4. Berliner Kolloquium Junge Religionsphilosophie (Fourth Berlin Colloquium Young Philosophy of Religion) "Repräsentation: Kantorowicz und die Folgen" (Representation: Kantorowicz and the Consequences; my translation) of the Hanover Institute of Philosophical Research (Forschungsinstitut für Philosophie Hannover), the Catholic Academy in Berlin (Katholische Akademie in Berlin), and Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University Frankfurt's Chair for Philosophy of Religion, taking place at the Katholische Akademie, Hannoversche Strasse 5, Berlin, Germany, 24-26 February 2011
www.katholische-akademie-berlin.de/1:5431/Veranstaltungen/2011/02/30179_Repraesentation-Kantorowicz-und-die.html
Call for papers
Description: "[This colloquium] carries in its title a key term of political philosophy, legal philosophy and political theology and has [...] once more chosen a classic as the patron of our reflections: Ernst Hartwig Kantorowicz (1895-1963), who both as an intellectual and a scientist made important observations on the question of representation, particularly in his 1957 classic, The King's Two Bodies (Princeton University Press). Invited are proposals that thematize questions of the (institutional) representation of power in the context of the challenges posed by political science, jurisprudence, philosophy and theology; explore questions of the representation of the sacred and religion in art history, iconography or poetology; study the relationship of truth and myth, authority and authorship, symbolism, embodiment of power and incarnation; concern themselves with the writings of Ernst Hartwig Kantorowicz inasfar as they can be brought into fruitful tensions with the topic of the colloquium." (my translation)
The conference language is German, but papers may be proposed and presented in English. Young researchers particularly in philosophy and theology, but also other humanities and social sciences disciplines, with an interest in the philosophy of religion, are invited to send proposals (full manuscripts or outlines of presentations) to Martin Knechtges (Katholische Akademie): knechtges@katholische‐akademie‐berlin.de
Deadline: 15 December 2010
The organizers write that presentations should not exceed 5,000 characters – that is around two pages A4. Before submitting a proposal, you may want to inquire if they do not rather mean a maximum of 5,000 words.
Each presenter will be allocated 45 minutes (20 minutes for presentation, the rest presumably for discussion). All presenters are guests of the conference and will be given free accommodation and registration. They will however have to pay for their own transportation to and from Berlin. The registration fee for non-presenting participants is 75 Euro (including meals) and they can book accommodation at 100 Euro (single room) or 70 Euro (bed in a double room) for two nights. An additional night (departure on Sunday) is 50/35 Euro. The organizers write that the number of participants is limited to 30. From the website, I am not clear, though, if this includes or excludes presenters (or non-presenters).
Registration forms (in German) for both presenting and non-presenting participants are to be found on the above website. If you are going to propose a paper, please send the appropriate registration form together with your proposal. Non-presenting participants have until 30 January 2011 to register.
Keynote speakers: Ulrich Haltern (University of Hanover), Jürgen Manemann (Hanover Institute of Philosophical Research), and Thomas M. Schmidt (Goethe-University Frankfurt)
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
07 December 2010
19 September 2010
Book: Succeeding King Lear: Literature, Exposure, and the Possibility of Politics
Just published: Emily Sun, "Succeeding King Lear: Literature, Exposure, and the Possibility of Politics" (Fordham University Press, September 2010):
www.fordhampress.com/detail.html?id=9780823232802
Publisher's description: "This book investigates the question of the relations between literature and politics in democratic modernity. It makes connections between Shakespeare's tragedy, Wordsworth's poetry, and the documentary nonfiction and photography of James Agee and Walker Evans to offer new ways of thinking of the logic of literary history and the relationship between early modern, Romantic, and twentieth-century texts; and it brings literature into dialogue with contemporary philosophical re-readings of Western political thought. King Lear, Sun argues, opens up a literary succession at the heart of which is a crisis of sovereignty. Interrogating what it is to be a political subject as actor and spectator in the kingdom, the play issues an injunction to transform spectatorship in plural and nonsovereign terms. Thorough engagements with Lear, Wordsworth in the 1790s, and Agee and Evans in the 1930s assume this injunction by generating new artistic genres and modes for their times."
