CFP: Sensorium: Philosophy and Aesthetics Conference
Stephen Clark
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 16:06:31 +1000
From: Graham Jones <graj...@unimelb.edu.au>
Reply-To: Graham Jones <graj...@unimelb.edu.au>
Sensorium:
Philosophy and Aesthetics
A conference to be held at the School of Creative Arts,
University of Melbourne, Australia,
22—24 June, 2005
This three-day conference will cover a range of thinkers and issues in
contemporary philosophy and aesthetics, with a particular focus on two
French philosophers, Jean-François Lyotard and Gilles Deleuze. Offers
of papers are invited from researchers in the fields of philosophy, the
social sciences, literary and performance studies, the visual arts,
architecture, and other creative disciplines interested in the work of
Deleuze, Lyotard, or in aesthetics more generally.
Confirmed keynotes and participants include:
John Armstrong (author The Secret Power of Beauty: Why Happiness is in
the Eye of the Beholder and The Conditions of Love: The Philosophy of
Intimacy);
Andrew Benjamin (editor of Judging Lyotard and The Lyotard Reader and
author of Art, Mimesis and the Avant-Garde);
Barbara Bolt (author of Art Beyond Representation: The Performative
Power of the Image).
Eugene Holland (author of Baudelaire and Schizoanalysis: The
Sociopoetics of Modernism and Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus:
Introduction to Schizoanalysis);
Ian James (author of Pierre Klossowski: the Persistance of a Name);
Julian Pefanis (author of Heterology and the Postmodern: Bataille,
Baudrillard, and Lyotard);
Arkady Plotnitsky (author of Complementarity: Anti-Epistemology After
Bohr and Derrida and the forthcoming Idealism Without Absolutes:
Philosophy and Romantic Culture);
Daniel W. Smith (translator of Gilles Deleuze's The Logic of Sensation
and Essays Critical and Clinical (with Michael Greco), and Pierre
Klosswski's Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle).
Stelarc (Australian-based performance artist whose work investigates
human-machine interfaces).
Stream One: Lyotard - Beyond the Postmodern Condition
The reception of the philosophy of Jean-François Lyotard in the
English-speaking world has been sporadic and far from comprehensive.
Regrettably, his influence has been largely felt through the infamous
definition that opens The Postmodern Condition, and to a lesser extent
the ironic summary found in the 'Reading Dossier' of The Differend. The
aim of this symposium is to redress this situation by drawing attention
to the large amount of provocative and important work done by Lyotard
throughout his career. Particular attention will be given to his early
libidinal philosophy, his readings of other philosophers, his
aesthetics, and his recent work (from Postmodern Fables onwards).
Possible topics for presentations could include: art and aesthetics;
Lyotard's readings of Freud, Marx, Kant, Lévinas, Malraux, Augustine,
Adorno, or phenomenology; Libidinal Economy; Discours, Figure;
paganism; Lyotard's politics and his theorizing of the avant-garde or
the postmodern.
Stream Two: Deleuze and Creativity
Gilles Deleuze's work is replete with references to the arts:
literature, film music, painting and theatre. Indeed, the aesthetic
dimension plays a key role in his account of transcendental empiricism,
and of the encounter that provokes thought and novelty. The aim of this
symposium is to provide an opportunity for exploring Deleuze's account
of creative production in the context of the various arts, and of
culture more generally. Possible topics for presentations could
include: schizoanalysis; the account of the discordant faculties;
Deleuze's semiotics of film or painting; his notion of symptomatology
in respect to literary texts, or the contrast that he draws between
major and minor literatures; the notion of the 'stutter' or the
refrain; Deleuze's theorizing of novelty and difference; the social,
political and/or historical implications of Deleuze's characterizations
of the various arts; the progression within cinema from the
movement-image toward the time-image; or the distinctions made in What
is Philosophy? that subsequently differentiate the diverse roles and
aims of philosophy, the arts, and the sciences, respectively.
Stream Three: Aesthetics
This part of the conference is open to papers from all disciplines
theoretically or practically engaging with issues in aesthetics. Both
academics and practicing artists are invited to contribute papers or
works of relevance to the conference theme. Possible topics for
presentations could include:
postmodern aesthetics; the changing role (and relevance) of art in
contemporary culture; emergent art forms; the relation between thought
and sensation; the sublime; gender and aesthetics; cross-cultural
aesthetics; recent movements within the respective arts; art and
politics; the relationship between the marketplace and the reception
and consumption of artworks; art and ritual; art and religion; feminism
and art; the viability of the avant-garde; Art brut; theorizing
sensation, perception and/or representation; art and sub-cultures;
cyber-culture; etc.
We welcome papers discussing philosophers, cultural critics, or artists
who have written or commented on the philosophy of aesthetics or
debates in aesthetics (e.g., Plato, Aristotle, Longinus, Hume, Burke,
Goethe, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Bakhtin, Heidegger,
Bataille, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Barthes, Kristeva, Blanchot, Lacan,
Derrida, Nancy, Klossowski, Baudrillard, Adorno, Benjamin, Whitehead,
Caillois, Genette, Ricoeur, Cixous, Bourdieu, Foucault, Virillio, De
Certeau, Badiou, Artaud, Brecht, Cassirer, Arnheim, Marcuse, Debord,
Cage, Jameson, McLuhan, Goodman, Eisenstein, Godard, Marker, Augé,
Levy, Eagleton, Fish, Baba, Bal, Zizek, etc.)
Submission details for proposals:
Individual papers: A title and a 300 word abstract for papers of 30
minutes reading time.
Panels: 2-3 speakers (30 minutes each); a 300 word abstract for the
panel plus up to 300 words for each paper.
Submissions should also include the following information:
Name(s) and title(s) of speaker(s)
Phone number
Postal address
E-mail address
Institutional affiliation (if any)
Special equipment needs (if any)
Submissions of abstracts should be sent by e-mail attachment (as Word
or RTF files) to one of the following:
Stream One (Lyotard) to Ashley Woodward <phallacy[at]tpg.com.au>
Stream Two (Deleuze) to Graham Jones <grajones[at]unimelb.edu.au>
Stream Three (open) to Felicity Colman <fcolman[at]unimelb.edu.au>
or to Jon Roffe <overground[at]imap.cc>
Conference registration rates (in Australian dollars):
Earlybird (by May 3rd): Waged $180
Unwaged $70
After earlybird deadline: Waged $220
Unwaged $100
Per day rate: Waged $100
Unwaged $50
Registration forms will be available on-line shortly. Please make out
cheques or postal money orders to the Melbourne School of Continental
Philosophy. See the MSCP website (below) for further contact details.
This conference is organized by the following departments and groups at
the University of Melbourne:
The School of Creative Arts;
The Department of Cinema Studies in the School of Art History, Cinema,
Classics and Archaeology;
Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy (in association with the
Department of Philosophy).
Conference organising Committee:
Felicity Colman <fcolman[at]unimelb.edu.au>
Graham Jones <grajones[at]unimelb.edu.au>
Jon Roffe <overground[at]imap.cc>
Ashley Woodward <phallacy[at]tpg.com.au>
[Please note that the @ symbol has been removed from the e-mail
addresses listed above in order to deter web 'spiders' from harvesting
them for spammers when this document is transferred to the web - you
will need to reinsert the symbol for the addresses to work]
Check on-line for accommodation details, conference facilities, and
other information at:
----- End forwarded message -----
Messages to the list are archived at http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/philos-l.html.
Prolonged discussions should be moved to chora: enrol via
http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/chora.html.
Other philosophical resources on the Web can be found at http://www.liv.ac.uk/pal.