, Pets, Faith -- here, Science (ii). Fuller fulfils his brief with a bracingly heterodox account of the values animating scientific inquiry. Science consists of nine substantive chapters, a brief introduction, and a concluding bibliographic essay. Each chapter expands on an overall thesis: "the art of living scientifically involves taking theology much more seriously than either practicing scientists or religious believers are inclined to do" (1). Fuller construes science as a long-term, social enterprise of knowledge-production, which requires justification and support. He locates values necessary for these in the Western intellectual tradition, specifically Christian theology. This characterization of science underwrites Fuller's polemical claim that intelligent design and creationism are more in tune with the ethos of science than some currently established theories, notably Darwinian evolution. Science is thus a rejoinder to recent popular works championing scientific atheism on Darwinian grounds. Though many of its ideas appear in Fuller's previous publications, Science updates earlier arguments and presents his distinctive views to a general audience. . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22829.
Pub: Lancashire, Ian. FORGETFUL MUSES.
Lancashire, Ian. Forgetful Muses: Reading the Author in the Text. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2010.
Read the related essay, "Vocabulary Changes in Agatha Christie's Mysteries as an Indication of Dementia: a Case Study," by Lancashire and Graeme Hirst, here: http://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/gh/Lancashire+Hirst-extabs-2009.pdf.
Read Amanda Fortini's review, "Literary Alzheimer's" in the New York Times here: http://www.nytimes.com/projects/magazine/ideas/2009/#arts.
Read Judy Stoffman's review, "An Agatha Christie Mystery: Is Alzheimer's on the Page?", in The Toronto Star of January 23, 2010, here: http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/754723--an-agatha-christie-mystery-is-alzheimer-s-on-the-page.
Read the related essay, "Vocabulary Changes in Agatha Christie's Mysteries as an Indication of Dementia: a Case Study," by Lancashire and Graeme Hirst, here: http://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/gh/Lancashire+Hirst-extabs-2009.pdf.
Read Amanda Fortini's review, "Literary Alzheimer's" in the New York Times here: http://www.nytimes.com/projects/magazine/ideas/2009/#arts.
Read Judy Stoffman's review, "An Agatha Christie Mystery: Is Alzheimer's on the Page?", in The Toronto Star of January 23, 2010, here: http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/754723--an-agatha-christie-mystery-is-alzheimer-s-on-the-page.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
"L'Ecrivain Edouard Glissant est mort." LE MONDE February 4, 2011.
Chantre éloquent de la diversité et du métissage, le grand écrivain antillais Edouard Glissant est mort le 3 février, à Paris, à l'âge de 82 ans. Poète, romancier, essayiste, auteur dramatique et penseur de la "créolisation", il était né à Sainte-Marie (Martinique) le 21 septembre 1928 et avait suivi des études de philosophie et d'ethnologie, à Paris.
Le prix Renaudot attribué, en 1958, à son roman La Lézarde, fit connaître du grand public cet intellectuel qui ne sépara jamais sa création littéraire d'une réflexion militante. Influencé par la philosophie de Gilles Deleuze et Félix Guattari, il a fait une utilisation politique de l'histoire et de la géographie des Caraïbes, manifestant sa révolte contre les racismes de toutes sortes et rappelant la tâche indélébile de l'esclavagisme sur les relations de la France avec l'Afrique et tout "l'outre-mer".
S'opposant à tout système imposé, à tout refus de l'autre, Edouard Glissant a été le chantre du métissage et de l'échange, formulant dans les essais regroupés au sein de la série "Poétique" sa thèse sur la "Philosophie de la relation" et la "Poétique du divers". Lui-même a refusé de s'enfermer dans un genre unique, circulant en permanence entre le roman, l'essai et le poème, y compris au sein de chaque ouvrage. . . .
Read the rest here: http://www.lemonde.fr/carnet/article/2011/02/03/l-ecrivain-edouard-glissant-est-mort_1474457_3382.html.
Le prix Renaudot attribué, en 1958, à son roman La Lézarde, fit connaître du grand public cet intellectuel qui ne sépara jamais sa création littéraire d'une réflexion militante. Influencé par la philosophie de Gilles Deleuze et Félix Guattari, il a fait une utilisation politique de l'histoire et de la géographie des Caraïbes, manifestant sa révolte contre les racismes de toutes sortes et rappelant la tâche indélébile de l'esclavagisme sur les relations de la France avec l'Afrique et tout "l'outre-mer".
S'opposant à tout système imposé, à tout refus de l'autre, Edouard Glissant a été le chantre du métissage et de l'échange, formulant dans les essais regroupés au sein de la série "Poétique" sa thèse sur la "Philosophie de la relation" et la "Poétique du divers". Lui-même a refusé de s'enfermer dans un genre unique, circulant en permanence entre le roman, l'essai et le poème, y compris au sein de chaque ouvrage. . . .
Read the rest here: http://www.lemonde.fr/carnet/article/2011/02/03/l-ecrivain-edouard-glissant-est-mort_1474457_3382.html.
Ginev, Dimitri. Review of Don Ihde, HEIDEGGER'S TECHNOLOGIES. NDPR (January 2011).
Ihde, Don. Heidegger's Technologies: Postphenomenological Perspectives. New York: Fordham UP, 2010.
Don Ihde dedicated his book Technics and Praxis (1979) to the memory of Martin Heidegger. Twenty seven years later he wrote:
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22570.
Don Ihde dedicated his book Technics and Praxis (1979) to the memory of Martin Heidegger. Twenty seven years later he wrote:
I have come to regret that dedication . . . My aversion was not only because of the moral discrepancy, which does arise by equating gas chamber victims and biotechnological corn, but also because I saw that for Heidegger, every technology ended up with exactly the same output or analysis. (1)The book under review, an impressive collection of interesting studies (some of which have been published previously), supplements the negative sentiments of aversion with a profound critique of Heidegger's philosophy of technology. The range of Ihde’s discussion is remarkable: ideas about the genesis and history of the philosophy of technology; a view about the rise of techno-romanticism; a re-reading of "the Heidegger corpus" from the empirical perspective of science-technology studies; a comparative analysis of the variants upon "autonomous technology" put forward by Heidegger, Jacques Ellul and Lewis Mumford; an explanation of the sense in which Heidegger's philosophy of technology is an existential-phenomenological enterprise; a rebuttal of the arguments for the thesis that modern technology is applied science; a search for a rationale for differentiating between handwork technology and scientific technology; and the doctrine that modern technology is both historically and ontologically prior to modern science. In handling these issues, Ihde tries to avoid appeal to representationalist epistemology in discussing science's cognitive specificity and the science-technology relationship, to replace the metaphysical meta-narrative about the "essence of technology" with a pragmatist account of science-technology, and to combine his phenomenological account of the life-world "in the midst of myriad technologies" with a multicultural diversifying of the Eurocentric story about the metaphysical trajectory of modern technology. . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22570.
Di Giovanni, George. Review of Karin de Boer, ON HEGEL. NDPR (January 2011).
de Boer, Karin. On Hegel: the Sway of the Negative. London: Palgrave, 2010.
Though not large in size (200 pages in normal format discounting end-notes and general apparatus), this book defends a complex thesis that requires it to range far and wide over the whole Hegelian corpus. The title, indefinite as it is ("On Hegel"), and the aphorism of the subtitle ("The Sway of the Negative"), already signals the broadness of the book's reach and the complexity of the thesis underpinning it. These traits make the book difficult to report on, but one can try none the less. The book is motivated by a critique of modernity that involves a critique of Hegel inasmuch as the latter's dialectical optimism is a hallmark of modernity. The critique is inspired by such figures as "Kierkegaard, Marx, Adorno, Heidegger, and Derrida," (5) at least to the extent that, like them, the author questions Hegel's principle of "absolute negativity." However, unlike these mentors, who failed to do justice to the strength of Hegel's thought, the author intends to capitalize on this strength by relying on a suggestion, which she finds in Hegel's early Essay on Natural Law (1803), that would limit the negative to its more tragic aspects. Hegel's is only a suggestion. As the author clearly recognizes, in the same essay Hegel also advances the more speculative idea of "absolute negativity" to which he is driven because of systematic requirements (26-27). None the less, it is on this more limited suggestion of a "tragic negative," and the entanglements to which it gives rise in concreto, that the author pins her hopes for an understanding of the dynamics of the contemporary world. As she says, "Nothing prevents us from . . . converting this very entanglement into a basic philosophical principle" (28).
Accordingly, the book is a reflection on all aspects of Hegel's system that exploits, while at the same time criticizing and limiting, Hegel's leading idea of the "negative." The book unfolds in ten chapters -- the shortest 7 pages, the longest 22 -- that follow on the whole the sequence of the Encyclopedia. It is Logic, however, and the conceptual problems that it poses, that control the book's development from beginning to end. For the author, contrary to what she takes to be the tendency of post-analytical Anglophone literature on Hegel to privilege the Phenomenology (the same, I add, could be said of the post-war French scene) believes (rightly so, in my opinion) that the capital work of Hegel, the one that holds his whole system together, is precisely the Logic. Chapter 1 presents what the author believes to be "Hegel's early account of tragedy" (7). Chapters 3 to 4 are a study of the Logic, while Chapters 5 to 8 relate the author's interpretation of the Logic to the rest of the System ("Circularity," "Nature," "Language," "Teleology"). In Chapter 9, the author finally turns to History. "Drawing on the perspective developed in the preceding chapters," the aim here is "to bring out the tragic nature of conflicts such as those between universality and particularity, freedom and power, the individual and the community, or progress and tradition" (8). . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22230.
Though not large in size (200 pages in normal format discounting end-notes and general apparatus), this book defends a complex thesis that requires it to range far and wide over the whole Hegelian corpus. The title, indefinite as it is ("On Hegel"), and the aphorism of the subtitle ("The Sway of the Negative"), already signals the broadness of the book's reach and the complexity of the thesis underpinning it. These traits make the book difficult to report on, but one can try none the less. The book is motivated by a critique of modernity that involves a critique of Hegel inasmuch as the latter's dialectical optimism is a hallmark of modernity. The critique is inspired by such figures as "Kierkegaard, Marx, Adorno, Heidegger, and Derrida," (5) at least to the extent that, like them, the author questions Hegel's principle of "absolute negativity." However, unlike these mentors, who failed to do justice to the strength of Hegel's thought, the author intends to capitalize on this strength by relying on a suggestion, which she finds in Hegel's early Essay on Natural Law (1803), that would limit the negative to its more tragic aspects. Hegel's is only a suggestion. As the author clearly recognizes, in the same essay Hegel also advances the more speculative idea of "absolute negativity" to which he is driven because of systematic requirements (26-27). None the less, it is on this more limited suggestion of a "tragic negative," and the entanglements to which it gives rise in concreto, that the author pins her hopes for an understanding of the dynamics of the contemporary world. As she says, "Nothing prevents us from . . . converting this very entanglement into a basic philosophical principle" (28).
Accordingly, the book is a reflection on all aspects of Hegel's system that exploits, while at the same time criticizing and limiting, Hegel's leading idea of the "negative." The book unfolds in ten chapters -- the shortest 7 pages, the longest 22 -- that follow on the whole the sequence of the Encyclopedia. It is Logic, however, and the conceptual problems that it poses, that control the book's development from beginning to end. For the author, contrary to what she takes to be the tendency of post-analytical Anglophone literature on Hegel to privilege the Phenomenology (the same, I add, could be said of the post-war French scene) believes (rightly so, in my opinion) that the capital work of Hegel, the one that holds his whole system together, is precisely the Logic. Chapter 1 presents what the author believes to be "Hegel's early account of tragedy" (7). Chapters 3 to 4 are a study of the Logic, while Chapters 5 to 8 relate the author's interpretation of the Logic to the rest of the System ("Circularity," "Nature," "Language," "Teleology"). In Chapter 9, the author finally turns to History. "Drawing on the perspective developed in the preceding chapters," the aim here is "to bring out the tragic nature of conflicts such as those between universality and particularity, freedom and power, the individual and the community, or progress and tradition" (8). . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22230.
Shaw, Joshua. Review of Michael de Saint Cheron, CONVERSATIONS WITH EMMANUEL LEVINAS, 1983-1994. NDPR (January 2011).
Cheron, Michaël de Saint. Conversations with Emmanuel Levinas, 1983-1994. Trans. Gary D. Mole. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP, 2010.
Michaël de Saint Cheron's Conversations with Emmanuel Levinas, 1983-1994 (hereafter Conversations), is a somewhat misleadingly titled new publication from Duquesne University Press. The book's title makes it sound as though it is a collection of interviews between Levinas and Saint Cheron, a scholar who has published works on Augustin Malroux and Elie Wiesel and who participated in Levinas's lessons at the École normal israélite orientale from 1983 onward. However, Saint Cheron's interviews compose only a small part of the book, which also contains four essays on Levinas and an extended essay on Yom Kippur, atonement, and forgiveness. The fact that these interviews constitute a small part of the book will be a disappointment for some. However, Conversations has several qualities to recommend it, both as a study of Levinas's philosophy as well as a work of Jewish philosophy in its own right. . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22172.
Michaël de Saint Cheron's Conversations with Emmanuel Levinas, 1983-1994 (hereafter Conversations), is a somewhat misleadingly titled new publication from Duquesne University Press. The book's title makes it sound as though it is a collection of interviews between Levinas and Saint Cheron, a scholar who has published works on Augustin Malroux and Elie Wiesel and who participated in Levinas's lessons at the École normal israélite orientale from 1983 onward. However, Saint Cheron's interviews compose only a small part of the book, which also contains four essays on Levinas and an extended essay on Yom Kippur, atonement, and forgiveness. The fact that these interviews constitute a small part of the book will be a disappointment for some. However, Conversations has several qualities to recommend it, both as a study of Levinas's philosophy as well as a work of Jewish philosophy in its own right. . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22172.
Cfp: "Michael Oakeshott’s Political Philosophy in Comparative Perspective," California State University, Santa Monica, October 2011.
British philosopher Michael Oakeshott (1901-1990) was a theorist of individualism in a time of conformism. He did not follow any of the major “schools” of philosophy of his day, preferring to strike his own path. His work has sometimes been called “liberal” and sometimes “conservative”, and it is certainly “radical” in some ways as well, such as in its rejection of moralism in politics. He was one of the deepest thinkers about what is known as liberal education, which is one of the goals of a university education. But a true liberal education, he observed, cannot result in a uniform, mass-produced, conformist product. In these days of crisis in higher education, perhaps it is time to look at his work again.
