Malins, Peta. Review of Simon O'Sullivan and Stephen Zepke, eds. DELEUZE, GUATTARI, AND THE PRODUCTION OF THE NEW. NDPR (December 2009).

O'Sullivan, Simon, and Stephen Zepke, eds. Deleuze, Guattari and the Production of the New. London: Continuum, 2008. The recent proliferation of books and anthologies focusing on the work of Deleuze and Guattari has been a cause for both celebration and concern. There is something unsettling about a growing commercial interest in the field: a sense that a kind of Deleuzo-Guattarian industry might be emerging, with publishers and authors churning out increasingly short-hand, commodified interpretations of their thought. Yet there is also something inescapably exciting about it all too: a sense of anticipation and delight at both the rhizomatic spread in and of itself, as well as a the possibilities that each new encounter might open up for rethinking -- and re-doing -- the contemporary world. It was with this latter optimism that I approached Simon O'Sullivan and Stephen Zepke's Deleuze, Guattari and the Production of the New. Fortunately, O'Sullivan and Zepke's collection not only explores the importance of the 'new' to our future ethico-political health, but attests to it in its very being. Rather than re-hashing familiar Deleuze and Guattari territory, or simply capitalizing on the quirkiness of their unfamiliar concepts, this collection offers innovative in-depth encounters between these philosophers and an array of political and artistic assemblages and problematics. In doing so it necessarily shifts the ways in which we can think about Deleuze and Guattari's concepts and the various fields to which they have been connected. The collection thus acts, at least to some extent, like a lever with which we might, as Massumi suggests, begin to pry open a gap in the 'World As We Know It'. The main aim of the anthology is to explore -- and put to work -- the concept of the new as it emerges from the work of Deleuze and Guattari, particularly their jointly authored Capitalism and Schizophrenia texts and Guattari's relatively under-utilized individual works. This is a daunting task, given the central role that the production of the new plays within their philosophy: as the generative force of differentiation that drives life itself in its battle against stagnation, habit and paralysis. The editors do well, therefore, to narrow the field by outlining a range of subsidiary aims, or problematics, to which the collection is addressed. These include: the role of art and aesthetics in the production of new modes of thought and being; the capacity for repetition to become aligned with difference, rather than with recognition and representation; the problem of the new in relation to contemporary capitalism, given the extent to which creativity and innovation are being increasingly co-opted by mass marketing rhetoric and practice; and the role of the new in contemporary forms of resistance. The anthology comprises 18 specifically commissioned essays, which each take up and extend at least one of these themes. These are preceded by a thoughtful and accessible editorial introduction, and followed, at the end of the collection, with a newly translated extract from Guattari's Cartographies Schizoanalytiques, which is itself accompanied by a short translator's introduction. Of the commissioned essays, some focus on a particular philosophical or political problematic relating to the new in Deleuze and Guattari's work, drawing out dynamic concepts of difference and repetition, time, the future, ethics, the virtual, experimentation, resistance, desire and creativity. Others focus on connecting the concept of the new to particular artistic and aesthetic sites. From science fiction to jazz, contemporary art to industrial music, cinema to cultural icons, these more grounded essays bring to life Deleuze and Guattari's concepts, putting them to work in familiar, and not so familiar, domains. . . . Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=18368.

Horstmann, Rolf-Peter. Review of Friedrich Nietzsche, WRITINGS FROM THE EARLY NOTEBOOKS. NDPR (December 2009).

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Writings from the Early Notebooks. Ed. Raymond Geuss and Alexander Nehamas. Trans. Ladislaus Löb. Cambridge: CUP, 2009.

As the title of the volume suggests, the texts it contains are a selection. They come from the vast amount of notes -- almost half of the historical critical edition of his works is filled with them -- that Nietzsche wrote down throughout his life in many notebooks. Some of these notes are just a couple of words whereas others are of considerable length, sometimes filling several pages. They contain remarks and reflections on topics that aroused his intellectual curiosity, covering just about every conceivable field of human life ranging from contemporary politics and cultural history to art and aesthetic phenomena and above all to almost all domains of philosophy both theoretical and practical. The roughly 240 pages of notes in the volume are from the period between 1869 and 1879. That they represent a very exclusive selection is documented by the fact that the notes from this period in the historical critical edition cover around 1400 pages. This raises a question about the principles and the criteria of selection. Unfortunately, neither the editors nor the translator explicitly address this question. However, I have the impression that the guiding thread for the selection was the general relevance of the material selected for what Alexander Nehamas in his introduction tells us about Nietzsche's preoccupations and main interests during that period. This impression is not just based on the notes chosen. It also suggests itself indirectly because of the inclusion of three texts discussed quite thoroughly in the introduction, two of which are normally not considered to be notes but fall under the rubric of unpublished writings (On the Pathos of Truth and On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense), while the third (On Schopenhauer) is from an earlier period. However that may be, the resulting collection is very convincing and informative. . . .