Endorsement: "Emily Sun has written an ambitious study that is a delight to read on how literary works foster a truly active rather than passive spectatorship as well as a 'plural speech' necessary to avoid tyrannous political theologies. Drawing in major contemporary theorists, her patient and clarifying style, with its ability to zoom from large questions to telling textual detail, compels us to think anew about this task." (Geoffrey Hartman, Yale)
Emily Sun is Visiting Assistant Professor of English at the College of the Holy Cross
www.fordhampress.com/detail.html?id=9780823232802
Publisher's description: "This book investigates the question of the relations between literature and politics in democratic modernity. It makes connections between Shakespeare's tragedy, Wordsworth's poetry, and the documentary nonfiction and photography of James Agee and Walker Evans to offer new ways of thinking of the logic of literary history and the relationship between early modern, Romantic, and twentieth-century texts; and it brings literature into dialogue with contemporary philosophical re-readings of Western political thought. King Lear, Sun argues, opens up a literary succession at the heart of which is a crisis of sovereignty. Interrogating what it is to be a political subject as actor and spectator in the kingdom, the play issues an injunction to transform spectatorship in plural and nonsovereign terms. Thorough engagements with Lear, Wordsworth in the 1790s, and Agee and Evans in the 1930s assume this injunction by generating new artistic genres and modes for their times."
Endorsement: "Emily Sun has written an ambitious study that is a delight to read on how literary works foster a truly active rather than passive spectatorship as well as a 'plural speech' necessary to avoid tyrannous political theologies. Drawing in major contemporary theorists, her patient and clarifying style, with its ability to zoom from large questions to telling textual detail, compels us to think anew about this task." (Geoffrey Hartman, Yale)
Emily Sun is Visiting Assistant Professor of English at the College of the Holy Cross
17 July 2010
CFP: Libertinism and Baroque Performativity in the 17th Century
International one-day symposium "Libertinism and Baroque Performativity in the 17th Century", organized by the IDeA research group at RITS school for audiovisual and performing arts of Erasmushogeschool Brussel (EHB) in collaboration with Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUI) and the HAR research group at Paris West University Nanterre La Défense, at EHB, Brussels, Belgium,
16 November 2010
Papers on "the political-theological body" in baroque performativity are explicitly invited.
Description: "In Sodom or the Quintessence of Debauchery, a Restoration closet drama attributed to John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester (1647-1680) and posthumously published in 1684, Bolloxian, King of Sodom, prescribes sodomy as the sole acceptable sexual practice. This simple and straightforward pornographic joke serves as the starting point of a burlesque and satirical parable in which Rochester reveals the libidinous nature state reigning at the court of Charles II, while at the same time radically and unequivocally appealing to the reader's imagination. Sodom is only one of many early modern examples in which intellectual criticism and free-thinking go hand in hand with an erotic and sometimes pornographically grotesque universe in which, through its baroque extravaganza, the distinction between the real and the fictional, between the private and the public disintegrates.
"This symposium focuses on the 17th-century libertine (sub)culture that seeks to combine the critique of everything public and political with a visual regime that lavishly indulges in the sensuous experience of baroque theatricality. Libertinism is both a means of intellectual
(self-)criticism and an utterly performative practice, it is both political reflexion and wilful transgression. It is a locus of self-fashioning, on a sexual level (experimentation with possible sexual roles and identities) and on a political level (as Jeremy Webster explains in Performing Libertinism, the debate itself is an integral part of the available political discourse), as much as it is playful make-believe, joyfully investigating the limits of representation itself. Within this complex bias of seemingly conflicting interests the physical body takes up a central role.
"Exactly this libertine body will be at the heart of this symposium, which takes a double goal as its starting point. It will address and question the culture of libertinism in terms of baroque performativity in which notions such as immersion and transgression are key-points of investigation. In other words: how does libertine discourse produce the effects it names (and shows)? And, secondly, this symposium seeks to investigate the role and the place of the baroque body in all its performative aspects (the burlesque body, the political-theological body, the satirical body, the pornographic body). We welcome any contributions addressing one or both of these questions through the presentation of concrete case studies that might be related to early modern libertine life in Europe, particularly in France and England." (bold removed)
Keynote speakers: Jeremy W. Webster (Ohio University) and Christian Biet (Paris West University Nanterre La Défense)
Please send your abstract (250 words) and a short biographical notice to Karel Vanhaesebrouck (Erasmushogeschool Brussel): karel.vanhaesebrouck@ehb.be
Deadline: 1 September 2010
The definitive programme will be published on 20 September.
The symposium will be preceded by a graduate seminar for MA- and PhD-students on 15 November 2010.
16 November 2010
Papers on "the political-theological body" in baroque performativity are explicitly invited.