Oakeshott drew heavily on the English tradition in political philosophy, on such thinkers as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and John Stuart Mill. He was himself often compared to twentieth century thinkers such as Isaiah Berlin, Karl Popper, and C. B. Macpherson. But his connections, historical or conceptual, with a wider range of thinkers also bear rethinking, and that is one of the purposes of this conference. His work will be compared with that of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the Austrian genius who overlapped with him some years at Cambridge, and José Ortega y Gasset, one of the great Spanish thinkers of the twentieth century. We will also return to the French connection with Jean Jacques Rousseau: there are affinities as well as huge antipathies. Oakeshott’s first major book drew on Hegel at a time when Hegel was unpopular in England; there is more to be done in exploring this aspect of his work.
It is too much to say that Oakeshott scholarship has been exclusively dominated by English reflection on their own great thinker, but there is something original in our project: to bring American experts together with a research group from Spain which has been involved in the cosmopolitan project of interpreting Oakeshott. Looking at Oakeshott from a distance, so to speak, may help us find overlooked implications of his thought.
For more information, contact Dr. Cyrus Masroori at: cmasroor@csusm.edu.
Oakeshott drew heavily on the English tradition in political philosophy, on such thinkers as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and John Stuart Mill. He was himself often compared to twentieth century thinkers such as Isaiah Berlin, Karl Popper, and C. B. Macpherson. But his connections, historical or conceptual, with a wider range of thinkers also bear rethinking, and that is one of the purposes of this conference. His work will be compared with that of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the Austrian genius who overlapped with him some years at Cambridge, and José Ortega y Gasset, one of the great Spanish thinkers of the twentieth century. We will also return to the French connection with Jean Jacques Rousseau: there are affinities as well as huge antipathies. Oakeshott’s first major book drew on Hegel at a time when Hegel was unpopular in England; there is more to be done in exploring this aspect of his work.
It is too much to say that Oakeshott scholarship has been exclusively dominated by English reflection on their own great thinker, but there is something original in our project: to bring American experts together with a research group from Spain which has been involved in the cosmopolitan project of interpreting Oakeshott. Looking at Oakeshott from a distance, so to speak, may help us find overlooked implications of his thought.
For more information, contact Dr. Cyrus Masroori at: cmasroor@csusm.edu.
Cfp: "Religion, Politics and the Future of Liberal Education," Tenth Anniversary Meeting, Michael Oakeshott Association, University of Tulsa, October 13-16, 2011.
2011 marks the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Michael Oakeshott Association, a group established to encourage the critical study of one of the twentieth century’s most important political philosophers. Previous conferences have taken place at the London School of Economics, Colorado College, the University of Jena in Germany, and Baylor University.
The University of Tulsa will host the Association’s meetings this year. The focus of the conference will be Oakeshott’s understanding of liberal education and the contemporary university. Also central will be the possible relationships between university education, politics and religion. Potential authors should strive both to engage Oakeshott’s work on its own terms and to locate it in broader discussions about education, religion and politics. Papers that compare Oakeshott to other relevant thinkers are encouraged.
Abstracts, no more than 500 words, should be sent by April 15, 2011 to Elizabeth_Corey@baylor.edu. Abstracts should also include: title of paper, full name(s), affiliation, current position, and an email address.
Visit: http://www.michael-oakeshott-association.com/.
The University of Tulsa will host the Association’s meetings this year. The focus of the conference will be Oakeshott’s understanding of liberal education and the contemporary university. Also central will be the possible relationships between university education, politics and religion. Potential authors should strive both to engage Oakeshott’s work on its own terms and to locate it in broader discussions about education, religion and politics. Papers that compare Oakeshott to other relevant thinkers are encouraged.
Abstracts, no more than 500 words, should be sent by April 15, 2011 to Elizabeth_Corey@baylor.edu. Abstracts should also include: title of paper, full name(s), affiliation, current position, and an email address.
Visit: http://www.michael-oakeshott-association.com/.
Cfp: "Radical Foucault," Centre for Cultural Studies Research, University of East London, September 9, 2011.
The publication of Michel Foucault's Lectures at the Collège de France, 1983-84 in English will be complete in April 2011 and his first Collège de France lecture course, La Volunté de Savoir will be published for the first time in February. The Centre for Cultural Studies Research at the University of East London is holding a one-day conference on Friday, September 9th, 2011 which will re-assess Foucault's contribution to radical thought and the application of his ideas to contemporary politics. What does it mean to draw on Foucault as a resource for radical politics, and how are we to understand the politics which implicitly informs his work?
Many commentators today would seem to claim Foucault as the theorist of a politics which eschews all utopian ambition in favour of a certain governmental pragmatism, while others would claim him for a rigorous but ultimately rather simple libertarianism: can either of these positions ever be adequate to the radicalism of Foucault’s analyses? Does it matter?
What is the significance of Foucault’s ideas of ‘governmentality’ and ‘biopolitics’ in understanding his later oeuvre and its implications; do either of these terms deserve to carry the weight attributed to them by some commentators? What is the ongoing relevance of Foucault’s account of disciplinarity: is, it, as Lazzarato has claimed, a historical category no longer fully applicable to contemporary forms of power?
How can Foucauldian ideas be brought bear on the analysis of austerity politics? Is there a role for Foucault's ideas in formulating effective resistance to the increasing erosion of civil liberties that operates both within countries and across state boundaries? Can the notion of bio-power account for contemporary forms of racism? How can Foucauldian epistemology enable an understanding of the biopolitics of contemporary scientific discourse?
Confirmed Keynotes:
Stuart Elden, Professor in the Department of Geography, Durham University.
Mark Kelly, Lecturer in Philosophy, Middlesex University.
Abstracts of no more than 350 words are invited, to arrive no later than Tuesday, 1st March 2011. Subjects may include, but are not limited to:
Foucauldian thought and contemporary subjectivation
Foucault and other thinkers
Governmentality and everyday life
Strategic discourses of war and terror
New technologies of the self
Foucault and new forms of resistance
Heterotopias now and in the future
Foucault and the erosion of the state
Disciplinary society and the society of control
Foucault, British politics and the 'big society'
Foucault, post-Fordism and post-democracy
Email abstracts to Jeremy Gilbert (j.gilbert@uel.ac.uk) and Debra Benita Shaw (d.shaw@uel.ac.uk).
Many commentators today would seem to claim Foucault as the theorist of a politics which eschews all utopian ambition in favour of a certain governmental pragmatism, while others would claim him for a rigorous but ultimately rather simple libertarianism: can either of these positions ever be adequate to the radicalism of Foucault’s analyses? Does it matter?
What is the significance of Foucault’s ideas of ‘governmentality’ and ‘biopolitics’ in understanding his later oeuvre and its implications; do either of these terms deserve to carry the weight attributed to them by some commentators? What is the ongoing relevance of Foucault’s account of disciplinarity: is, it, as Lazzarato has claimed, a historical category no longer fully applicable to contemporary forms of power?
How can Foucauldian ideas be brought bear on the analysis of austerity politics? Is there a role for Foucault's ideas in formulating effective resistance to the increasing erosion of civil liberties that operates both within countries and across state boundaries? Can the notion of bio-power account for contemporary forms of racism? How can Foucauldian epistemology enable an understanding of the biopolitics of contemporary scientific discourse?
Confirmed Keynotes:
Stuart Elden, Professor in the Department of Geography, Durham University.
Mark Kelly, Lecturer in Philosophy, Middlesex University.
Abstracts of no more than 350 words are invited, to arrive no later than Tuesday, 1st March 2011. Subjects may include, but are not limited to:
Foucauldian thought and contemporary subjectivation
Foucault and other thinkers
Governmentality and everyday life
Strategic discourses of war and terror
New technologies of the self
Foucault and new forms of resistance
Heterotopias now and in the future
Foucault and the erosion of the state
Disciplinary society and the society of control
Foucault, British politics and the 'big society'
Foucault, post-Fordism and post-democracy
Email abstracts to Jeremy Gilbert (j.gilbert@uel.ac.uk) and Debra Benita Shaw (d.shaw@uel.ac.uk).
Cfp: "The Time(s) of Our Lives," Annual Meeting, Australasian Society of Continental Philosophy, La Trobe University, December 12-14, 2011.
Keynote Speakers:
Professor Elizabeth Grosz (Rutgers University)
Professor John McCumber (UCLA)
Professor James Williams (University of Dundee)
In the 1980s, US economist Jeremy Rifkin claimed that, “a battle is brewing over the politics of time.” He felt that the pivotal issue of the twenty-first century would be the question of time and who controlled it. In this conference, we open up the possibility that a battle over the politics (and philosophy) of time is also what is at stake in the differences between various major currents of contemporary European philosophy.
This is arguably so despite there being a metaphilosophical agreement amongst the vast majority of continental philosophers, which is that starting with the supposition of the ultimate truth of objective time is the wrong way to go, since the time of our lives will not be able to be adequately reconstructed, as David Hoy suggests.
Indeed, the endorsement (and rejection) of various different philosophical methods is partly bound up with their success (and failure) in illuminating the relationship between time and the socio-political. Consider the following methods: dialectics, transcendental reasoning post-Kant, genealogy, hermeneutical and psychoanalytic techniques, Heidegger’s destructive retrieve, Derridean deconstruction, the Frankfurt School style critique of modernity, as well as the general wariness of aligning philosophical method with either common sense or a deferential relationship to the findings of the sciences. From Husserl’s genetic phenomenology, to Bergson’s durée and the use of intuition as a method which is claimed to put us inside rather than outside time, to Heidegger’s Being and Time, time and method have been central to continental philosophy at least since the nineteenth century. Taken together, these methods also ensure that sustained textual engagement, and a concern with culture and history, undergird large parts of contemporary continental philosophy.
When it comes to thematising the ethico-political and normativity more generally, continental philosophers also invariably invoke time, and this often depends on forms of transcendental philosophy and temporal orders of priority. This is partly due to the vast influence of Heidegger. While Heidegger’s work is subsequently contested by Levinas, Derrida, and Deleuze (as well as others), it is typically contested on temporal grounds. Other continental philosophers associated time and normativity in the nineteenth century. While Hegel is an obvious case, arguing that the task of philosophy ought to be to grasp one’s own time in thought, we might also think of Nietzsche’s revaluation of values in which time is central. Nietzsche argues, for example, that all ressentiment is resentment of the present (the “now”) and claimed in Ecce Homo that the notion of the eternal return of the same was his greatest idea, along with the associated idea of amor fati: become what one is. We might also consider Marx, whose rich and varied analyses of the relation between certain modes of production and time (e.g. time-as-measure) remains influential. Kierkegaard’s work is primarily concerned with the manner in which the genuinely religious life involves a contradiction between temporal existence and eternity, as well as the manner in which the choice, or leap of faith, occurs at an instant in which time (lived time) and eternity are envisaged to intersect.
Drawing on these traditions, David Wood suggests that violence (both of a conceptual and more empirical nature) is best understood as fundamentally a disease of time, as a “chronopathology.” Ethico-political problems are in store for us when the living-present is understood as self-contained, when we are nostalgic for the past (or seek to return to some origin), and when the future is understood as entirely circumscribed and delimited by the expectations of the present. Current institutions are worth of critique to the extent that any of these chronopathologies are dominant, and thus exclude other times.
In that respect, of course, the irony of the title of the conference – the time(s) of our lives – is also deliberate. With global warming, the financial crisis, etc., it would be hard to say these are, in fact, the times of our lives in a positive sense, representing any kind of apotheosis of modernity. We hence hope to invoke reflections on these times, open to a variety of disciplines, including politics, social theory, and literature amongst others, all of which in their different ways remain critical of the present, tracing alternative temporal trajectories that fracture or wound – what Elizabeth Grosz calls the nick of time – any sense of our times as stable, progressive, and improving.
This critical dimension remains vital to European philosophy today, but within which some important temporal tensions remain. Are there biases enshrined, for example, in the phenomenological preoccupation with the living-present, or the post-structuralist valorisation of the future? Must the philosopher always be utopian in some sense?
A call for papers on these questions, as well as any others within continental philosophy broadly construed, will be sent out in early in 2011.
Professor Elizabeth Grosz (Rutgers University)
Professor John McCumber (UCLA)
Professor James Williams (University of Dundee)
In the 1980s, US economist Jeremy Rifkin claimed that, “a battle is brewing over the politics of time.” He felt that the pivotal issue of the twenty-first century would be the question of time and who controlled it. In this conference, we open up the possibility that a battle over the politics (and philosophy) of time is also what is at stake in the differences between various major currents of contemporary European philosophy.
This is arguably so despite there being a metaphilosophical agreement amongst the vast majority of continental philosophers, which is that starting with the supposition of the ultimate truth of objective time is the wrong way to go, since the time of our lives will not be able to be adequately reconstructed, as David Hoy suggests.
Indeed, the endorsement (and rejection) of various different philosophical methods is partly bound up with their success (and failure) in illuminating the relationship between time and the socio-political. Consider the following methods: dialectics, transcendental reasoning post-Kant, genealogy, hermeneutical and psychoanalytic techniques, Heidegger’s destructive retrieve, Derridean deconstruction, the Frankfurt School style critique of modernity, as well as the general wariness of aligning philosophical method with either common sense or a deferential relationship to the findings of the sciences. From Husserl’s genetic phenomenology, to Bergson’s durée and the use of intuition as a method which is claimed to put us inside rather than outside time, to Heidegger’s Being and Time, time and method have been central to continental philosophy at least since the nineteenth century. Taken together, these methods also ensure that sustained textual engagement, and a concern with culture and history, undergird large parts of contemporary continental philosophy.
When it comes to thematising the ethico-political and normativity more generally, continental philosophers also invariably invoke time, and this often depends on forms of transcendental philosophy and temporal orders of priority. This is partly due to the vast influence of Heidegger. While Heidegger’s work is subsequently contested by Levinas, Derrida, and Deleuze (as well as others), it is typically contested on temporal grounds. Other continental philosophers associated time and normativity in the nineteenth century. While Hegel is an obvious case, arguing that the task of philosophy ought to be to grasp one’s own time in thought, we might also think of Nietzsche’s revaluation of values in which time is central. Nietzsche argues, for example, that all ressentiment is resentment of the present (the “now”) and claimed in Ecce Homo that the notion of the eternal return of the same was his greatest idea, along with the associated idea of amor fati: become what one is. We might also consider Marx, whose rich and varied analyses of the relation between certain modes of production and time (e.g. time-as-measure) remains influential. Kierkegaard’s work is primarily concerned with the manner in which the genuinely religious life involves a contradiction between temporal existence and eternity, as well as the manner in which the choice, or leap of faith, occurs at an instant in which time (lived time) and eternity are envisaged to intersect.