Read the whole review here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=18265.

Pub: Posthumous Fragments of Nietzsche Online.

Nietzsche Source is delighted to announce the publication of the complete posthumous fragments of Nietzsche in the Digital critical edition, based on the critical text established by Colli/Montinari and including recent philological corrections. Furthermore, 20 new notebooks have been added to the Digital facsimile edition of the Nietzsche estate, bringing the total to almost 10,000 published manuscript pages. Both editions have stable URLs allowing each fragment or manuscript page to be cited individually. For the generous support we would like to thank the European Commission, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, the Maison Française d'Oxford, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Humboldt Foundation, the LMU Munich, and the Foundation of Weimar Classics (see all institutions and sponsors). Nietzsche Source is a web site devoted to the publication of scholarly content on the work and life of Friedrich Nietzsche. It is not subscription-based and can be freely consulted and used for scholarly purposes. http://www.nietzschesource.org

Audio: Tzvetan Todorov on START OF THE WEEK.

Tzvetan Todorov took part in the BBC programme Start of the Week with Andrew Marr on December 8.

The programme is available temporarily on BBC iPlayer at the following URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00p50f5.

Pub: HISTORY AND THEORY 48 (2009).

The October 2009 issue of History and Theory has recently been published. In it Andrew Curran, in “Rethinking Race History: The Role of the Albino in the French Enlightenment Life Sciences,” discerningly explores the way the concept of “race” evolved in the eighteenth century and beyond by exploring a category that called into question standard racial categories: the albino or the nègre blanc—quite literally a “white negro.” Curran’s essay deepens our understanding not only of a key concept in history-writing, but also of the way concepts change over time. Also in the issue, Branko Mitrovi?’s “Intentionalism, Intentionality, and Reporting Beliefs” provides an analytically rigorous exploration of the question: when historians report the beliefs of historical figures, do they report the sentences (which are obviously language-dependent) or the propositions (which are language-independent thought-contents) that these historical figures believed to be true or false? (Mitrovi? claims it is the latter.) This topic might seem somewhat far from the practice of history until one realizes that virtually all histories ascribe beliefs to agents in the past, and that what is involved in such ascription is absolutely central to the entire historical enterprise. The issue also contains an especially illuminating Forum that examines Saul Friedländer’s recent Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Extermination. This book offers a brilliant new literary mode for the historical representation of extreme events such as the Holocaust. The forum explores the nature and significance of this new mode in three essays: Alon Confino, “Narrative Form and Historical Sensation: On Saul Friedländer’s The Years of Extermination;” Amos Goldberg, “The Victim’s Voice and Melodramatic Aesthetics in History;” and Christopher R. Browning, “Evocation, Analysis, and the ‘Crisis of Liberalism.’” The result is an exceptionally rich examination of a work that is already a classic of modern history, and a perceptive drawing out of the implications of this work for future historians not only of the Holocaust and other traumatic events, but for history more generally. The issue also includes these review essays: Mary R. Lefkowitz, “A Herodotus for Our Time,” a review of Robert Strassler, ed., The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories John E. Toews, “Manifesting, Producing, and Mobilizing Historical Consciousness in the ‘Postmodern Condition’,” a review of Keith Jenkins, Sue Morgan, and Alun Munslow, eds., Manifestos for History Javed Majeed, “British Colonialism in India as a Pedagogical Enterprise,” a review of Sanjay Seth, Subject Lessons: The Western Education of Colonial India, and Michael S. Dodson, Orientalism, Empire, and National Culture: India 1770–1880 Mark S. Cladis, “The Discovery and Recovery of Time in History and Religion,” a review of William Gallois, Time, Religion and History. Click here to read abstracts of the articles in this issue: http://www.historyandtheory.org/archives/oct09.html To download a free copy of Alon Confino, “Narrative Form and Historical Sensation: On Saul Friedländer’s The Years of Extermination,” please click here: http://www.historyandtheory.org/freearticle.html

Pub: EMPEDOCLES: EUROPEAN JOURNAL FOR THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMMUNICATION 1.1 (2009).

