Sunday, August 28, 2011
Post-Continental Voices and Writing
Stuart Elden has a short post up on an interview he agreed to do a few years back on the blog that eventually morphed into the larger Post-Continental Voices project. PCV has been doing well and I've only ever had positive feedback on it. The strongpoint of the book is precisely the advice for graduate students when it comes to writing. Also featured in the book are Graham Harman, Jeffrey Malpas, Lee Braver, Ian Bogost, Levi R. Byrant, and Adrian Ivakhiv.
CFP Aesthetics in the 21st Century (Basel, Sept. 2012)
I am pleased to announce the details for the forthcoming Aesthetics in the 21st Century conference taking place in Basel in September 2012. Our confirmed speakers should make it a strong event and I think it presents a real chance for all of us working in this area to come together. Basel is a beautiful place and the campus is the perfect venue for philosophy. Please circulate widely. Note that accepted papers will also appear in a special issue of Speculations.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Aesthetics in the 21st Century
University of Basel
September 13-15, 2012
Confirmed Speakers: Graham Harman, Iain Hamilton Grant, N. Katherine Hayles
Ever since the turn of the century aesthetics has steadily gained momentum as a central field of study across the disciplines. No longer sidelined, aesthetics has grown in confidence as evidenced by recent works by major contemporary thinkers such as Jean-Luc Nancy (Muses II), Jacques Rancière (Dissensus; Aesthetics and its Discontents) and Alain Badiou (Handbook of Inaesthetics). In this vein, aesthetics does not merely designate a discipline concerned with theories of art, but more fundamentally the primacy of sensation and sensual encounter itself.
Even though these recent developments return to the work of the canonical authors, some contemporary scholars reject the traditional focus on epistemology (Baumgarten, Kant) and theorize sensation and the sensual encounter in terms of ontology instead (Harman, Shaviro). It is according to this shift that speculative realists have proclaimed aesthetics as ‘first philosophy’ and as speculative in nature. With speculative realism sensual encounter becomes an event that even no longer necessarily implies human agents. This is in alignment with the general speculative realist framework for thinking all kinds of entities and objects as free from our all-pervasive anthropocentrism which states, always, that everything is “for us.”
In this speculative realism has several important twentieth-century precursors, most notably Heidegger, Whitehead, Deleuze and Badiou with their respective concepts of event, (aesthetic) experience and encounter. This conference explores the resonances between these twentieth-century thinkers and their concepts and the recently reawakened interest in aesthetics, especially in its speculative realist guise. Hosted by the University of Basel’s Department of English the conference is particularly interested in the possible implications of what could be termed the new speculative aesthetics for literary and cultural studies. Thus, the conference aims at staging a three-fold encounter: between aesthetics and speculation, between speculative realism and its (possible) precursors, and between speculative realism and art and literature.
Please send your 300-word abstracts and 150-word bios to: aesthetics-englsem@unibas.ch.
The deadline for submissions is December 5, 2011. A selection of the papers given at the conference will be published as a special issue of Speculations: Journal of Speculative Realism.
Conference Organizers:
Ridvan Askin, M.A.
Andreas Hägler, M.A.
Prof. Dr. Philipp Schweighauser
Department of English
University of Basel
Nadelberg 6
CH-4051 Basel
Switzerland
ridvan.askin[at]unibas.ch
andreas.haegler[at]unibas.ch
ph.schweighauser[at]unibas.ch
Paul Ennis
UCD School of Philosophy
Newman Building
Belfield
Dublin 4
Ireland
ennis.paul[at]gmail.com
Website
http://aesthetics.englsem.unibas.ch/conference/
CALL FOR PAPERS
Aesthetics in the 21st Century
University of Basel
September 13-15, 2012
Confirmed Speakers: Graham Harman, Iain Hamilton Grant, N. Katherine Hayles
Ever since the turn of the century aesthetics has steadily gained momentum as a central field of study across the disciplines. No longer sidelined, aesthetics has grown in confidence as evidenced by recent works by major contemporary thinkers such as Jean-Luc Nancy (Muses II), Jacques Rancière (Dissensus; Aesthetics and its Discontents) and Alain Badiou (Handbook of Inaesthetics). In this vein, aesthetics does not merely designate a discipline concerned with theories of art, but more fundamentally the primacy of sensation and sensual encounter itself.