Drawing on these traditions, David Wood suggests that violence (both of a conceptual and more empirical nature) is best understood as fundamentally a disease of time, as a “chronopathology.” Ethico-political problems are in store for us when the living-present is understood as self-contained, when we are nostalgic for the past (or seek to return to some origin), and when the future is understood as entirely circumscribed and delimited by the expectations of the present. Current institutions are worth of critique to the extent that any of these chronopathologies are dominant, and thus exclude other times.
In that respect, of course, the irony of the title of the conference – the time(s) of our lives – is also deliberate. With global warming, the financial crisis, etc., it would be hard to say these are, in fact, the times of our lives in a positive sense, representing any kind of apotheosis of modernity. We hence hope to invoke reflections on these times, open to a variety of disciplines, including politics, social theory, and literature amongst others, all of which in their different ways remain critical of the present, tracing alternative temporal trajectories that fracture or wound – what Elizabeth Grosz calls the nick of time – any sense of our times as stable, progressive, and improving.
This critical dimension remains vital to European philosophy today, but within which some important temporal tensions remain. Are there biases enshrined, for example, in the phenomenological preoccupation with the living-present, or the post-structuralist valorisation of the future? Must the philosopher always be utopian in some sense?
A call for papers on these questions, as well as any others within continental philosophy broadly construed, will be sent out in early in 2011.
Pub: Fadda, Emanuele, ed. "Saussure, Philosopher of Language." RIFL: RIVISTA ITALIANA DI FILOSOFIA DEL LINGUAGGIO 3 (2010).
- Emanuele Fadda, Introduzione
- Tullio De Mauro, "Che ne è di Saussure, oggi?: intervista di Felice Cimatti"
- Daniele Gambarara, "Per una filosofia del linguaggio e delle lingue. Intervista di Emanuele Fadda"
- Michel Arrivé, "Saussure: un langage sans voix?"
- Antonino Bondì, "Il linguaggio come «fenomeno»: L'esperienza linguistica tra Saussure e la fenomenologia"
- Simon Bouquet, "D’une épistémologie néosaussurienne de la linguistique à la question des droits de l’homme"
- Davide Bruzzese, "La riflessione anagrammatica di Ferdinand de Saussure: un’altra riflessione sul segno"
- Cosimo Caputo, "Linguistica e filosofia del linguaggio in Saussure"
- Felice Cimatti, "Concetto e significato. Saussure e la natura umana"
- Manuel Gustavo Isaac, "Les paradoxes de l’arbitraire"
- Emiliano La Licata, "Saussure e il disordine della langue"
- Robin M. Muller, "Kant and Saussure"
- Thomas Robert, "Saussure et l’origine du langage: un interdit à dépasser par la philosophie linguistique"
- Horst Ruthrof, "Linguistic Arbitrariness and the ‘Nebulous’ World of Vorstellung in Saussure"
- Gildas Salmon, "Les conditions d’une science de l’intertextualité: réflexion sur les apories du comparatisme Saussurien"
- Andrea D’Urso, Caputo, Hjelmslev e la semiotica
- Emanuele Fadda, Nota sugli atti del convegno "Révolutions saussuriennes"
Cfp: Kögler, Hans-Herbert, and Paul Healy, eds. Special Issue on Contemporary Advances in Hermeneutics. COSMOS AND HISTORY.
Twentieth century hermeneutics, including the work of Heidegger, Gadamer and Ricoeur, effected a revolution regarding the concepts of understanding and interpretation. Instead of being solely focused on a methodology of the human sciences, hermeneutics matured into a fundamental exploration of the grounds of human experience. In accordance with the aims of Cosmos and History, we aim to provide a forum for those challenging basic assumptions about being and being-in-the-world, and about humanity’s relation to the physical and social worlds. We are especially interested in exploring the ontological grounds, and the metaphysical, epistemological and methodological implications of hermeneutics for the domains of both 'nature' and 'human nature'. A new hermeneutics of nature could leave behind traditional Cartesian assumptions and fully unleash the potential of hermeneutic philosophy. Topics might include hermeneutics and metaphysics, the experience of nature and society, and the difference between explanation and understanding, among others. However, well developed contributions to all areas of hermeneutics will be considered.
Deadline for submissions:30th November, 2011.
Visit: http://cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal.
Deadline for submissions:30th November, 2011.
Visit: http://cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal.
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
Cfp: "Critical Theory and Social Justice," Fourth International Conference on Critical Theory, John Felice Rome Center of Loyola University Chicago, May 9-11, 2011.
The conference will examine the importance and the developments of the Frankfurt School by addressing both the philosophical tradition of the early stages of Critical Theory – and in particular the works of Walter Benjamin, Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse – as well as the application of their theories to our contemporary society. In order to reflect the wide range of topics addressed by Critical Theory, the conference will cover different aspects of philosophical reflection on justice, politics, aesthetics, sociology, technology, literature and any other relevant field of study.
During the sessions, each speaker will have 30 minutes. All presentations will be made in English.
Keynote Speakers:
Deborah Cook, University of Windsor, Canada
Alessandro Ferrara, University of Rome, Tor Vergata.
David Ingram, Loyola University Chicago
Stefano Petrucciani, University of Rome, La Sapienza
If you are interested in presenting a paper or organizing a panel (of up to 5 speakers), please submit a 1-2 page abstract by January 29, 2011 (including name, eventual institutional affiliation and mailing address). Abstracts should be submitted by email. Decisions regarding the program will be made by February 2011. To submit an abstract, or for more information, contact: Stefano Giacchetti Ludovisi, PhD – stefano.giacchetti@tiscali.it.
During the sessions, each speaker will have 30 minutes. All presentations will be made in English.
Keynote Speakers:
Deborah Cook, University of Windsor, Canada
Alessandro Ferrara, University of Rome, Tor Vergata.
David Ingram, Loyola University Chicago
Stefano Petrucciani, University of Rome, La Sapienza
If you are interested in presenting a paper or organizing a panel (of up to 5 speakers), please submit a 1-2 page abstract by January 29, 2011 (including name, eventual institutional affiliation and mailing address). Abstracts should be submitted by email. Decisions regarding the program will be made by February 2011. To submit an abstract, or for more information, contact: Stefano Giacchetti Ludovisi, PhD – stefano.giacchetti@tiscali.it.
Cfp: "Writing Upon the Limit: Writing in the Philosophy of Jean-Luc Nancy," Department of Philosophy, University of Dundee, May 13, 2011.
This one-day workshop is intended to bring together academics and nonacademics from philosophy, French studies, and cultural studies interested in discussing post-Derridean ideas about writing.
Writing is a recurring theme in the work of Jean-Luc Nancy, for whom, writing “has its place at the limit.” Nancy coins the term exscription to describe a form of inscription that can be traced outside the text. This means that he pushes our understanding of writing into extended and external bodies. The conference aims to explore Nancy's ideas further, for instance in critical thoughts concerning the circumscribing of texts even in the extended domain of exscription and in relation to current interest in ideas of the extended mind.
Submission of papers exploring these issues are invited. Papers should have a reading time of 20 minutes. Postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers are encouraged to act as respondents to present brief replies to open the question and discussion sessions.
We are pleased to announce confirmed speakers include:
Ian James (Downing college, Cambridge)
Chris Watkin, (Murray Edwards College, Cambridge)
Martin Crowley, (Queen’s College, Cambridge).
The deadline for receipt of submissions is February 28, 2011.
Abstracts and inquiries should be sent to c.giunta@dundee.ac.uk.
Writing is a recurring theme in the work of Jean-Luc Nancy, for whom, writing “has its place at the limit.” Nancy coins the term exscription to describe a form of inscription that can be traced outside the text. This means that he pushes our understanding of writing into extended and external bodies. The conference aims to explore Nancy's ideas further, for instance in critical thoughts concerning the circumscribing of texts even in the extended domain of exscription and in relation to current interest in ideas of the extended mind.
Submission of papers exploring these issues are invited. Papers should have a reading time of 20 minutes. Postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers are encouraged to act as respondents to present brief replies to open the question and discussion sessions.
We are pleased to announce confirmed speakers include:
Ian James (Downing college, Cambridge)
Chris Watkin, (Murray Edwards College, Cambridge)
Martin Crowley, (Queen’s College, Cambridge).
The deadline for receipt of submissions is February 28, 2011.
Abstracts and inquiries should be sent to c.giunta@dundee.ac.uk.
Pub: PARRHESIA 10 (2010).
Features:
- "The Metaphormatted Human: Bio-Artistic Practices of the Human Nexus" by Thierry Bardini & Marie-Pier Boucher
- "The Eternal Return and the Phantom of Difference" by Catherine Malabou, translated by Arne De Boever
- "The Birth of Immunopolitics" by Frédéric Neyrat, translated by Arne De Boever
- "Philosophical Anthropology in Kant, Foucault and Agamben" by Colin McQuillan
- "A Taste for Life (On Some Suicides in Deleuze and Spinoza)" by Jason E. Smith
- "Lacan’s Ethics and Foucault’s Care of the Self: Two Diagrams of the Production of Subjectivity" by Simon O'Sullivan
- James W. Heisig, Philosophers of Nothingness: an Essay on the Kyoto School reviewed by Eugene Thacker
- Thomas Wheatland, The Frankfurt School in Exile reviewed by Mark Tomlinson
Cfp: "Storyworlds Across Media: Mediality – Multimodality – Transmediality," Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, June 30– July 2, 2011.
Even though narratology was conceived as a transmedial endeavour from its very beginnings in Russian formalism and French structuralism, most of its more influential models have been – and continue to be – developed in the context of literary criticism and film studies. In contemporary media culture, however, the creation of storyworlds is not limited to literature and traditional feature films. Rather, emerging forms of multimodal and interactive narration, experiments with the distinction between fictional and nonfictional narrative, various forms of intermedial adaptation, and attempts at 'transmedia storytelling' create new ways of presenting narrative content, thereby calling attention to the affordances and limitations of different narrative media as well as to their potential for cooperation. The increased interest in the relation between media and narrative sparked by the development of digital technology and the recent proliferation of delivery techniques in the context of media convergence has reinforced the need for an interdisciplinary and transmedial narratology that studies storyworlds across media.
We welcome proposals for papers on the following aspects of storyworlds across media:
· Transmedial narratological concepts: What are the theoretical problems encountered by the project of a transmedial narratology that spans different media? To what extent and under what conditions can narratological concepts be applied across narrative media?
· Mediality of Narrative: In what ways is the mediality of pictorial narrative (e.g. paintings, photographs), graphic narrative (e.g. graphic novels), audiovisual narrative (e.g. TV-series, film), and interactive narrative (e.g. computer games) relevant for their specific narrativity?
· Intermedial Relations: How do older media react to the emergence of new media by imitating their techniques or borrowing their resources? How do new media start out borrowing the narrative forms of older media but eventually develop their own forms?
· Transmedial Narration: What kinds of specific problems arise from the transmedial representation of characters, events, and storyworlds in the context of adaptations, transmedia storytelling franchises, and other forms of transmedial narration?
Please send proposals (including a 300-word abstract, contact information and a 100-word bio) for 30-minute papers via email (as a PDF) to storyworlds@uni-mainz.de no later than March 31th, 2011. Accomodation for speakers will be provided. Publication of the conference proceedings is planned.
We welcome proposals for papers on the following aspects of storyworlds across media:
· Transmedial narratological concepts: What are the theoretical problems encountered by the project of a transmedial narratology that spans different media? To what extent and under what conditions can narratological concepts be applied across narrative media?
· Mediality of Narrative: In what ways is the mediality of pictorial narrative (e.g. paintings, photographs), graphic narrative (e.g. graphic novels), audiovisual narrative (e.g. TV-series, film), and interactive narrative (e.g. computer games) relevant for their specific narrativity?
· Intermedial Relations: How do older media react to the emergence of new media by imitating their techniques or borrowing their resources? How do new media start out borrowing the narrative forms of older media but eventually develop their own forms?
· Transmedial Narration: What kinds of specific problems arise from the transmedial representation of characters, events, and storyworlds in the context of adaptations, transmedia storytelling franchises, and other forms of transmedial narration?
Please send proposals (including a 300-word abstract, contact information and a 100-word bio) for 30-minute papers via email (as a PDF) to storyworlds@uni-mainz.de no later than March 31th, 2011. Accomodation for speakers will be provided. Publication of the conference proceedings is planned.
Cfp: "New Critical Perspectives on the 'Trace,'" University of Malaga, Spain, October 20-22, 2011.
The aim of this Conference is to explore the critical notion of the ‘trace’ and its applicability to contemporary literature written in English. The turn to ethics and trauma studies in contemporary criticism has attracted much critical interest. However, little attention has been given to the concept of the ‘trace’ and the ways in which it engages questions of ethics, memory studies and trauma in contemporary literature.
Visit: http://www.thetraceinliterature.com/presentation.php.
Visit: http://www.thetraceinliterature.com/presentation.php.
Hart, Kevin. Review of Gianni Vattimo and Rene Girard, CHRISTIANITY, TRUTH AND WEAKENING FAITH. NDPR (December 2010).
Vattimo, Gianni, and Rene Girard. Christianity, Truth, and Weakening Faith: a Dialogue. New York: Columbia UP, 2010.
Gianni Vattimo is best known today, at least in the English-speaking world, as one of a triad of European philosophers whose names are often on the lips of a general audience, one existing largely outside Philosophy Departments in the United States. The other two are Georgio Agamben and Slavoj Žižek. These three writers do not constitute a school, and perhaps there is little that binds them together except a shared background in nineteenth- and twentieth-century European philosophy. Agamben draws from Heidegger and Benjamin; Žižek elaborates on Lacan; and Vattimo develops from Nietzsche and Luigi Pareyson. Each has a far broader philosophical and artistic culture than is usual in the English-speaking philosophical world. What allows their names to be linked in North American conversations is a willingness to engage in discussions of the nature and future of Christianity and to offer commentary on contemporary political events. So Agamben writes a gloss on Paul's epistle to the Romans, The Time that Remains (2005), reflects on homo sacer, and speaks out against America's response to 9/11. Žižek, a declared atheist, nonetheless figures Christianity as a partner in the quest for social egalitarianism and is a frequent spokesman on contemporary political events. His joint book with theologian John Milbank, The Monstrosity of Christ (2009), is a recent instance of his engagement with Christianity. And Vattimo, now on more intimate terms with the Catholic Church, has recently written a number of short books -- interventions and dialogues, really -- on Christianity, while also offering insights into contemporary politics. From 1999-2004 he was a member of the European parliament. . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22029.