Editorial Authors: Johan Siebers Page Start: 5 View Header/Abstract View PDF Beyond Bergson: the ontology of togetherness Authors: Elena Fell Page Start: 9 View Header/Abstract View PDF Communication between friends Authors: Dan O'Brien Page Start: 27 View Header/Abstract View PDF Communication or Confrontation – Heidegger and Philosophical Method Authors: Vincent Blok Page Start: 43 View Header/Abstract View PDF Self-observation, self-reference and operational coupling in social systems: steps towards a coherent epistemology of mass media Authors: Juan Miguel Aguado Page Start: 59 View Header/Abstract View PDF Content and sense Authors: Lydia Sánchez And Manuel Campos Page Start: 75 View Header/Abstract View PDF The public's right to know in liberal-democratic thought vs. The people's ‘obligation to know’ in Hebrew law Authors: Tsuriel Rashi Page Start: 91 View Header/Abstract View PDF The Soul of the Golem Authors: Daniel H. Cabrera Page Start: 107 View Header/Abstract View PDF Radical Interpretation, the primacy of communication, and the bounds of language Authors: Eli Dresner Page Start: 123 View Header/Abstract View PDF Reviews Authors: Laura Green And Mark Olssen And Nick Turnbull Page Start: 135 View Header/Abstract View PDF Further information is here: http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-issue,id=1755/.

Romano, Carlin. "We Need 'Philosophy of Journalism.'" CHRONICLE November 15, 2009.

If you examine philosophy-department offerings around America, you'll find staple courses in "Philosophy of Law," "Philosophy of Art," "Philosophy of Science," "Philosophy of Religion," and a fair number of other areas that make up our world. It makes sense. Philosophy, as the intellectual enterprise that in its noblest form inspects all areas of life and questions each practice's fundamental concepts and presumptions, should regularly look at all human activities broad and persistent enough not to be aberrations or idiosyncrasies. (The latter can be reserved for Independent Studies.) Why, then, don't you find "Philosophy of Journalism" among those staple courses? Why does philosophy, the academic discipline charged to reflect the noblest intellectual enterprise, avoid the subject while departments teem with abstruse courses mainly of interest to the tenured professors who teach them? Read the rest here: http://chronicle.com/article/We-Need-Philosophy-of/49119.

Audio: "Rethinking Secularism: Jürgen Habermas and Charles Taylor in Conversation," November 20, 2009.

This is audio and a transcript of the October 22 discussion between Jürgen Habermas and Charles Taylor, moderated by Craig Calhoun, in which the two leading philosophers discuss the place of religion in the public sphere and whether there are differences in kind between religious and secular reasons. Visit: http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2009/11/20/rethinking-secularism-jurgen-habermas-and-charles-taylor-in-conversation/ Listen to the paper presentations that preceded this discussion here: http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2009/11/02/rethinking-secularism-audio/. Add your own voice to the discussion here https://mail.cavehill.uwi.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2009/10/23/the-power-of-religion-in-the-public-sphere-open-thread/

"Another World is Necessary: Crisis, Struggle and Political Alternatives," University of London, SOAS and Birbeck, November 27-29, 2009.

6th Annual Historical Materialism Conference. Speakers include: Shlomo Sand Julian Stallabrass Peter Hallward Fredric Jameson Other speakers include: Gilbert Achcar * Robert Albritton * Kevin Anderson * Jairus Banaji * Wendy Brown * Alex Callinicos * Vivek Chibber * Hester Eisenstein * Ben Fine * Ferruccio Gambino * Lindsey German * John Holloway * Bob Jessop * David McNally * China Mieville * Kim Moody * Peter Osborne * Leo Panitch * Moishe Postone * Sheila Rowbotham * Hillel Ticktin * Kees Van Der Pijl * Hilary Wainright Panels include: APOCALYPSE MARXISM * ART AGAINST CAPITALISM * CLASS AND POLITICS IN THE 'GLOBAL SOUTH' * COGNITIVE MAPPING, TOTALITY AND THE REALIST TURN * COMMODIFYING HEALTH CARE IN THE UK * CUBAN REVOLUTION AND CUBAN SOCIETY * DERIVATIVES * DIMENSIONS OF THE FOOD CRISIS * ECOLOGICAL CRISIS * EMPIRE AND IMPERIALISM * ENERGY, WASTE AND CAPITALISM * FINANCE, THE HOUSING QUESTION AND URBAN POLITICS * GLOBAL LAW AND HUMAN RIGHTS * GRAMSCI RELOADED * INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CRISIS * LABOUR BEYOND THE FACTORY * LATIN AMERICAN WORKING CLASSES * LINEAGES OF NEOLIBERALISM * MARXISM AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE * MIGRATION * PHILOSOPHY AND COMMUNISM IN THE EARLY MARX * POSTNEOLIBERALISM * RACE, NATION AND ORIENTALISM * RED PLANETS: MARXISM AND SCIENCE FICTION * REMEMBERING PETER GOWAN AND CHRIS HARMAN * REVOLUTIONARY THEORY, AUTONOMIST MARXISM AND THE CRITIQUE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY * SLAVERY AND CAPITALISM IN THE US SOUTH * STUDENT MOVEMENTS AND YOUTH REVOLTS * THE CRITIQUE OF RELIGION AND THE CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM * UTOPIAS, DYSTOPIAS AND SOCIALIST BIOPOLITICS.