Even though these recent developments return to the work of the canonical authors, some contemporary scholars reject the traditional focus on epistemology (Baumgarten, Kant) and theorize sensation and the sensual encounter in terms of ontology instead (Harman, Shaviro). It is according to this shift that speculative realists have proclaimed aesthetics as ‘first philosophy’ and as speculative in nature. With speculative realism sensual encounter becomes an event that even no longer necessarily implies human agents. This is in alignment with the general speculative realist framework for thinking all kinds of entities and objects as free from our all-pervasive anthropocentrism which states, always, that everything is “for us.”
In this speculative realism has several important twentieth-century precursors, most notably Heidegger, Whitehead, Deleuze and Badiou with their respective concepts of event, (aesthetic) experience and encounter. This conference explores the resonances between these twentieth-century thinkers and their concepts and the recently reawakened interest in aesthetics, especially in its speculative realist guise. Hosted by the University of Basel’s Department of English the conference is particularly interested in the possible implications of what could be termed the new speculative aesthetics for literary and cultural studies. Thus, the conference aims at staging a three-fold encounter: between aesthetics and speculation, between speculative realism and its (possible) precursors, and between speculative realism and art and literature.
Please send your 300-word abstracts and 150-word bios to: aesthetics-englsem@unibas.ch.
The deadline for submissions is December 5, 2011. A selection of the papers given at the conference will be published as a special issue of Speculations: Journal of Speculative Realism.
Conference Organizers:
Ridvan Askin, M.A.
Andreas Hägler, M.A.
Prof. Dr. Philipp Schweighauser
Department of English
University of Basel
Nadelberg 6
CH-4051 Basel
Switzerland
ridvan.askin[at]unibas.ch
andreas.haegler[at]unibas.ch
ph.schweighauser[at]unibas.ch
Paul Ennis
UCD School of Philosophy
Newman Building
Belfield
Dublin 4
Ireland
ennis.paul[at]gmail.com
Website
http://aesthetics.englsem.unibas.ch/conference/
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Viva passed
So after an intensely stressful session I passed my viva today albeit with minor corrections. Being the type I am I won't be happy until they are done and I see it all wrapped up, but my God that was an experience. Coolest moment: talking this and that with Iain Hamilton Grant on a bus!
Monday, August 15, 2011
PEST – Black Metal Theory Symposium (Dublin)
Details here. Especially happy it is taking place in my home town. I'll be speaking on Jack the Ripper.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Speculations Volume III CFP
Speculations, a journal for speculative realist thought, invites submissions for its third volume. Speculations is an open-access and peer-reviewed journal seeking to provide a forum for the exploration of speculative realism and post-continental philosophy. Our aim is to facilitate discussion about ongoing developments within and around the emerging continental realisms. We accept short position papers, full length articles and book reviews.
Our aim in the third volume is to open up the problem of speculation as it pertains to areas as diverse as theology, politics, and queer theory. Papers addressing any of these three specific topics will be addressed in special sections of issue alongside our more traditional non-thematic articles.
Potential authors should make sure to go through the ‘Submission Checklist’ before submitting which can be found at: http://speculationsjournal.org
Articles should be no longer than 8,000 words and follow the Chicago Manual of Style (http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html).
The deadline for submission is the January, 8th 2012.
Submissions can be sent to speculationsjournal@gmail.com
Editors:
Paul J. Ennis, University College, Dublin
Michael Austin, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Fabio Gironi, Cardiff University
Thomas Gokey, Syracuse University
Robert Jackson, University of Plymouth
Our aim in the third volume is to open up the problem of speculation as it pertains to areas as diverse as theology, politics, and queer theory. Papers addressing any of these three specific topics will be addressed in special sections of issue alongside our more traditional non-thematic articles.
Potential authors should make sure to go through the ‘Submission Checklist’ before submitting which can be found at: http://speculationsjournal.org
Articles should be no longer than 8,000 words and follow the Chicago Manual of Style (http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html).
The deadline for submission is the January, 8th 2012.
Submissions can be sent to speculationsjournal@gmail.com
Editors:
Paul J. Ennis, University College, Dublin
Michael Austin, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Fabio Gironi, Cardiff University
Thomas Gokey, Syracuse University
Robert Jackson, University of Plymouth
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