Gianni Vattimo is best known today, at least in the English-speaking world, as one of a triad of European philosophers whose names are often on the lips of a general audience, one existing largely outside Philosophy Departments in the United States. The other two are Georgio Agamben and Slavoj Žižek. These three writers do not constitute a school, and perhaps there is little that binds them together except a shared background in nineteenth- and twentieth-century European philosophy. Agamben draws from Heidegger and Benjamin; Žižek elaborates on Lacan; and Vattimo develops from Nietzsche and Luigi Pareyson. Each has a far broader philosophical and artistic culture than is usual in the English-speaking philosophical world. What allows their names to be linked in North American conversations is a willingness to engage in discussions of the nature and future of Christianity and to offer commentary on contemporary political events. So Agamben writes a gloss on Paul's epistle to the Romans, The Time that Remains (2005), reflects on homo sacer, and speaks out against America's response to 9/11. Žižek, a declared atheist, nonetheless figures Christianity as a partner in the quest for social egalitarianism and is a frequent spokesman on contemporary political events. His joint book with theologian John Milbank, The Monstrosity of Christ (2009), is a recent instance of his engagement with Christianity. And Vattimo, now on more intimate terms with the Catholic Church, has recently written a number of short books -- interventions and dialogues, really -- on Christianity, while also offering insights into contemporary politics. From 1999-2004 he was a member of the European parliament. . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22029.
Beardsworth, Sara. Review of Gunnar Farlsson, PSYCHONALYSIS IN A NEW LIGHT. NDPR (December 2010).
Karlsson, Gunnar. Psychoanalysis in a New Light. Cambridge: CUP, 2010.
Karlsson's book redefines the significance and purpose of psychoanalysis from a phenomenological perspective that conceives of psychoanalysis as a science (searching for truth) and "not merely as a method of treatment." His purpose is "to discuss the domain and conditions of psychoanalysis theoretically rather than from the perspective of clinical experience." This project is clearly executed with helpful chapter summaries along the way. Overall, it casts a powerful phenomenological searchlight upon the couch, levering the intelligibility of psychoanalytic theory off from dependence on its own empirical moment, the practice. We will consider the major fruits of this endeavor before questioning its risks.
Four specific objectives can be discerned in Karlsson's book: to ground psychoanalysis as a science phenomenologically, to present the Freudian subject as a temporalizing subject whose original striving is the striving for existence, to integrate narrative truth and historical truth in psychoanalysis, and to establish the function of self-consciousness in the analytic setting. . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22030.
Karlsson's book redefines the significance and purpose of psychoanalysis from a phenomenological perspective that conceives of psychoanalysis as a science (searching for truth) and "not merely as a method of treatment." His purpose is "to discuss the domain and conditions of psychoanalysis theoretically rather than from the perspective of clinical experience." This project is clearly executed with helpful chapter summaries along the way. Overall, it casts a powerful phenomenological searchlight upon the couch, levering the intelligibility of psychoanalytic theory off from dependence on its own empirical moment, the practice. We will consider the major fruits of this endeavor before questioning its risks.
Four specific objectives can be discerned in Karlsson's book: to ground psychoanalysis as a science phenomenologically, to present the Freudian subject as a temporalizing subject whose original striving is the striving for existence, to integrate narrative truth and historical truth in psychoanalysis, and to establish the function of self-consciousness in the analytic setting. . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22030.
Cfp: "A Past That Has Never Been Present? Art / Philosophy / History," University of King's College, June 8-11
Keynote Speakers:
Given Merleau-Ponty's claim that this "original past" is not to be interpreted on the basis of consciousness, perception or bodily engagement with the world, might the notion of a "past that has never been present" provide a new angle of inquiry in our explorations of temporality and its rupturing, memory disorders and obsessions with the past, in short, a thinking of representation that moves beyond a subject-object dichotomy?
Papers are welcome from scholars in philosophy, arts and art history, film studies, architecture, literary studies, history, trauma studies and/or psychoanalysis. Conference organizers will select a number of papers for subsequent publication. Paper proposals should provide a) name/institutional affiliation; b) 250-word abstract of proposed paper.
We invite proposals on such topics as:
Belatedness
The primal scene (psychoanalytic interventions)
Questions of messianism
Nostalgia
Augustine (confession, time, memory)
Politics of Foundation / Revolution
Merleau-Ponty / Levinas / Bergson/ Deleuze
Proust (In Search of Lost Time)
Difference and Repetition
Revisiting Trauma
Mourning and Melancholy
Film and New Technologies (Digital Reproducibility)
Traces and Materiality
Deadline for proposals is December 15, 2010.
Please send submissions electronically to sarah.clift@ukings.ns.ca.
- Cathy Caruth (Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Comparative Literature and English, Emory University)
- Leonard Lawlor (Sparks Professor of Philosophy, Penn State University)
Given Merleau-Ponty's claim that this "original past" is not to be interpreted on the basis of consciousness, perception or bodily engagement with the world, might the notion of a "past that has never been present" provide a new angle of inquiry in our explorations of temporality and its rupturing, memory disorders and obsessions with the past, in short, a thinking of representation that moves beyond a subject-object dichotomy?
Papers are welcome from scholars in philosophy, arts and art history, film studies, architecture, literary studies, history, trauma studies and/or psychoanalysis. Conference organizers will select a number of papers for subsequent publication. Paper proposals should provide a) name/institutional affiliation; b) 250-word abstract of proposed paper.
We invite proposals on such topics as:
Belatedness
The primal scene (psychoanalytic interventions)
Questions of messianism
Nostalgia
Augustine (confession, time, memory)
Politics of Foundation / Revolution
Merleau-Ponty / Levinas / Bergson/ Deleuze
Proust (In Search of Lost Time)
Difference and Repetition
Revisiting Trauma
Mourning and Melancholy
Film and New Technologies (Digital Reproducibility)
Traces and Materiality
Deadline for proposals is December 15, 2010.
Please send submissions electronically to sarah.clift@ukings.ns.ca.
Cfp: ARGMAS 2011: Eighth International Workshop on Argumentation in Multi-Agent Systems, Taipei, Taiwan, May 2-3, 2011.
This workshop will focus on the concepts, theories, methodologies, and applications of computational models of argumentation in building autonomous agents and multi-agent systems. Argumentation can be abstractly defined as the formal interaction of different arguments for and against some conclusion (eg, a proposition, an action intention, a preference, etc.). An agent may use argumentation techniques to perform individual reasoning, in order to resolve conflicting evidence or to decide between conflicting goals. Multiple agents may also use dialectical argumentation in order to identify and reconcile differences between themselves, through interactions such as negotiation, persuasion, and joint deliberation.
The main goal of ArgMAS 2011 will be to bring together the community of researchers working on argumentation in multi-agent systems. The workshop has the following technical goals:
- To explore the use of argumentation in practical reasoning.
- To investigate how argumentation can be used to enable rational interaction between autonomous agents.
- To explore the applicability of argumentation for solving a variety of problems in multi-agent systems, such as information exchange, negotiation, team formation, deliberation, etc.
- To explore strategic reasoning and behavior in argumentation-based interaction.
- To understand how argumentation relates to other areas of multi-agent research, such as game theory, agent communications, and planning.
- To present and encourage implemented systems which demonstrate the use of argumentation in multi-agent systems.
- The workshop will solicit papers looking at both theory and practice.
In particular, the workshop aims at bridging the gap between the vast amount of work on argumentation theory and the practical needs of multi-agent systems research.
For more information, visit: http://www.mit.edu/~irahwan/argmas/.
The main goal of ArgMAS 2011 will be to bring together the community of researchers working on argumentation in multi-agent systems. The workshop has the following technical goals:
- To explore the use of argumentation in practical reasoning.
- To investigate how argumentation can be used to enable rational interaction between autonomous agents.
- To explore the applicability of argumentation for solving a variety of problems in multi-agent systems, such as information exchange, negotiation, team formation, deliberation, etc.
- To explore strategic reasoning and behavior in argumentation-based interaction.
- To understand how argumentation relates to other areas of multi-agent research, such as game theory, agent communications, and planning.
- To present and encourage implemented systems which demonstrate the use of argumentation in multi-agent systems.
- The workshop will solicit papers looking at both theory and practice.
In particular, the workshop aims at bridging the gap between the vast amount of work on argumentation theory and the practical needs of multi-agent systems research.
For more information, visit: http://www.mit.edu/~irahwan/argmas/.
Pub: INFORMAL LOGIC 30.4 (2010).
Articles:
- "Systematically Distorted Communication: an Impediment to Social and Political Change" by Alan G Gross
- "Attacking Character: Ad Hominem Argument and Virtue Epistemology" by Heather Battaly
- "The Structure and Evaluation of Planning Arguments" by Thorbjoern Mann
- "The Question of Truth" by David Botting
- "Take My Advice—I Am Not Following It: Ad Hominem Arguments as Legitimate Rebuttals to Appeals to Authority" by Moti Mizrahi
- "The Pragma-Dialectician’s Dilemma: Reply to Garssen and van Laar" by Harvey Siegel, John Biro
- "Critical Thinking and Small Group Activities" by Claude Gratton
- Maurice A. Finocchiaro, Defending Copernicus and Galileo: Critical Reasoning in the Two Affairs reviewed by Scott Crothers
Monday, January 31, 2011
Cfp: "Methods of Theorizing: Reflective Searches for Ways, Ideals and Measures," 10th Annual Meeting, International Social Theory Consortium, School of Sociology and Philosophy, University College Cork, June 16-17, 2011.
Social theory and method are inextricably bound up with one another, despite the convention of their separation and a recent tendency to differentiate them entirely by emphasizing technical training in particular methods over general education in culture and thinking. But to theorize, whether in Sociology, Philosophy, Politics, Anthropology, or in any cognate field in the Arts, Humanities and Social sciences means not simply to arrange empirical evidence, but also to seek to clarify the Ideals, Standards or Measure by virtue of a way of inquiry that is sustained and methodically pursued, so much so that we may speak of method(s) of theorizing.
Questions of method, or searches for the ‘Way’, just as the use of the powers of reason, cannot be reduced to a search for means to satisfy given ends, but must incorporate a discussion of the very ends of social and human life, including the question of meaning. Methods of theorizing are thus ways of attending to the world so as to bring into view, contemplate and articulate Standards of beauty, truth and the good life; radiant Ideals that illuminate and make possible an understanding and interpretation of our present practices and institutions, thereby enabling our education and self-transformation in light of such a Measure.
As Weber concludes in "Politics as a Vocation," “all historical experience confirms the truth – that man would not have attained the possible unless time and again he had reached out for the impossible.” Theorizing can thus be conceived of as the methodical reaching out for the impossible Measure. But as theoria and methodus have become differentiated we lose sight of the Ways towards recovering our Ideals just at a time when economic crisis, ecological catastrophe and political turmoil threaten to overwhelm us.
Last year’s ISTC meeting sought to transcend the cultural turn’s differentiation and proliferation of Habermasian, Foucaulian, Eliasian, subaltern, feminist, sub-disciplinary theories, a concern indicating an aspiration towards our recovering re-integrating, holistic methods of theorizing. This year’s conference continues this search for renaissance, inviting contributions seeking a reflective balance and harmony amongst the various currents in social & political thought at the fundamental level of theory and method, focus on their relation to the elusive but very real directive Ideals of human existence.
Papers are invited that speak to the topic from:
• Classical & contemporary social theory: working with our inheritance
• Methodology of Critical Theory
• Literary methods and Social Theory
• The interpretive tradition, depth hermeneutics & analysis
• The performative aspects of public life
• Media power and image magic
• Psychoanalytic method and social theory
• Phenomenology & hermeneutics
• Epistemologies and philosophies of knowledge today
• Asian philosophies and methods
• Socrates, Plato, and working with the Greeks today
• Political anthropology and reflexive historical sociology
Visit: http://www.cas.usf.edu/socialtheory/.
Questions of method, or searches for the ‘Way’, just as the use of the powers of reason, cannot be reduced to a search for means to satisfy given ends, but must incorporate a discussion of the very ends of social and human life, including the question of meaning. Methods of theorizing are thus ways of attending to the world so as to bring into view, contemplate and articulate Standards of beauty, truth and the good life; radiant Ideals that illuminate and make possible an understanding and interpretation of our present practices and institutions, thereby enabling our education and self-transformation in light of such a Measure.
As Weber concludes in "Politics as a Vocation," “all historical experience confirms the truth – that man would not have attained the possible unless time and again he had reached out for the impossible.” Theorizing can thus be conceived of as the methodical reaching out for the impossible Measure. But as theoria and methodus have become differentiated we lose sight of the Ways towards recovering our Ideals just at a time when economic crisis, ecological catastrophe and political turmoil threaten to overwhelm us.
Last year’s ISTC meeting sought to transcend the cultural turn’s differentiation and proliferation of Habermasian, Foucaulian, Eliasian, subaltern, feminist, sub-disciplinary theories, a concern indicating an aspiration towards our recovering re-integrating, holistic methods of theorizing. This year’s conference continues this search for renaissance, inviting contributions seeking a reflective balance and harmony amongst the various currents in social & political thought at the fundamental level of theory and method, focus on their relation to the elusive but very real directive Ideals of human existence.
Papers are invited that speak to the topic from:
• Classical & contemporary social theory: working with our inheritance
• Methodology of Critical Theory
• Literary methods and Social Theory
• The interpretive tradition, depth hermeneutics & analysis
• The performative aspects of public life
• Media power and image magic
• Psychoanalytic method and social theory
• Phenomenology & hermeneutics
• Epistemologies and philosophies of knowledge today
• Asian philosophies and methods
• Socrates, Plato, and working with the Greeks today
• Political anthropology and reflexive historical sociology
Visit: http://www.cas.usf.edu/socialtheory/.
Farrell, Thomas J. "Who Was Marshall McLuhan, and Why Is He Important Today?" OPEDNEWS January 14, 2011.
With the publication of two books in the early 1960s, McLuhan catapulted to extraordinary fame, seemingly out of nowhere. In the 1950s he had not been widely known. However, he had been known to a small group of alert admirers. But along with his fame in the 1960s and 1970s came controversy and criticism. At times, the criticism was cogent and convincing. However, the criticism directed at him was frequently off target. In any event, many of his critics wanted to throw out the baby with the bath water, as we say. This is an understandable temptation. But it is a temptation we must guard ourselves against even today as we try to sort out the wheat from the chaff in McLuhan's thought. To be sure, there is a certain amount of chaff in McLuhan's thought that should be discarded. But the wheat can nourish our thought and reflection.