Pub: PARRHESIA: A JOURNAL OF CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY 7 (2009).

• Editors' Introduction by Arne De Boever, Alex Murray, Jon Roffe and Ashley Woodward
• The Position of the Problem of Ontogenesis by Gilbert Simondon, translated by Gregory Flanders
• 'Du mort qui saisit le vif': Simondonian ontology today by Jean-Hughes Barthélémy, translated by Justin Clemens
• Technical Mentality by Gilbert Simondon, translated by Arne De Boever
• The Theater of Individuation: Phase-shift and Resolution in Simondon and Heidegger by Bernard Stiegler, translated by Kristina Lebedeva
• Angels and the General Intellect: Individuation in Duns Scotus and Gilbert Simondon by Paolo Virno, translated by Nick Heron
• Bernard Stiegler, Technics and Time, 2: Disorientation by Kristina Lebedeva
• "Technical Mentality" Revisited: Brian Massumi on Gilbert Simondon with Arne De Boever, Alex Murray and Jon Roffe
• Alberto Toscano, The Theatre of Production: Philosophy and Individuation between Kant and Deleuze by Eugene Thacker

Cfp: "Truth Matters," Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto, August 18-20, 2010.

We live in an age of skepticism about the idea of truth. Contemporary skeptics question the nature and value of truth and the concomitant virtue of truthfulness. Skepticism about truth is not restricted to popular culture. It occurs within the academic world, where deflationists have argued that the idea of truth is not a substantive notion and some poststructuralists have portrayed it as primarily the scene of struggles for power. Such skepticism is surprising, for truth and truthfulness have been central to Western civilization and the academic enterprise. Historically, the idea of truth has helped organize Western intellectual culture since ancient times. It is a central theme in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the three monotheistic religions that have shaped Western society. Conceptually, the idea of truth sets a stage for fundamental debates about the point and worth of academic work: debates between realists and anti-realists in philosophy, theology, and the natural sciences, for example, or between relativists and anti-relativists in the humanities and social sciences. Societally, the idea of truth provides a normative background for ethics, law, and public discourse: we expect friends and colleagues to be truthful; we ask witnesses in courts of law to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth"; and we get upset when journalists deliberately fabricate their reports. Given both contemporary skepticism and the centrality of truth, we believe it is time to reconceptualize truth and to reclaim truthfulness for the academic enterprise. The conference organizers have undertaken an interdisciplinary philosophical effort to develop a new model of truth. Now we wish to expand the scope of our work by engaging with discussion partners from other schools and from across the disciplines. The Truth Matters conference will be an occasion for international dialogue and debate. Relevant topics for papers and proposals include: • artistic and narrative truth • power, truth, and ideology • realism, anti-realism, and truth • relativism, anti-relativism, and truth • religious truth • teaching and learning for truth • truth in ethics • truthfulness in public life We invite submissions in English of 700-word proposals or papers not exceeding 3500 words. Interdisciplinary approaches are welcome, and submissions by graduate students are encouraged. There will be up to two merit-based graduate essay awards of $250 Canadian. All submissions must be formatted for blind review. On a separate cover sheet give your name, contact information, and 2-4 key words. Please identify yourself as a graduate student if you wish to be considered for an award. Send your submission via e-mail to truthmatters@icscanada.edu Submission deadline: March 1, 2010. Truth Matters continues a series of conferences on issues of faith and scholarship organized by four schools in the Reformed tradition. It is hosted by the Institute for Christian Studies, a graduate school for interdisciplinary philosophy in Toronto, and co-sponsored by Calvin College (Grand Rapids, MI), Dordt College (Sioux Center, IA), and the Free University (Amsterdam). For more information, visit www.icscanada.edu/truthmatters/

"Divining the Message / Mediating the Divine," Graduate Students' Conference, Department of Religion, University of Columbia, April 2-3, 2010.

Update: The keynote speakers will be Bernard Stiegler, Samuel Weber, Mark C. Taylor, and Brian Larkin. Original Post (October 17, 2009): Whether sacred symbols or sanctioned authorities, intermediaries have been both conduits for and barriers to access to the divine. Mediating objects, forms, rituals, and people have long been central to religious practice and belief. They are conditions of both possibility and impossibility, at one and the same time providing glimpses of the heavens and anchoring us to the earth. Institutions such as the Catholic Church and the Imamate have at times dictated the ways in which humans commune with the divine. In other places and at other times, charismatic leaders or apprenticed specialists have mediated more directly. Some of these leaders prophetically mediate between a culture's past and its future, and in the example of the archive, between its past and its present sovereignty. At other times, previously religious spheres have undergone near total reinscription, leaving passive forces like evolution and the invisible hand of the economy to dictate what was previously the realm of a more intentional being. The institutions mediating faith in markets and divine faith have changed radically, leaving us to wonder what may persist through their reinscription. New media technologies have transformed not only how people commune with one another, but also how they communicate with the divine. With the printing press and telephone wires, and with television and the internet, we can now consider whether our message to the divine is best delivered by letter, email, voicemail, or text message. While many still attend brick and mortar churches, build a sukkah in their backyard, or chant at a Shinto shrine, the current moment of technological acceleration has changed the ways in which many people practice religion. Some study Buddhism in the virtual gaming world of Second Life, others visit a satellite campus of Saddleback Church to see Rick Warren's Sunday sermon streamed in from the other side of Orange County, and still others sit on the beach while reading the New International Version of the Bible on their Amazon Kindles. As intermediaries proliferate, and as our relationship to old mediations changes, so do the ways in which we practice religion, imagine the divine, and imagine ourselves. The 2010 Columbia University Religion Graduate Students' Conference seeks to bring together papers from a wide range of disciplinary, theoretical, historical, and geographical perspectives that examine varying conceptions of mediation, including: 1. The media of mediation (print, TV, internet, cinema, icons, translation, etc.) 2. The institutions of mediation (Church, state, theology, tradition, economy, culture) 3. The people who mediate (the Pope, gurus, pastors, priests, séance mediums, other spiritual leaders, and the spirit possessed) 4. Temporal mediations (prophecy, mourning, melancholy, and trauma, as mediating the past, present, and future) Presenters from the social sciences and humanities are equally welcome. We also invite visual art proposals exploring the conference's theme to be displayed in the gallery adjoining the panel rooms for the duration of the conference. Please submit an abstract (prepared for blind review) of no more than 300 words to columbia.religion@gmail.com by December 1, 2009. Final papers should be 9-12 double-spaced pages in length (presenters will have approximately 20 minutes to speak). Panel submissions are also welcome; for panels of 3 or 4 presenters, please include an abstract of 250 words detailing the common concerns tying the individual presentations together, in addition to the individual paper abstracts.

Dell Hymes (1927 - 2009).

Dell Hathaway Hymes (June 7, 1927, Portland, Oregon - November 13, 2009, Charlottesville, Virginia) was a sociolinguist, anthropologist, and folklorist whose work dealt primarily with languages of the Pacific Northwest. He was one of the first to call the fourth subfield of anthropology "linguistic anthropology" instead of "anthropological linguistics." The terminological shift draws attention to the field's grounding in anthropology rather than in what by that time was already become an autonomous discipline (linguistics). Further information on his life and career may be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Hymes. His Faculty Page at the University of Virginia may be found here: http://www.virginia.edu/anthropology/dhymes.html.

Cfp: "Video Game Cultures and the Future of Interactive Entertainment," Mansfield College, University of Oxford, July 7-9, 2010.

This inter- and multi-disciplinary conference aims to examine, explore and critically engage with the issues and implications created by the mass use of computers and videogames for entertainment and focus on the impact of innovative videogame titles and interfaces for human communication and ludic culture. In particular the conference will encourage equally theoretical and practical debates which surround the cultural contexts within which videogames flourish. Papers, presentations, workshops and reports are invited on any of the following themes: 1. Videogames and Gaming: Theories and Concepts of Gaming. Identifying Key Features and Issues. Critical Theory for Videogames: Moving past the Narratology/Ludology Debate. 2. Videogame Cultures: Emerging Practices in Online and Offline Gaming. Social Dimension of Online Gaming and Presence in Virtual Worlds. Videogame Modifications. 3. Ethical Issues in Videogames: Videogames for children. Depiction of Violence, Sex, Morality and their relation to Maturity. Propaganda Games. Censorship. 4. Videogame Technologies and the Future of Interactive Entertainment: New Forms of Interaction, Immersion and Collaboration in Videogames. The Role of Innovative Interfaces. 4. Reception, Temporality and Video Games: Player Generations. Old Originals vs. Retro games. Indie Games and Low-Tech Aesthetic. 5. The Relations between Cinema and Videogames: Crossmedia and Transmedia Approach to Videogames. Cutscene Production. Machinimation. Interactive Storytelling. 6. Art and Experimental Games: The Aesthetic Aspects of Videogames. Performative Use of Videogames. Art-Mods. 7. Serious Games and Virtual Worlds: Social Impact Simulations. Educational Use of Videogames. Documentary Videogames. Political Issues. The Steering Group welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 15th January 2010. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 28th May 2010. 300 word abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order: a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract. Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend. Joint Organising Chairs: Daniel Riha Charles University Prague, Czech Republic E-mail: rihad@inter-disciplinary.net Rob Fisher Network Founder and Network Leader Inter-Disciplinary.Net Priory House, Freeland, Oxfordshire OX29 8HR United Kingdom E-mail: vg2@inter-disciplinary.net For further details about the conference please visit: http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/cyber/videogame-cultures-the-future-of-interactive-entertainment/call-for-papers/