McLuhan did not live to see the time when personal computers became as common in North America as television sets and radios and telephones and movies and audio recordings and sound amplification systems had become by the 1960s. Nor did he live to see the Internet. Nevertheless, once we have sorted out the wheat from the chaff in McLuhan's thought, the wheat can help feed and nurture our thinking about computers and the Internet and other forms of new media that had not yet fully emerged in his lifetime.
Read the rest here: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Who-Was-Marshall-McLuhan--by-Thomas-Farrell-110111-916.html.
McLuhan did not live to see the time when personal computers became as common in North America as television sets and radios and telephones and movies and audio recordings and sound amplification systems had become by the 1960s. Nor did he live to see the Internet. Nevertheless, once we have sorted out the wheat from the chaff in McLuhan's thought, the wheat can help feed and nurture our thinking about computers and the Internet and other forms of new media that had not yet fully emerged in his lifetime.
Read the rest here: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Who-Was-Marshall-McLuhan--by-Thomas-Farrell-110111-916.html.
Cfp: "Narrative and Hypertext 2011," Workshop on Narrative Systems, School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, June 6, 2011.
This workshop aims to provide an interdisciplinary forum to bring together individuals from the humanities and science communities to share research and discuss state-of-the-art research on narrative from both a technical and aesthetic perspective. Narratives are complex creations prevalent in our entertainment, communication, and understanding of the world and its events. By building better models of narrative along with methods for generation, adaption, and presentation we enable narrative systems to become more effective but also improve our understanding of narrative structures. This workshop offers a focus for this interdisciplinary community to share research, offer solutions and contributions to the challenges faced in the study of narrative and the development of narrative systems, and offers a platform of discussion for potential collaboration for members of the hypertext community working with narrative.
Topics include:
- Models of Narrative
- Systems for the Presentation of Narratives
- Adaptive and Personalised Narratives
- Narrative Analysis
- Narrative Generation
- Narrative as a method of Knowledge Capture
- Social Media as Narrative
- Narrative as a lens on identity
- Argumentation and Rhetoric
- Interactive Fiction
- Cinematic Hypertext
- Authorial support systems
- Novel applications of narrative systems
- e-Literature
Visit: http://nht11.ecs.soton.ac.uk/.
Topics include:
- Models of Narrative
- Systems for the Presentation of Narratives
- Adaptive and Personalised Narratives
- Narrative Analysis
- Narrative Generation
- Narrative as a method of Knowledge Capture
- Social Media as Narrative
- Narrative as a lens on identity
- Argumentation and Rhetoric
- Interactive Fiction
- Cinematic Hypertext
- Authorial support systems
- Novel applications of narrative systems
- e-Literature
Visit: http://nht11.ecs.soton.ac.uk/.
Pub: ANNUAL REVIEW OF CRITICAL PSYCHOLOGY 8 (2011).
Editorial
"Psychologism, Psychologising and De-Psychologisation" by ÁNGEL GORDO & JAN DE VOS
Part I: Disciplinary, legal and sociocultural overflow: from psycho-logism to psychologisation
"Psychologised life and thought styles" by FERNANDO ÁLVAREZ-URÍA, JULIA VARELA, ÁNGEL GORDO & PILAR PARRA
"Psychologisation processes viewed from the perspective of the regulation of healthcare professions in Spain" by ROBERTO RODRÍGUEZ
"The psychologisation of work: the deregulation of work and the government of will" by EDUARDO CRESPO & AMPARO SERRANO
"Psychologisation and the construction of the political subject as vulnerable object" by KEN MCLAUGHLIN
"Beyond psychologisation: individual and collective naturalising stigmatisations" by RAFAEL GONZÁLEZ
"From the bodhi tree, to the analyst‘s couch, then into the MRI scanner: the psychologisation of Buddhism" by ELLIOT COHEN
Part II: De-psychologising policies/politics
"The rational of an emotional society: a Cartesian reflection" by MARC DE KESEL
"‘Sincerely Yours’‘ – ‘What do you mean?’ Psychologisation as symptom to be taken seriously" by FRANK VAN DE VEIRE
"Je Te mathème!: Badiou‘s de-psychologisation of love" by CARLOS GUILLERMO GÓMEZ CAMARENA
"The disappearance of psychologisation?" by OLE JACOB MADSEN & SVEND BRINKMANN
"Beyond Psychologisation: the Non-Psychology of the Flemish Novelist Louis Paul Boon" by JAN DE VOS
"Rebel Pathologies: from Politics to Psychologisation…and back" by MIHALIS MENTINIS
Download the essays here: http://www.discourseunit.com/arcp/8.htm.
"Psychologism, Psychologising and De-Psychologisation" by ÁNGEL GORDO & JAN DE VOS
Part I: Disciplinary, legal and sociocultural overflow: from psycho-logism to psychologisation
"Psychologised life and thought styles" by FERNANDO ÁLVAREZ-URÍA, JULIA VARELA, ÁNGEL GORDO & PILAR PARRA
"Psychologisation processes viewed from the perspective of the regulation of healthcare professions in Spain" by ROBERTO RODRÍGUEZ
"The psychologisation of work: the deregulation of work and the government of will" by EDUARDO CRESPO & AMPARO SERRANO
"Psychologisation and the construction of the political subject as vulnerable object" by KEN MCLAUGHLIN
"Beyond psychologisation: individual and collective naturalising stigmatisations" by RAFAEL GONZÁLEZ
"From the bodhi tree, to the analyst‘s couch, then into the MRI scanner: the psychologisation of Buddhism" by ELLIOT COHEN
Part II: De-psychologising policies/politics
"The rational of an emotional society: a Cartesian reflection" by MARC DE KESEL
"‘Sincerely Yours’‘ – ‘What do you mean?’ Psychologisation as symptom to be taken seriously" by FRANK VAN DE VEIRE
"Je Te mathème!: Badiou‘s de-psychologisation of love" by CARLOS GUILLERMO GÓMEZ CAMARENA
"The disappearance of psychologisation?" by OLE JACOB MADSEN & SVEND BRINKMANN
"Beyond Psychologisation: the Non-Psychology of the Flemish Novelist Louis Paul Boon" by JAN DE VOS
"Rebel Pathologies: from Politics to Psychologisation…and back" by MIHALIS MENTINIS
Download the essays here: http://www.discourseunit.com/arcp/8.htm.
"Habit and Second Nature," Annual Conference, British Society for Phenomenology, St. Hilda’s College, University of Oxford, April 15-17, 2011.
Friday:
3.45 pm Ben Morgan (Oxford University): "Heidegger's Habits"
5.30 pm David Wood (Vanderbilt University): "Reinhabiting the Earth"
Saturday:
10.00 am Mark Sinclair (Manchester Metropolitan University): "Ravaisson and Phenomenology"
11.45 am Philip Goodchild (Nottingham University): "Thinking Nature: On Habit and Virtue"
4.15 pm Claudia Baracchi (The New School of Social Research and Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca) "The Work of Being: Aristotle and the Architecture of the Human"
6.00 pm THE WOLFE MAYS MEMORIAL LECTURE: John Milbank (Nottingham University), "Hume's New Habit and How it Relates to Aristotle's Older One"
Sunday:
10.00 am Johanna Oksala (University of Helsinki): "The Neoliberal Subject of Feminism"
11.45 am Matthew Ratcliffe (Durham University): "Habit and the Phenomenology of Negation"
Visit: http://britishphenomenology.co.uk/conference/.
3.45 pm Ben Morgan (Oxford University): "Heidegger's Habits"
5.30 pm David Wood (Vanderbilt University): "Reinhabiting the Earth"
Saturday:
10.00 am Mark Sinclair (Manchester Metropolitan University): "Ravaisson and Phenomenology"
11.45 am Philip Goodchild (Nottingham University): "Thinking Nature: On Habit and Virtue"
4.15 pm Claudia Baracchi (The New School of Social Research and Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca) "The Work of Being: Aristotle and the Architecture of the Human"
6.00 pm THE WOLFE MAYS MEMORIAL LECTURE: John Milbank (Nottingham University), "Hume's New Habit and How it Relates to Aristotle's Older One"
Sunday:
10.00 am Johanna Oksala (University of Helsinki): "The Neoliberal Subject of Feminism"
11.45 am Matthew Ratcliffe (Durham University): "Habit and the Phenomenology of Negation"
Visit: http://britishphenomenology.co.uk/conference/.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Nulty, Timothy J. Review of Jack Reynolds, et al., eds. POSTANALYTIC AND METACONTINENTAL. NDPR (January 2010).
Reynolds, Jack, James Chase, James Williams, and Edwin Mares, eds. Postanalytic and Metacontinental: Crossing Philosophical Divides. London: Continuum, 2010.
This important book is one of the better anthologies currently available on the relationship, or lack thereof, between the typically disparate traditions of analytic and continental philosophy. The anthology contains essays that offer broader general assessments of methodological differences between traditions as well as a number of very good essays on specific points of convergence or divergence between the traditions. The editors and authors are to be commended for their diligence in avoiding two common mistakes when characterizing these traditions -- either an essentialism which denies the possibility of meaningful dialogue between traditions or a deflationary view prone to ignoring important methodological and substantive differences between analytic and continental philosophy. Indeed, the editors, in their introduction, offer strong considerations for rejecting both of these characterizations while providing examples of their prevalence in the literature. This anthology is a valuable resource for those currently engaged in comparative work and for those who want to understand these two traditions beyond the usual superficial and frequently unjustified characterizations. In what follows, I will provide a brief summary of each of the major sections first and then return to examine in greater detail some of the chapters. . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22229.
This important book is one of the better anthologies currently available on the relationship, or lack thereof, between the typically disparate traditions of analytic and continental philosophy. The anthology contains essays that offer broader general assessments of methodological differences between traditions as well as a number of very good essays on specific points of convergence or divergence between the traditions. The editors and authors are to be commended for their diligence in avoiding two common mistakes when characterizing these traditions -- either an essentialism which denies the possibility of meaningful dialogue between traditions or a deflationary view prone to ignoring important methodological and substantive differences between analytic and continental philosophy. Indeed, the editors, in their introduction, offer strong considerations for rejecting both of these characterizations while providing examples of their prevalence in the literature. This anthology is a valuable resource for those currently engaged in comparative work and for those who want to understand these two traditions beyond the usual superficial and frequently unjustified characterizations. In what follows, I will provide a brief summary of each of the major sections first and then return to examine in greater detail some of the chapters. . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22229.
Ansell-Pearson, Keith. Review of Francois Raffoul, THE ORIGINS OF RESPONSIBILITY. NDPR (January 2010).
Raffoul, François. The Origins of Responsibility. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2010.
In this book François Raffoul seeks to undertake a major reconsideration of the concept of responsibility, drawing upon the rich resources offered by trajectories in continental thought, notably Nietzsche, Sartre, Heidegger, Levinas, and Derrida. His fundamental contention is that we need to think responsibility less in terms of denoting a sphere of power and control, revolving around the establishment of a sovereign subject, and more in terms of our exposure to an event that does not emanate from us but which does call us. According to Raffoul we need to think responsibility not in terms of a spontaneous initiation but rather as a response. This suggests to him that the phenomenological senses of responsibility are closer to a problematic of answerability than to one of accountability and the latter's dependence on a 'metaphysical' conception of the subject. As such, the argument represents what is now a familiar set of moves within continental philosophy, namely, dethroning the imperial claims of a philosophy of the subject and replacing this with a thinking of the event. However, the chief danger of such a move is that it runs the risk of instituting a new set of oppositions -- for example, between activity and passivity, between control and letting be, etc. -- and becomes blind to those situations where sovereign subjects might be needed in order to assume power and exercise control. I am not convinced that sovereignty can be so easily dispensed with, and in some cases in this study, Nietzsche for example (the philosopher of will to power!), the argument seems far-fetched and over-determined.
The book is highly challenging. One of the main challenges consists in Raffoul's insistence that a fundamental rethinking of the question at hand, the nature and status of responsibility, needs to take place outside of the terms of familiar debates in moral philosophy, such as that between the competing claims of free will and determinism and the identification of responsibility with the sphere of the voluntary. Instead, Raffoul favours a phenomenological approach in which the terms of major debates within ethics prove themselves to be inadequate. Furthermore, the opposition between free will and determinism remains caught up in metaphysics and is merely an 'ontical' distinction and thus an obstacle to a proper ontological inquiry (concerned with the phenomenological 'being' of responsibility). The key claim of the book, then, is that, as classically and typically understood, responsibility is wedded to a questionable metaphysics of the free and autonomous subject and we need to start to think the possibilities of a responsibility without reference to such a subject. For Raffoul, the way forward lies in opening up, with the aid of his chosen continental thinkers, the senses of the Latin 'respondere', meaning responsiveness and answerability. The focus is to switch attention away from the subject that creates ethics for itself to an examination of the nature of the ethical claims that call us. . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22251.
In this book François Raffoul seeks to undertake a major reconsideration of the concept of responsibility, drawing upon the rich resources offered by trajectories in continental thought, notably Nietzsche, Sartre, Heidegger, Levinas, and Derrida. His fundamental contention is that we need to think responsibility less in terms of denoting a sphere of power and control, revolving around the establishment of a sovereign subject, and more in terms of our exposure to an event that does not emanate from us but which does call us. According to Raffoul we need to think responsibility not in terms of a spontaneous initiation but rather as a response. This suggests to him that the phenomenological senses of responsibility are closer to a problematic of answerability than to one of accountability and the latter's dependence on a 'metaphysical' conception of the subject. As such, the argument represents what is now a familiar set of moves within continental philosophy, namely, dethroning the imperial claims of a philosophy of the subject and replacing this with a thinking of the event. However, the chief danger of such a move is that it runs the risk of instituting a new set of oppositions -- for example, between activity and passivity, between control and letting be, etc. -- and becomes blind to those situations where sovereign subjects might be needed in order to assume power and exercise control. I am not convinced that sovereignty can be so easily dispensed with, and in some cases in this study, Nietzsche for example (the philosopher of will to power!), the argument seems far-fetched and over-determined.
The book is highly challenging. One of the main challenges consists in Raffoul's insistence that a fundamental rethinking of the question at hand, the nature and status of responsibility, needs to take place outside of the terms of familiar debates in moral philosophy, such as that between the competing claims of free will and determinism and the identification of responsibility with the sphere of the voluntary. Instead, Raffoul favours a phenomenological approach in which the terms of major debates within ethics prove themselves to be inadequate. Furthermore, the opposition between free will and determinism remains caught up in metaphysics and is merely an 'ontical' distinction and thus an obstacle to a proper ontological inquiry (concerned with the phenomenological 'being' of responsibility). The key claim of the book, then, is that, as classically and typically understood, responsibility is wedded to a questionable metaphysics of the free and autonomous subject and we need to start to think the possibilities of a responsibility without reference to such a subject. For Raffoul, the way forward lies in opening up, with the aid of his chosen continental thinkers, the senses of the Latin 'respondere', meaning responsiveness and answerability. The focus is to switch attention away from the subject that creates ethics for itself to an examination of the nature of the ethical claims that call us. . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22251.