Cfp: "Realisms in Contemporary Culture: Theories, Politics and Medial Configurations," FRIAS, Freiburg University, September 23-25, 2010.

In the context of structuralist and poststructuralist theory, realism, with its implication of a transparent representation of reality, was deemed at best out-moded and at worst ideologically insidious. Recent years, however, have seen a revival of the term in analyses of contemporary developments in literature and film, at times even as a yardstick for measuring the quality of individual works. A closer look shows that in critical debates widely differing concepts of realism are used, often connected with explicit or implicit ideological positions. The question of what may be understood by realism is thus still very much open to debate and, what is more, highly charged.

The aim of this conference is, firstly, to chart the territory of the usages of the term ‘realism’ in contemporary theory. Secondly, we want to discuss the validity and usefulness of the ‘realisms’ posited for describing and analyzing trends in contemporary literature and film. How does the debate on realism tie in with the ongoing controversies regarding the connections between ethics or politics and form? In what ways do ‘realist’ contemporary works relate to socio-cultural developments? In order to foster an interdisciplinary discussion, we invite papers from a range of different disciplines (e.g. literary studies, media and digital studies, art history) on topics such as Concepts of realism in contemporary critical debate Formal realism and reception aesthetics Medial developments and realism Transmedial comparison of the ‘reality effect’ Case studies of realism in contemporary culture Ethics / Politics and realism … Contributors are strongly encouraged to make explicit their own usage of ‘realism’ by reflecting on the question of what they see as realism and how they would distinguish it from other modes of representation. Application Please send your one-page abstract for a 30-minute presentation to dorothee.birke@frias.uni-freiburg.de. Submission deadline is 31st January 2010. Organizing Institution The Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS) is the University of Freiburg’s international research college. It was established after Freiburg’s success in the Federal Excellence Initiative in October 2007. As a centre-piece of the Albert-Ludwigs-University’s institutional strategy, FRIAS pursues three main objectives: to promote top level research, to develop new interdisciplinary areas of competence and knowledge, and to foster the advancement of outstanding junior scholars. Contact For further information, please contact Dr. Stella Butter (sbutter@rumms.uni-mannheim.de) or Dr. Dorothee Birke (dorothee.birke@frias.uni-freiburg.de).

Furtak, Rick Anthony. Review of C. Stephen Evans, KIERKEGAARD. NDPR (November 2009).

Evans, C. Stephen. Kierkegaard: an Introduction. Cambridge: CUP, 2009. C. Stephen Evans has been established for decades as one of the most highly respected scholars of Kierkegaard's writings, and his newest book offers a concise introduction to Kierkegaard's thought, with particular attention to its significance for philosophy. Early on, he concedes that "there are many themes in Kierkegaard as well as whole works that this book barely touches on or omits entirely" (xi). This is inevitable for any one-volume work, of course. The task of a reviewer, accordingly, must be to comment on what Evans does an especially good job of illuminating, and also to say a few things about what else might be highlighted for the philosophical reader of Kierkegaard, beyond the themes and texts that are emphasized by Evans. To begin with, he is entirely right to point out that Kierkegaard's interpretation of human existence, although it involves decidedly religious categories, is not relevant only for readers who are already inclined toward religion (16). As George Pattison has noted in another recent book on Kierkegaard as philosopher, judicious readers ought neither to accept nor to reject his ideas solely by virtue of their affiliation with Christianity. We should first try to decide independently whether or not Kierkegaard's writings offer "a persuasive or adequate depiction of the human condition." One reason for doing this is that we cannot appreciate Kierkegaard's distinctive understanding of religiousness if we view his works through the lens of a prior acceptance or rejection of Christianity, as we already understood it before encountering Kierkegaard's writings. This would not be an appropriate way of coming to terms with an idiosyncratic author who shares the Socratic conviction "that individuals must discover the truth for themselves", as Evans observes, and who calls for a return to the "conception of philosophy that inspired the Greeks" -- that is, as the critical search for a general understanding of reality that could inform a life of wisdom (29, 4). This affinity for the spirit of Greek thought, which is evident in many of Kierkegaard's pseudonymous and signed writings, is being increasingly recognized as a key to understanding his work. Indeed, it may be that our attitude toward the classical notion of philosophy as a way of life will serve as a better indication of how much we could learn from Kierkegaard's writings than our feelings about religion -- although this last suggestion might be taking the analogy between Kierkegaard and the ancients more seriously than Evans believes we ought to do. . . . Read the whole review here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=18166.

Brockelman, Thomas P. Review of Alejandro Vallega, SENSE AND FINITUDE. NDPR (November 2009).

Vallega, Alejandro A. Sense and Finitude: Encounters at the Limits of Language, Art, and the Political. Albany: SUNY Press, 2009. Alejandro Vallega's new book, Sense and Finitude: Encounters at the Limits of Language, Art, and the Political, is admirable both in its location of finitude as the key positive insight in Heidegger and in its effort, having admitted the cogency of Heidegger's technology-critique, nonetheless to maintain a certain distance from Heidegger's univocal understanding of Western History. Vallega's text also forms a significant contribution to the reception of Heidegger's Beiträge, his recently translated 1936 text documenting the German thinker's mapping of a project that, in hindsight, seems to have remained remarkably stable from the mid-1930s until his death in 1976. More problematically, Vallega argues for the continuity of Heidegger's thought from early through late, a task for which the Beiträge is especially handy. While, from my perspective, the chasm of his response to modernity opens between the two periods, there can be little doubt that, in some form, the question of finitude remains a constant for Heidegger. Recognizing this, the initial four chapters of Sense and Finitude use the Contributions to Philosophy to link the analyses of "mood", "thrownness", etc., from earlier texts such as Being and Time and the Basic Problems of Phenomenology to the later work with its technology critique and accompanying announcement of the "end of metaphysics". For Vallega, as was certainly true for Heidegger from 1936 onward, the task of living honestly as mortal human beings -- i.e., of living in a fashion that acknowledges the transcience of our experience and lives -- demands above all a response to modern technology as "what's happening" in our world. Of course, what "modern technology" means is best captured by the preferred term from the Beiträge, "machination", rather than any word implying criticism of technological objects or strategies: what Heidegger, and Vallega, have in mind, is the basic "way of seeing the world" that leads to the development of technologies -- a mode of being which increasingly reduces everything to its "potential usefulness" in such a project of control: "the future depends on the urgent production of results and technological implements for shaping and making the future safe and secure through the expansion ad infinitum of rational quantitative productions of meanings and goods" (p. 15). . . . Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=18185.

Cfp: "Rhetoric 2.0: Continuity and Change from the Oral Tradition to the Digital Age," Texas Woman's University, February 12, 2010.

Federation Rhetoric Symposium 2010. Once a thing is put in writing, it rolls about all over the place, falling into the hands of those who have no concern with it just as easily as under the notice of those who comprehend; it has no notion of whom to address or whom to avoid. And when it is ill-treated or abused as illegitimate, it always needs its father to help it, being quite unable to protect or help itself. (Plato, Phaedrus) The Federation Rhetoric Symposium will provide an opportunity for a diverse group of scholars to investigate how today’s rhetors continue to use the wisdom of Sophistic, Classical, and Medieval rhetors who debated the validity of rhetoric, Renaissance and Modern rhetors who helped this art transition into a fully developed written tradition, and the contemporary debate about the validity of digital rhetoric. The Federation Rhetoric Symposium is now accepting proposals for papers and panels from faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and independent scholars investigating the ways rhetoric has and has not changed throughout the centuries and contemplating future continuities and changes. We are broadly defining the theme to emphasize rhetoric in all areas including but not limited to: Rhetorical Theory Rhetorical History Discourse Analysis Genre Analysis Composition Theory Communication Studies English Studies Journalism History Film Studies Digital Rhetoric New Media Studies Disability, Gender and Minority Studies Political Science Suggestions for possible areas of interest: Critical Theory Academia/Professional Issues Rhetoric & Philosophy ESL & Composition Pop Culture Rhetoric of Mass Media Literary Studies Rhetoric and Technology Computers and Writing Basic Writing Writing Center Theory & Practice Composition & Rhetoric Dr. Patricia Bizzell, 2008 Conference on College Composition and Communication Exemplar Award winner and distinguished scholar of rhetoric and public address, will be our keynote speaker at the conference. Dr. Bizzell is a prolific author and notable speaker who has written and presented on topics as diverse as composition theory, feminist research, Jewish rhetoric, the history of rhetoric. She is the founder of The Writer’s Workshop and the WAC program at College of the Holy Cross. The Federation Rhetoric Symposium is part of an ongoing series, "A Symposium in Rhetoric" that has welcomed many notable speakers since the first meeting in 1973. These keynoters have included Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, Kathleen Blake Yancey, Sonja Foss, Richard Enos, Cynthia Selfe, James Kinneavy, Kenneth Burke, Stephen Toulmin, and many others.