Pub: HISTORY AND THEORY (October 2010).
JONAS GRETHLEIN, “Experientiality and ‘Narrative Reference’ with Thanks to Thucydides” takes up the recent interest in experience and its relation to narrative, and does so with great flair and illumination. Postmodernist theorists declared the idea of experience dead, but this idea has recently seen a renaissance, seeming to offer the possibility of reaching beyond linguistic discourse. Indeed, some theorists, in their attempt to overcome the “linguistic turn,” have pitted experience against narrative. But Grethlein convincingly argues that the relation between experience and narrative is more complex than is widely assumed, and in the process he sheds light on techniques that historians can and should use to render history more accessible and more open.
HUAIYIN LI, “From Revolution to Modernization: the Paradigmatic Transition in Chinese Historiography in the Reform Era,” offers a rigorous, informative analysis of exactly what the title promises, namely, the way Chinese historiography has changed from embodying Marxism to adopting Modernization Theory, but all the while keeping an unchanged commitment to serving present political needs in the way the past is interpreted.
BENJAMIN ALDES WURGAFT, “The Uses of Walter: Walter Benjamin and the Counterfactual Imagination” notes that many authors, both scholarly and otherwise, have asked what might have happened had Walter Benjamin survived his 1940 attempt to escape Nazi-occupied Europe. In answering this question Wurgaft not only shows important dimensions of Benjamin and his work, but also explores the larger question of why few intellectual historians ask explicitly counterfactual questions in their work—and why they should. The essay can only be described as elegant, both in conception and in its writing.
The issue also contains a comprehensive “Retrospective” of a historical classic, Norbert Elias’s The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations. The article offers an overview and assessment of this work by two authors—ANDREW LINKLATER and STEPHEN MENNELL—who know more about Elias’s work than perhaps anyone else in the world, and who write with great insight about both the details of Elias’s work and also about the larger intellectual implications of it. If you want to understand the meaning and import of this great book, this is the place to look.
The issue also contains a number of wide-ranging, provocative review essays:
WILLIAM M. REDDY on Daniel Lord Smail, On Deep History and the Brain;
RAYMOND MARTIN on Allan Megill, Historical Knowledge, Historical Error: a Contemporary Guide to Practice (free download here: http://www.historyandtheory.org/freereview.html);
HARRY HAROOTUNIAN on Christopher L. Hill, National History and the World of Nations: Capital, State, and the Rhetoric of History in Japan, France, and the United States
Visit: http://www.historyandtheory.org/journal.html.
HUAIYIN LI, “From Revolution to Modernization: the Paradigmatic Transition in Chinese Historiography in the Reform Era,” offers a rigorous, informative analysis of exactly what the title promises, namely, the way Chinese historiography has changed from embodying Marxism to adopting Modernization Theory, but all the while keeping an unchanged commitment to serving present political needs in the way the past is interpreted.
BENJAMIN ALDES WURGAFT, “The Uses of Walter: Walter Benjamin and the Counterfactual Imagination” notes that many authors, both scholarly and otherwise, have asked what might have happened had Walter Benjamin survived his 1940 attempt to escape Nazi-occupied Europe. In answering this question Wurgaft not only shows important dimensions of Benjamin and his work, but also explores the larger question of why few intellectual historians ask explicitly counterfactual questions in their work—and why they should. The essay can only be described as elegant, both in conception and in its writing.
The issue also contains a comprehensive “Retrospective” of a historical classic, Norbert Elias’s The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations. The article offers an overview and assessment of this work by two authors—ANDREW LINKLATER and STEPHEN MENNELL—who know more about Elias’s work than perhaps anyone else in the world, and who write with great insight about both the details of Elias’s work and also about the larger intellectual implications of it. If you want to understand the meaning and import of this great book, this is the place to look.
The issue also contains a number of wide-ranging, provocative review essays:
WILLIAM M. REDDY on Daniel Lord Smail, On Deep History and the Brain;
RAYMOND MARTIN on Allan Megill, Historical Knowledge, Historical Error: a Contemporary Guide to Practice (free download here: http://www.historyandtheory.org/freereview.html);
HARRY HAROOTUNIAN on Christopher L. Hill, National History and the World of Nations: Capital, State, and the Rhetoric of History in Japan, France, and the United States
Visit: http://www.historyandtheory.org/journal.html.
Cfp: "Voice," Annual Meeting, American Society for the History of Rhetoric (ASHR), National Communication Association, New Orleans, November 17-20, 2011.
The American Society for the History of Rhetoric invites submissions of program proposals and competitive papers. ASHR welcomes work that examines both the theory and practice of rhetoric in all periods and languages, and that deals with the relation between rhetoric and politics, law, philosophy, religion, poetics and other cultural issues and contexts.
The Society welcomes papers related to NCA’s convention theme “Voice,” understood in a multi-faceted manner. However, submissions need not be restricted to this conference theme. All submissions relevant to the interests of the Society are welcome.
For further information, visit the Association website: http://www.ashr.org/.
The Society welcomes papers related to NCA’s convention theme “Voice,” understood in a multi-faceted manner. However, submissions need not be restricted to this conference theme. All submissions relevant to the interests of the Society are welcome.
For further information, visit the Association website: http://www.ashr.org/.
Johnston, Adrian. Review of Fabio Vighi, ON ZIZEK'S DIALECTICS. NDPR (January 2010).
Vighi, Fabio. On Žižek's Dialectics: Surplus, Subtraction, Sublimation. London: Continuum, 2010.
With his On Žižek's Dialectics: Surplus, Subtraction, Sublimation, Fabio Vighi provides an interesting and suggestive addition to the rapidly growing body of literature on the internationally renowned Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalytic theorist Slavoj Žižek. Although Vighi's title might lead a potential reader initially approaching this book to expect a sustained discussion of Žižek's Hegelianism specifically -- Hegel is a crucial source of inspiration for Žižekian thought in all its various dimensions (along with Kant, Schelling, Marx, Lacan, and Badiou) -- Vighi devotes the bulk of his attention to critical analyses of the Lacan-inflected facets of Žižek's reflections on matters political. What distinguishes Vighi's intervention from other available treatments of politics à la Žižek is his main thesis that the purported lack of a practical program corresponding to Žižekian theorizations of various recent and contemporary political phenomena is a virtue rather than a vice. . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22370.
With his On Žižek's Dialectics: Surplus, Subtraction, Sublimation, Fabio Vighi provides an interesting and suggestive addition to the rapidly growing body of literature on the internationally renowned Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalytic theorist Slavoj Žižek. Although Vighi's title might lead a potential reader initially approaching this book to expect a sustained discussion of Žižek's Hegelianism specifically -- Hegel is a crucial source of inspiration for Žižekian thought in all its various dimensions (along with Kant, Schelling, Marx, Lacan, and Badiou) -- Vighi devotes the bulk of his attention to critical analyses of the Lacan-inflected facets of Žižek's reflections on matters political. What distinguishes Vighi's intervention from other available treatments of politics à la Žižek is his main thesis that the purported lack of a practical program corresponding to Žižekian theorizations of various recent and contemporary political phenomena is a virtue rather than a vice. . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22370.
Higgins, Charlotte. "T. S. Eliot Prize Goes to Derek Walcott for 'Moving and Technically Flawless Work.'" GUARDIAN January 24, 2010.
In a "bumper year" for English-language poetry, Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, who was embroiled in scandal two years ago, was tonight named winner of the TS Eliot prize for the best new collection of poems published in the UK or Ireland. He took the prize against competition from an eclectic group of poets, including fellow Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, Iraq war veteran Brian Turner and Sam Willetts, whose debut collection came after 10 years lost to addiction to and recovery from heroin. Valerie Eliot, widow of TS Eliot, awarded Walcott £15,000 at a ceremony at the Wallace Collection, London. The winning collection, White Egrets, was described by the chair of judges, poet Anne Stevenson, as "moving and technically flawless.". . .
Read the rest here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/24/ts-eliot-prize-derek-walcott.
Read the rest here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/24/ts-eliot-prize-derek-walcott.
Roberts, Julian. Review of WALTER BENJAMIN. NDPR (January 2010).
Steiner, Uwe. Walter Benjamin: an Introduction to his Work and Thought. Trans. Michael Winkler. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2010.
Is concern with Walter Benjamin a form of political activism? Should it be? This question has divided commentators since the 1960s, when Benjamin served not only as a banner for the student revolt, but also -- in direct contrast -- as a model for the sober scholarship gradually returning to the German universities.
Undoubtedly the latter view has prevailed, if only in the sense that Benjamin today is a staple of the Ph.D. industry. Steiner's book, which in essence is a chronological catalogue of Benjamin's oeuvre, rather confirms this. There is nothing wrong with this, in principle. Certainly there is only a limited amount of mileage to be extracted from Benjamin's career as a martyr, moving though it may be. And his work provides little direct guidance for the class struggle.
Despite this, criticism of the universities, or more generally of intellectual practice in general, underlies Benjamin's whole project. From our perspective, it is not just the oft-lamented failure of Frankfurt University to recognise Benjamin's talents which need concern us. German universities were at the forefront of the whole Nazi "movement", as indeed were other major components of public culture including the legal system and even, in part, the Churches. All these institutions, little changed, still exist. Is it possible to do justice to Benjamin's work without raising questions which bear directly on modern academic life? This is an issue which Steiner, consistent with the sober approach taken by his book, does not pursue. Related topics which have to be mentioned because of their prominence in Benjamin's work, such as the "Strategist in the Literary Struggle", are firmly consigned to scare quotes. At the end of his book, when Steiner raises the question of Benjamin's "relevance", he rather despairingly finds it in the fact that academics seem forever able to discover "new and hitherto overlooked aspects in his oeuvre".
This strikes me as a little disappointing, and it certainly raises the question of what Steiner might have missed in his subject. If one thing is missing in Steiner's basically thorough account, it is not the leftist political background, which he explains quite fully, but something rather different, namely theology. . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22449.
Is concern with Walter Benjamin a form of political activism? Should it be? This question has divided commentators since the 1960s, when Benjamin served not only as a banner for the student revolt, but also -- in direct contrast -- as a model for the sober scholarship gradually returning to the German universities.
Undoubtedly the latter view has prevailed, if only in the sense that Benjamin today is a staple of the Ph.D. industry. Steiner's book, which in essence is a chronological catalogue of Benjamin's oeuvre, rather confirms this. There is nothing wrong with this, in principle. Certainly there is only a limited amount of mileage to be extracted from Benjamin's career as a martyr, moving though it may be. And his work provides little direct guidance for the class struggle.
Despite this, criticism of the universities, or more generally of intellectual practice in general, underlies Benjamin's whole project. From our perspective, it is not just the oft-lamented failure of Frankfurt University to recognise Benjamin's talents which need concern us. German universities were at the forefront of the whole Nazi "movement", as indeed were other major components of public culture including the legal system and even, in part, the Churches. All these institutions, little changed, still exist. Is it possible to do justice to Benjamin's work without raising questions which bear directly on modern academic life? This is an issue which Steiner, consistent with the sober approach taken by his book, does not pursue. Related topics which have to be mentioned because of their prominence in Benjamin's work, such as the "Strategist in the Literary Struggle", are firmly consigned to scare quotes. At the end of his book, when Steiner raises the question of Benjamin's "relevance", he rather despairingly finds it in the fact that academics seem forever able to discover "new and hitherto overlooked aspects in his oeuvre".
This strikes me as a little disappointing, and it certainly raises the question of what Steiner might have missed in his subject. If one thing is missing in Steiner's basically thorough account, it is not the leftist political background, which he explains quite fully, but something rather different, namely theology. . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22449.
Cfp: "Philosophy and . . .," Joint Conference 2011, Society for European Philosophy and Forum for European Philosophy, York St John University, August 31-September 3, 2011.
Keynote Speakers:
Joan Copjec (University at Buffalo)
Graham Harman (American University, Cairo)
Michèle Le Doeuff (Centre National de la Recherche Scientific, Paris)
In a year when the UK has seen devastating cuts in the funding of the arts and humanities, it would be easy to be pessimistic about the future of Continental Philosophy. Yet, while reflection on the challenges ahead is certainly necessary, recent events also offer us the opportunity to respond to those who dismiss European Philosophy, not only with a vigorous defense, but also a demonstration and celebration of the profound impact it has had and continues to have on an enormous range of other disciplines. So, while this year’s conference follows recent tradition in not having a theme, and thereby welcomes proposals from the broadest range of European philosophical thought, we particularly welcome papers and other contributions that explore the limits of what can be placed together with, and within, the category of philosophy.
“PHILOSOPHY & . . .” is here offered as an opening onto the interdisciplinary terrains upon which European philosophy engages, provokes, interrupts and enriches (as it, in turn, is engaged, provoked, interrupted and enriched by them): …. politics; visual culture; performance art; art practice; architecture; literature; music; film/video; theatre; dance; science; feminism; cultural studies; psychoanalysis; and much more….
Anyone interested in presenting a paper, proposing a themed panel, or offering a different type of contribution, should submit a one page abstract to Gary Peters: g.peters@yorksj.ac.uk. The deadline for submissions is May 6, 2011. Please include your name, affiliation (if any, and please note that we wish to encourage proposals from independent scholars), your email and postal address. Decisions regarding the programme will be made by June 3.
Joan Copjec (University at Buffalo)
Graham Harman (American University, Cairo)
Michèle Le Doeuff (Centre National de la Recherche Scientific, Paris)
In a year when the UK has seen devastating cuts in the funding of the arts and humanities, it would be easy to be pessimistic about the future of Continental Philosophy. Yet, while reflection on the challenges ahead is certainly necessary, recent events also offer us the opportunity to respond to those who dismiss European Philosophy, not only with a vigorous defense, but also a demonstration and celebration of the profound impact it has had and continues to have on an enormous range of other disciplines. So, while this year’s conference follows recent tradition in not having a theme, and thereby welcomes proposals from the broadest range of European philosophical thought, we particularly welcome papers and other contributions that explore the limits of what can be placed together with, and within, the category of philosophy.
“PHILOSOPHY & . . .” is here offered as an opening onto the interdisciplinary terrains upon which European philosophy engages, provokes, interrupts and enriches (as it, in turn, is engaged, provoked, interrupted and enriched by them): …. politics; visual culture; performance art; art practice; architecture; literature; music; film/video; theatre; dance; science; feminism; cultural studies; psychoanalysis; and much more….