Cfp: "Nietzsche's Postmoralism," Department of Philosophy, University of Southampton, July 7–9, 2010.

Confirmed Plenary Speakers:
* Dan Conway (Texas & AM)
* Christa Davis Acampora (Hunter College, CUNY)
* Rainer Forst (Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt)
* Paul Loeb (Puget Sound)
* Alexander Nehamas (Princeton)
* Robert Pippin (Chicago)
* Tamsin Shaw (Princeton)
* Ivan Soll (Wisconsin-Madison)

Possible topics include (but are by no means limited to):

• What ‘postmoralism’ is or means;
• What sort of alternative to ‘morality’ Nietzsche intends (e.g. perfectionist or otherwise, social or individualistic);
• Who is to bring about, or engage in, this alternative ideal;
• Nietzsche’s ideal type;
• How ‘immoral’ Nietzsche’s postmoralism is;
• Which values might survive Nietzsche's critique of morality and/or feature in his positive ideal;
• Whether Nietzsche’s postmoralism is adequately motivated by his critique of morality;
• The justificatory/metaethical status of Nietzsche’s positive normative/evaluative claims.

We especially encourage papers that connect Nietzsche’s postmoralism to the project’s wider remit: namely, a critical assessment of Nietzsche’s significance for modern moral philosophy. For further details, see http://www.soton.ac.uk/philosophy/research/nietzscheproject.html

Cfp: "Who Am I Online?," University of Aarhus, May 10-11, 2010.

As time and technology progress, how we interact with the world and each other becomes increasingly complex and articulated. The quantity and diversity of information in our environment, and the ease with which we can access that information and integrate it into our daily lives, have increased exponentially over the past decade. For many of us, the environment with which we interact has changed to make possible entirely new ways of working with information and being with others. Interest in these topics has recently been amplified by the advent of the so-called “Web 2.0”, a (continuing) expansion of interactive venues such as social networking, blogging and microblogging such as Twitter, and “pro/sumer”activities in which consumers of media content such as music and videos are simultaneously its producers. Psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists - including those whose research is gathered under the general domain of computer-mediated communication (CMC) - have for some time been interested in the ways in which such changes in our informational environment might affect us and our self-conceptions. The relevance of new technologies to our lives has attracted academic attention in large part because it appears to raise questions about how new kinds of interactions with others and our environment might alter, shape or otherwise affect our self-conceptions,our thoughts and other aspects of our cognitive, emotional and moral lives. And the project of ascertaining which properties of ourselves and our activities make essential contributions to our moral and mental lives and personhood is one in which philosophers are traditionally engaged. Yet these topics have, thus far, been relatively neglected by philosophers. This is especially strange when considered alongside the emphasis in recent philosophy of mind on the essential contributions that the embedding environment and our modes of interaction with it can make to our mental lives. If it's possible that our informational environment and our capacities for interaction with it can constitutively shape our mentalityand our moral conduct, we should consider whether radical changes in that environment and its interactive affordances may have implications for the character of our mental and moral lives, and perhaps for the sorts of persons we are. There is already significant evidence that such changes are upon us in both what we used to call the Western and Eastern worlds - most obviously, asapparent changes in self-conception are affiliated with dramatically changing understandings and expectations of ‘privacy,’ especially informational or online privacy. So, what implications do new informational environments and affordances have for philosophical and ethical views of personal identity? And what light, if any, can existing philosophical work on personal identity shine on the conceptual issues that arise when talkingand thinking about agents, environments and interactions that span or blur the real/virtual and online/offline divides? The workshop will address these issues. We welcome proposals for papers dealing with the construction of personal identities online. Please submit extended abstracts (between 1000 and 1500 words all included, preferably in MS Word format) for papers suitable for 40-minute presentations to Dave Ward (D.Ward2@herts.ac.uk) by 31 March 2010.