Anyone interested in presenting a paper, proposing a themed panel, or offering a different type of contribution, should submit a one page abstract to Gary Peters: g.peters@yorksj.ac.uk. The deadline for submissions is May 6, 2011. Please include your name, affiliation (if any, and please note that we wish to encourage proposals from independent scholars), your email and postal address. Decisions regarding the programme will be made by June 3.
Cfp: "The Political Animal," Third Annual Meeting, Pacific Association for the Continental Tradition (PACT), Seattle University, October 7-8, 2011.
Abstracts of 500 words (or complete papers) addressing any aspect of the problem of “the political animal” can be submitted through email to Jason Wirth (wirthj@seattleu.edu). The deadline for submissions is April 15, 2011. The aim of PACT is to create a platform for philosophical dialogue on the
West Coast. The annual conference alternates between Seattle (Seattle University) and San Francisco (University of San Francisco). PACT takes “Continental Philosophy” in its broadest sense, and everyone with an interest in continental thinking is invited to send in a submission and to participate. For more information, please contact: Jason Wirth wirthj@seattleu.edu or Gerard Kuperus gkuperus@usfca.edu.
West Coast. The annual conference alternates between Seattle (Seattle University) and San Francisco (University of San Francisco). PACT takes “Continental Philosophy” in its broadest sense, and everyone with an interest in continental thinking is invited to send in a submission and to participate. For more information, please contact: Jason Wirth wirthj@seattleu.edu or Gerard Kuperus gkuperus@usfca.edu.
Monday, January 24, 2011
"Selfhood, Authenticity and Method in Heidegger’s BEING AND TIME: Four Seminars," February - November, 2011.
Although Heidegger’s Being and Time is often cited as one of the most important philosophical works of the last century, its second division has largely been ignored, especially by commentators from the analytic tradition. But an increasing appreciation of the philosophical and theological influences that shape Heidegger’s thought has led to a re-examination of this difficult second division and the suspicion is growing that there is something of real philosophical substance in its concerns; in particular, its discussion of ‘authenticity’ is coming to be seen as having significant implications for how we ought to understand, for example, intentionality and autonomy. In 2011, the Universities of Southampton, Oxford and Essex will host a series of seminars which will extend these fascinating in-roads that are beginning to be made into the difficult hinterland of Heidegger’s magnum opus.
9th February 2011
Christ Church, Oxford University
Taylor Carman (Barnard, Columbia), ‘Heidegger on the Necessity and Finality of Death’
Daniel Dahlstrom (Boston), ‘Authenticity and the Absence of Death’
Denis McManus (Southampton), 'Being-towards-death and One’s Own Best Judgment'
23rd March 2011
University of Southampton
Steven Galt Crowell (Rice), ‘Being Answerable: Reason-Giving as Authentic Discourse’
Stephen Mulhall (Oxford), ‘Nothingness and Phenomenology: Heidegger and Sartre’
Peter Poellner (Warwick), ‘Sartre and Heidegger on Authenticity and Intersubjectivity’
18th May 2011
University of Southampton
Hubert Dreyfus (Berkeley), ‘Authenticity and the Phenomenology of Action’
Béatrice Han-Pile (Essex), ‘Heidegger on Freedom in Being and Time’
Charles Guignon (South Florida), ‘Authenticity, Phenomenology, and the Question of Being’
16th November 2011
University of Essex
Clare Carlisle (Liverpool), ‘Repetitions: Kierkegaard, Heidegger and the Question of Being’
George Pattison (Oxford), ‘Guilt, Death and Nothingness in Luther, Kierkegaard and Being and Time’
Mark Wrathall (California, Riverside), ‘Demanding Authenticity of Ourselves’
Organisers: Denis McManus, George Pattison, amd Béatrice Han-Pile
For further information, visit: http://www.soton.ac.uk/philosophy/news/conferences/sam2011.shtml.
9th February 2011
Christ Church, Oxford University
Taylor Carman (Barnard, Columbia), ‘Heidegger on the Necessity and Finality of Death’
Daniel Dahlstrom (Boston), ‘Authenticity and the Absence of Death’
Denis McManus (Southampton), 'Being-towards-death and One’s Own Best Judgment'
23rd March 2011
University of Southampton
Steven Galt Crowell (Rice), ‘Being Answerable: Reason-Giving as Authentic Discourse’
Stephen Mulhall (Oxford), ‘Nothingness and Phenomenology: Heidegger and Sartre’
Peter Poellner (Warwick), ‘Sartre and Heidegger on Authenticity and Intersubjectivity’
18th May 2011
University of Southampton
Hubert Dreyfus (Berkeley), ‘Authenticity and the Phenomenology of Action’
Béatrice Han-Pile (Essex), ‘Heidegger on Freedom in Being and Time’
Charles Guignon (South Florida), ‘Authenticity, Phenomenology, and the Question of Being’
16th November 2011
University of Essex
Clare Carlisle (Liverpool), ‘Repetitions: Kierkegaard, Heidegger and the Question of Being’
George Pattison (Oxford), ‘Guilt, Death and Nothingness in Luther, Kierkegaard and Being and Time’
Mark Wrathall (California, Riverside), ‘Demanding Authenticity of Ourselves’
Organisers: Denis McManus, George Pattison, amd Béatrice Han-Pile
For further information, visit: http://www.soton.ac.uk/philosophy/news/conferences/sam2011.shtml.
Kavka, Martin. Review of Richard A. Cohen, LEVINASIAN MEDITATIONS. NDPR (January 2010).
Cohen, Richard A. Levinasian Meditations: Ethics, Philosophy, and Religion. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP, 2010.
This volume collects seventeen of Cohen's essays published during the last twelve years on the French Jewish phenomenologist Emmanuel Levinas. The essays are divided into two sections. The first section, "Ethics as First Philosophy," covers thematic material similar to that in Cohen's 2001 book Ethics, Exegesis and Philosophy: the critical stance that Levinas takes toward other figures in the phenomenological and philosophical traditions. (This section also contains a wonderful little essay on Levinas's frequent, and frequently ignored, citations to Shakespeare.) The second section, "A Religion for Adults," contains essays on the place of Judaism, and the relationship between Judaism and philosophy, in Levinas's writings. Yet this latter section is not an inessential appendage to the first; rather, it is its sequel. Levinasian Meditations, in its structure, embodies a claim frequently found in scholarship on Levinas, namely that Judaism and its other-centered ethics, through its countercultural stance, can play a role in saving the modern West from the historical evils that have resulted from the West's tendency either to create social commonalities through political violence or to erase social difference through genocide and ethnic cleansing. Those who read these essays seriatim will quickly infer that many of them are, at least in part, responses to unnamed others who have offered dismissive responses either to Cohen's approach to Levinas or to Levinas's philosophy tout court. It strikes me as very possible that readers of Levinasian Meditations will misinterpret it as a result. . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22271.
This volume collects seventeen of Cohen's essays published during the last twelve years on the French Jewish phenomenologist Emmanuel Levinas. The essays are divided into two sections. The first section, "Ethics as First Philosophy," covers thematic material similar to that in Cohen's 2001 book Ethics, Exegesis and Philosophy: the critical stance that Levinas takes toward other figures in the phenomenological and philosophical traditions. (This section also contains a wonderful little essay on Levinas's frequent, and frequently ignored, citations to Shakespeare.) The second section, "A Religion for Adults," contains essays on the place of Judaism, and the relationship between Judaism and philosophy, in Levinas's writings. Yet this latter section is not an inessential appendage to the first; rather, it is its sequel. Levinasian Meditations, in its structure, embodies a claim frequently found in scholarship on Levinas, namely that Judaism and its other-centered ethics, through its countercultural stance, can play a role in saving the modern West from the historical evils that have resulted from the West's tendency either to create social commonalities through political violence or to erase social difference through genocide and ethnic cleansing. Those who read these essays seriatim will quickly infer that many of them are, at least in part, responses to unnamed others who have offered dismissive responses either to Cohen's approach to Levinas or to Levinas's philosophy tout court. It strikes me as very possible that readers of Levinasian Meditations will misinterpret it as a result. . . .
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22271.
Dawes, Simon. "Interview with David Macey on Fanon, Foucault and Race." TCS ANNUAL REVIEW (January 2011).
Simon Dawes interviews David Macey about his contribution to the Special Section on Frantz Fanon in the current issue of the TCS Annual Review, and about his 2009 article in the TCS Special Issue on Michel Foucault.
Read more to find out why (and for whom) Fanon is a source of embarrassment, the link for Foucault between race and the legitimacy of power, and why we should all be reaching for our copies of Fanon and Aimé Césaire.
Read it here: http://theoryculturesociety.blogspot.com/2011/01/interview-with-david-macey-on-fanon.html.
Read more to find out why (and for whom) Fanon is a source of embarrassment, the link for Foucault between race and the legitimacy of power, and why we should all be reaching for our copies of Fanon and Aimé Césaire.
Read it here: http://theoryculturesociety.blogspot.com/2011/01/interview-with-david-macey-on-fanon.html.
Batnitzky, Leora. "Leo Strauss." STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY December 1, 2010.
Leo Strauss was a twentieth-century German Jewish émigré to the United States whose intellectual corpus spans ancient, medieval and modern political philosophy and includes, among others, studies of Plato, Maimonides, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Spinoza, and Nietzsche. Strauss wrote mainly as a historian of philosophy and most of his writings take the form of commentaries on important thinkers and their writings. Yet as he put it: “There is no inquiry into the history of philosophy that is not at the same time a philosophical inquiry” (PL, p. 41). While much of his philosophical project involved an attempt to rethink pre-modern philosophy, the impetus for this reconsideration and the philosophical problems that vexed Strauss most were decidedly modern. Strauss especially worried about the modern philosophical grounds for political and moral normativity as well as about the philosophical, theological, and political consequences of what he took to be modern philosophy's overinflated claims for the self-sufficiency of reason. . . .
Read the rest here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/strauss-leo/.
Read the rest here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/strauss-leo/.
Osborne, Peter. "Walter Benjamin." STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY January 18, 2011.
Walter Benjamin's importance as a philosopher and critical theorist can be gauged by the diversity of his intellectual influence and the continuing productivity of his thought. Primarily regarded as a literary critic and essayist, the philosophical basis of Benjamin's writings is increasingly acknowledged. They were a decisive influence upon Theodor W. Adorno's conception of philosophy's actuality or adequacy to the present (Adorno 1931). In the 1930s, Benjamin's efforts to develop a politically oriented, materialist aesthetic theory proved an important stimulus for both the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory and the Marxist poet and dramatist Bertolt Brecht.
The delayed appearance of Benjamin's collected writings has determined and sustained the Anglophone reception of his work. (A two-volume selection was published in German in 1955, with a full edition not appearing until 1972–89; English anthologies first appeared in 1968 and 1978; the four-volume Selected Writings, 1996–2003.) Originally received in the context of literary theory and aesthetics, the philosophical depth and cultural breadth of Benjamin's thought have only recently begun to be fully appreciated. Despite the voluminous size of the secondary literature that it has produced, his work remains a continuing source of productivity. An understanding of the intellectual context of his work has contributed to the recent philosophical revival of Early German Romanticism. His essay on ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technical Reproducibility’ remains a major theoretical text for film theory. One-Way Street and the work arising from his unfinished research on nineteenth century Paris (The Arcades Project), provide a theoretical stimulus for cultural theory and philosophical concepts of the modern. Benjamin's messianic understanding of history has been an enduring source of theoretical fascination and frustration for a diverse range of recent philosophical thinkers, including Jacques Derrida, Giorgio Agamben and, in a critical context, Jürgen Habermas. The ‘Critique of Violence’ and ‘On the Concept of History’ are important sources for Derrida's discussion of messianicity, which has been influential, along with Paul de Man's discussion of allegory, for the poststructuralist reception of Benjamin's writings. Aspects of Benjamin's thought have also been associated with the recent revival of political theology, although it is doubtful this reception is true to the tendencies of Benjamin's own political thought. . . .
Read the rest here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/benjamin/.
The delayed appearance of Benjamin's collected writings has determined and sustained the Anglophone reception of his work. (A two-volume selection was published in German in 1955, with a full edition not appearing until 1972–89; English anthologies first appeared in 1968 and 1978; the four-volume Selected Writings, 1996–2003.) Originally received in the context of literary theory and aesthetics, the philosophical depth and cultural breadth of Benjamin's thought have only recently begun to be fully appreciated. Despite the voluminous size of the secondary literature that it has produced, his work remains a continuing source of productivity. An understanding of the intellectual context of his work has contributed to the recent philosophical revival of Early German Romanticism. His essay on ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technical Reproducibility’ remains a major theoretical text for film theory. One-Way Street and the work arising from his unfinished research on nineteenth century Paris (The Arcades Project), provide a theoretical stimulus for cultural theory and philosophical concepts of the modern. Benjamin's messianic understanding of history has been an enduring source of theoretical fascination and frustration for a diverse range of recent philosophical thinkers, including Jacques Derrida, Giorgio Agamben and, in a critical context, Jürgen Habermas. The ‘Critique of Violence’ and ‘On the Concept of History’ are important sources for Derrida's discussion of messianicity, which has been influential, along with Paul de Man's discussion of allegory, for the poststructuralist reception of Benjamin's writings. Aspects of Benjamin's thought have also been associated with the recent revival of political theology, although it is doubtful this reception is true to the tendencies of Benjamin's own political thought. . . .
Read the rest here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/benjamin/.
"Transgression and the Sacred," an International Philosophy and Literature Conference, University College Dublin, February 22-23, 2011.
“The sacred world depends on limited acts of transgression” (Georges Bataille, Eroticism)
Transgression refers to a crossing over, the exceeding of bounds or limits, the infringement or violation of a law or convention. For Bataille, it is through acts of transgression that we experience the sacred. The profane world is the world of the taboo, while the subject of a taboo, that which the taboo prohibits, is sacred. Yet, transgression does not deny or destroy the taboo; it exceeds the taboo but also completes it.
In our post-enlightenment age transgression and the limit have replaced the older dichotomy of the sacred and the profane. If transgression and the sacred depend on limits what are the limits that still exist in the modern world? If we live in a largely limitless world has the sacred now disappeared?
Or, do we now in fact now live in a post-secular world? How has the sacred been reorganised or reconstituted in modern philosophical and literary discourse? How might transgression be important in rediscovering the sacred, as Foucault declares in his ‘Preface to Transgression’, “In that zone which our culture affords for our gestures and speech, transgression prescribes not only the sole manner of discovering the sacred in its unmediated substance, but also a way of recomposing its empty form, its absence”.
Bataille’s ideas on transgression and the sacred derive largely from the anthropology of religion. The word ‘sacred’ derives from the Latin sacer, meaning to set apart. The sacred is separated from the profane by a taboo or limit. Therefore we want to examine the importance of liminality, the scapegoat, sacrifice, pollution, and sacred transgressors such as Hermes and Trickster in the history of philosophy and literature.
We would also like to consider theological conceptions of the sacred. Bataille’s conception of the sacred is anti-Christian and denies any form of transcendence or salvation; Christianity is the least religious of all religions for him as it denies the impure aspect of the sacred – eroticism, excess, excretion, horror, death. But what is the relationship between transgression and the sacred in Christianity and the major religions and how is this relationship represented in philosophy and literature? Rudolph Otto refers to the numinous in which the Other, the wholly other or the transcendent, appears as a mysterium tremendum et fascinans - that is, a mystery before which man both trembles and is fascinated, is both repelled and attracted. How might such a deification and demonising of the Other be problematised in philosophy and literature?
We welcome papers that engage exclusively with philosophy or exclusively with literature and literary theory, or papers that combine the two disciplines - the literary analysis of philosophy or the use of philosophy as a theoretical framework for the analysis of literary texts.
Topics may include (but are not limited to) the following:
The scapegoat
Eroticism
Violence and the sacred
Sin
Gothic and horror fiction
Shamans and tricksters as sacred transgressors
Liminality – border-crossing, the sacred and the spatial conditioning of transgression
The stranger / the Other
Wild men, sacred savages and holy fools
Derrida and messianicity
Lyotard’s The Confessions of Augustine
The Carnivalesque
Hallucinogens, altered states of consciousness and sacred visions
Blasphemy and censorship
Gender studies and Queer theory
The writings of The Marquis de Sade, Georges Bataille, Maurice Blanchot, Michel Foucault
Transgressive Literature and genre
Levinas on the sacred and the holy
Transgressing form and textual boundaries, transgressing sacred texts
Postcolonialism
Modernism / postmodernism
For further information, contact: to wlmailhtml:{33249020-683D-4460-BFA5-A1EEB3208D51}mid://00000314/!x-usc:mailto:Rozemund.Uljee@ucdconnect.ie and Adrian.Naughton@ucdconncect.ie .
Transgression refers to a crossing over, the exceeding of bounds or limits, the infringement or violation of a law or convention. For Bataille, it is through acts of transgression that we experience the sacred. The profane world is the world of the taboo, while the subject of a taboo, that which the taboo prohibits, is sacred. Yet, transgression does not deny or destroy the taboo; it exceeds the taboo but also completes it.
In our post-enlightenment age transgression and the limit have replaced the older dichotomy of the sacred and the profane. If transgression and the sacred depend on limits what are the limits that still exist in the modern world? If we live in a largely limitless world has the sacred now disappeared?
Or, do we now in fact now live in a post-secular world? How has the sacred been reorganised or reconstituted in modern philosophical and literary discourse? How might transgression be important in rediscovering the sacred, as Foucault declares in his ‘Preface to Transgression’, “In that zone which our culture affords for our gestures and speech, transgression prescribes not only the sole manner of discovering the sacred in its unmediated substance, but also a way of recomposing its empty form, its absence”.
Bataille’s ideas on transgression and the sacred derive largely from the anthropology of religion. The word ‘sacred’ derives from the Latin sacer, meaning to set apart. The sacred is separated from the profane by a taboo or limit. Therefore we want to examine the importance of liminality, the scapegoat, sacrifice, pollution, and sacred transgressors such as Hermes and Trickster in the history of philosophy and literature.
We would also like to consider theological conceptions of the sacred. Bataille’s conception of the sacred is anti-Christian and denies any form of transcendence or salvation; Christianity is the least religious of all religions for him as it denies the impure aspect of the sacred – eroticism, excess, excretion, horror, death. But what is the relationship between transgression and the sacred in Christianity and the major religions and how is this relationship represented in philosophy and literature? Rudolph Otto refers to the numinous in which the Other, the wholly other or the transcendent, appears as a mysterium tremendum et fascinans - that is, a mystery before which man both trembles and is fascinated, is both repelled and attracted. How might such a deification and demonising of the Other be problematised in philosophy and literature?
We welcome papers that engage exclusively with philosophy or exclusively with literature and literary theory, or papers that combine the two disciplines - the literary analysis of philosophy or the use of philosophy as a theoretical framework for the analysis of literary texts.
Topics may include (but are not limited to) the following:
The scapegoat
Eroticism
Violence and the sacred
Sin
Gothic and horror fiction
Shamans and tricksters as sacred transgressors
Liminality – border-crossing, the sacred and the spatial conditioning of transgression
The stranger / the Other
Wild men, sacred savages and holy fools
Derrida and messianicity
Lyotard’s The Confessions of Augustine
The Carnivalesque
Hallucinogens, altered states of consciousness and sacred visions
Blasphemy and censorship
Gender studies and Queer theory
The writings of The Marquis de Sade, Georges Bataille, Maurice Blanchot, Michel Foucault
Transgressive Literature and genre
Levinas on the sacred and the holy
Transgressing form and textual boundaries, transgressing sacred texts
Postcolonialism
Modernism / postmodernism
For further information, contact: to wlmailhtml:{33249020-683D-4460-BFA5-A1EEB3208D51}mid://00000314/!x-usc:mailto:Rozemund.Uljee@ucdconnect.ie and Adrian.Naughton@ucdconncect.ie .
Cfp: "Writing Philosophy's History," Department of Philosophy, Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Irish Philosophical Society, April 15-16, 2011.
Keynote speaker: Professor Jonathan Rée
The conference addresses questions concerning philosophy's relationship to its own past. This should not to be seen as an opportunity for historians of philosophy to focus narrowly upon specific questions relating to texts or thinkers in the history of philosophy, nor should it be seen as an engagement with the philosophy of history. The purpose of the conference is much broader and more evidently methodological. It is designed to consider the ways philosophers conceptualize their own past and how this influences their interpretations of past texts (and their conceptions of the current tasks of philosophy). Amongst other things the conference focuses upon the following topics and questions:
* The relationship between philosophy and the history of philosophy.
* Methodological issues relating to the ways the history of philosophy is conceived.
* The history of philosophy as a hermeneutical task.
* Why is philosophy concerned with its past?
* Which theories of history are appropriate to the history of philosophy?
* Can one do philosophy without doing the history of philosophy?
* How is the philosophical canon constituted?
* How central figures in the history of philosophy have conceived of the history of philosophy.
* The history of philosophy as either a rationally or historically reconstructive enterprise.
* The history of the history of philosophy.
* The philosophy of the history of philosophy.
* Marxist and psychoanalytic approaches to the history of philosophy.
* The history of philosophy and postmodernism
* The history of philosophy in relation to issues of gender, class, and race.
* The role of biography and autobiography.
Send an abstract of up to 750 words, formatted for anonymous review, and sent by email to Dr. Chris Lawn (chris.lawn@mic.ul.ie) and Dr. Catherine Kavanagh (Catherine.Kavanagh@mic.ul.ie) by MARCH 11, 2011. In addition, on a separate sheet please include contact details. Notification of the committee's decision regarding submissions will be emailed no later than MARCH 25, 2011.
The conference addresses questions concerning philosophy's relationship to its own past. This should not to be seen as an opportunity for historians of philosophy to focus narrowly upon specific questions relating to texts or thinkers in the history of philosophy, nor should it be seen as an engagement with the philosophy of history. The purpose of the conference is much broader and more evidently methodological. It is designed to consider the ways philosophers conceptualize their own past and how this influences their interpretations of past texts (and their conceptions of the current tasks of philosophy). Amongst other things the conference focuses upon the following topics and questions:
* The relationship between philosophy and the history of philosophy.
* Methodological issues relating to the ways the history of philosophy is conceived.
* The history of philosophy as a hermeneutical task.
* Why is philosophy concerned with its past?
* Which theories of history are appropriate to the history of philosophy?
* Can one do philosophy without doing the history of philosophy?
* How is the philosophical canon constituted?
* How central figures in the history of philosophy have conceived of the history of philosophy.
* The history of philosophy as either a rationally or historically reconstructive enterprise.
* The history of the history of philosophy.
* The philosophy of the history of philosophy.
* Marxist and psychoanalytic approaches to the history of philosophy.
* The history of philosophy and postmodernism
* The history of philosophy in relation to issues of gender, class, and race.
* The role of biography and autobiography.
Send an abstract of up to 750 words, formatted for anonymous review, and sent by email to Dr. Chris Lawn (chris.lawn@mic.ul.ie) and Dr. Catherine Kavanagh (Catherine.Kavanagh@mic.ul.ie) by MARCH 11, 2011. In addition, on a separate sheet please include contact details. Notification of the committee's decision regarding submissions will be emailed no later than MARCH 25, 2011.
Pub: Gabrielle A. Hezekiah, PHENOMENOLOGY'S MATERIAL PRESENCE.
Hezekiah, Gabrielle A. Phenomenology's Material Presence: Video, Vision and Experience. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2010.
Phenomenology’s Material Presence draws on recent work in phenomenology, embodiment, and cinema and extends the field by examining metaphysical presence in postcolonial cinema. Where other scholarship has assimilated insight from individual phenomenological thinkers, Phenomenology’s Material Presence utilizes the methods of these thinkers—Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty—to produce a richly textured and poetic essay that brings them into conversation. Through a meditation on three experimental videos by Trinidadian filmmaker Robert Yao Ramesar, this book makes the case that video performs an act of phenomenological inquiry. Phenomenology’s Material Presence extends our theorizing in both film studies and philosophy. Further information on the book is available here: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=synopsis&bookkey=8928333.See also her presentation in the Norman Jewison Series at York University, Toronto: Gabrielle A. Hezekiah speaks on Phenomenology’s Material Presence:
Gabrielle A. Hezekiah addresses key questions raised in her new book, Phenomenology’s Material Presence: Video, Vision and Experience. How do aesthetic practices engage with experience? How do we arrive at a description of that experience? What does phenomenological method offer in the way of description and what is to be gained by the use of phenomenology as a distinct approach to moving image theory? Can video be shown to perform – rather than illustrate – philosophical methods and concepts? In her talk, Hezekiah will draw on the experimental video documentaries of Trinidadian filmmaker Robert Yao Ramesar and the insights of philosophers Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Her presentation includes screenings of Ramesar’s videos Heritage: A Wedding in Moriah, Mami Wata and Journey to Ganga Mai. Admission is free and all are welcome. For further information, visit: http://www.yorku.ca/yuevents/index.asp?Event=21685&Category=54&ShowCal=&TimeSame=Feb&Month=2&Year=2011&EventTitle=York%20Events:%20Norman+Jewison+Series%3A+Gabrielle+A.+Hezekiah+speaks+on+Phenomenology%92s+Material+Presence.
"Nietzsche the Kantian? Reading Nietzsche and Kant on the Sovereign Individual, Freedom and the Will," Institute for Philosophy, Leiden University, February 11-12, 2011.
This workshop is the first of a series on Nietzsche’s relation to Kant to be held in various European universities. It aims to illuminate the relations between Nietzsche and Kant in the field of ethics by engaging with recent debates in the English-language literature over their conceptions of ‘sovereignty’, ‘freedom’ and the ‘will’. It will respond critically to the currently popular idea that, despite his criticisms of free will, moral responsibility, intentional causality and the ‘subject’ itself, Nietzsche affirms a ‘Kantian’ sense of agency that admits certain positive senses of freedom, responsibility and intentional causality and bases a positive ethics on it. The workshop will concentrate on Nietzsche’s later writings and will challenge the current emphasis on the ‘sovereign individual’ passage of On the Genealogy of Morality by opening up the discussion to Nietzsche’s treatments of ‘will’, ‘freedom’ and ‘sovereignty’ elsewhere in his published and unpublished work. The workshop will also attempt to correct the caricature of Kant that Nietzsche himself and his commentators often present and to thus provide for more sophisticated and fruitful engagements with Kant and Kantian positions. It will consist of 30-45 minute presentations of papers, some of which will be pre-circulated among participants at the beginning of February, followed by an open discussion guided by chairs.
Contact Herman Siemens (hwsiemens@hotmail.com).
Contact Herman Siemens (hwsiemens@hotmail.com).
Cfp: "The Crisis of Public Education and the Transformation of Society," Shifting the Geography of Reason VIII, Caribbean Philosophical Association, Rutgers University, September 28-30, 2011.
Featuring:
Plenary session commemorating 50 years of Frantz Fanon's passing with Mireille Fanon-Mendès France, Lewis Gordon, Nigel Gibson, Drucilla Cornell, and others TBA
Boaventura de Sousa Santos on the crisis of the university
Panel on the crisis of the humanities with Walter D. Mignolo, Nelson Maldonado-Torres, and other participants TBA
Plenary session awarding the 2011 Frantz Fanon and Nicolás Guillén Prizes: the 2011 Frantz Fanon Award winners are: Susan Buck-Morss for Hegel, Haiti, and University History, and Marilyn Nissim-Sabat for Neither Victim nor Survivor: Thinking Toward a New Humanity (attendance confirmed).
2011 Nicolás Guillén Award winner: Junot Díaz (attendance confirmed).
As always, we invite submissions (papers, panels, roundtables) that explore race and racism, gender, colonization and decolonization, sexuality, imperialism, and migration, social and intellectual movements, and related areas, not only in the Caribbean, but globally. We accept proposals in English, French, and Spanish.
Visit: http://www.caribbeanphilosophicalassociation.org/.
Plenary session commemorating 50 years of Frantz Fanon's passing with Mireille Fanon-Mendès France, Lewis Gordon, Nigel Gibson, Drucilla Cornell, and others TBA
Boaventura de Sousa Santos on the crisis of the university
Panel on the crisis of the humanities with Walter D. Mignolo, Nelson Maldonado-Torres, and other participants TBA
Plenary session awarding the 2011 Frantz Fanon and Nicolás Guillén Prizes: the 2011 Frantz Fanon Award winners are: Susan Buck-Morss for Hegel, Haiti, and University History, and Marilyn Nissim-Sabat for Neither Victim nor Survivor: Thinking Toward a New Humanity (attendance confirmed).
2011 Nicolás Guillén Award winner: Junot Díaz (attendance confirmed).
As always, we invite submissions (papers, panels, roundtables) that explore race and racism, gender, colonization and decolonization, sexuality, imperialism, and migration, social and intellectual movements, and related areas, not only in the Caribbean, but globally. We accept proposals in English, French, and Spanish.
Visit: http://www.caribbeanphilosophicalassociation.org/.
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