Description: "In Sodom or the Quintessence of Debauchery, a Restoration closet drama attributed to John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester (1647-1680) and posthumously published in 1684, Bolloxian, King of Sodom, prescribes sodomy as the sole acceptable sexual practice. This simple and straightforward pornographic joke serves as the starting point of a burlesque and satirical parable in which Rochester reveals the libidinous nature state reigning at the court of Charles II, while at the same time radically and unequivocally appealing to the reader's imagination. Sodom is only one of many early modern examples in which intellectual criticism and free-thinking go hand in hand with an erotic and sometimes pornographically grotesque universe in which, through its baroque extravaganza, the distinction between the real and the fictional, between the private and the public disintegrates.
"This symposium focuses on the 17th-century libertine (sub)culture that seeks to combine the critique of everything public and political with a visual regime that lavishly indulges in the sensuous experience of baroque theatricality. Libertinism is both a means of intellectual
(self-)criticism and an utterly performative practice, it is both political reflexion and wilful transgression. It is a locus of self-fashioning, on a sexual level (experimentation with possible sexual roles and identities) and on a political level (as Jeremy Webster explains in Performing Libertinism, the debate itself is an integral part of the available political discourse), as much as it is playful make-believe, joyfully investigating the limits of representation itself. Within this complex bias of seemingly conflicting interests the physical body takes up a central role.
"Exactly this libertine body will be at the heart of this symposium, which takes a double goal as its starting point. It will address and question the culture of libertinism in terms of baroque performativity in which notions such as immersion and transgression are key-points of investigation. In other words: how does libertine discourse produce the effects it names (and shows)? And, secondly, this symposium seeks to investigate the role and the place of the baroque body in all its performative aspects (the burlesque body, the political-theological body, the satirical body, the pornographic body). We welcome any contributions addressing one or both of these questions through the presentation of concrete case studies that might be related to early modern libertine life in Europe, particularly in France and England." (bold removed)
Keynote speakers: Jeremy W. Webster (Ohio University) and Christian Biet (Paris West University Nanterre La Défense)
Please send your abstract (250 words) and a short biographical notice to Karel Vanhaesebrouck (Erasmushogeschool Brussel): karel.vanhaesebrouck@ehb.be
Deadline: 1 September 2010
The definitive programme will be published on 20 September.
The symposium will be preceded by a graduate seminar for MA- and PhD-students on 15 November 2010.
06 May 2010
Book: Theological Interpretation of Culture in Post-Communist Context
Just published: Ivana Noble, "Theological Interpretation of Culture in Post-Communist Context: Central and East European Search for Roots" (Ashgate, April 2010):
http://ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&calcTitle=1&title_id=9936&edition_id=12659
Publisher's description: "Twenty years after the fall of Communism in Central and East Europe is an ocassion [sic] to reevaluate the cultural and theological contribution from that region to the secularization-post-secularization debate. Czech theologian Ivana Noble develops a Trinitarian theology through a close dialogue with literature, music and film, which formed not only alternatives to totalitarian ideologies, but also followed the loss and reappeareance [sic] of belief in God. Noble explains that, by listening to the artists, the churches and theologians can deal with questions about the nature of the world, memory and ultimate fulfilment in a more nuanced way. Then, as partakers in the search undertaken by their secular and post-secular contemporaries, theologians can penetrate a new depth of meaning, sending out shoots from the stump of Christian symbolism. Drawing on the rich cultures of Central and East Europe and both Western and Eastern theological traditions, this book presents a theological reading of contemporary culture which is important not just for post-Communist countries but for all who are engaged in the debate on the boundaries between theology, politics and arts."
Endorsement: "Noble offers us in the West an encounter with the Other that cannot but give much food for thought about religion in our own increasingly post-institutional religious situations. Original not only in content but also methodology, her text promises numerous insights for political theology, liturgical studies, theological aesthetics, indeed, for all seeking to construct theologies at once fundamental and practical in this postmodern age." (Bruce T. Morrill, SJ, Boston College)
Ivana Noble is Associate Professor of Ecumenical Theology at Charles University and a Senior Research Fellow at the International Baptist Theological Seminary in Prague.
http://ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&calcTitle=1&title_id=9936&edition_id=12659
Publisher's description: "Twenty years after the fall of Communism in Central and East Europe is an ocassion [sic] to reevaluate the cultural and theological contribution from that region to the secularization-post-secularization debate. Czech theologian Ivana Noble develops a Trinitarian theology through a close dialogue with literature, music and film, which formed not only alternatives to totalitarian ideologies, but also followed the loss and reappeareance [sic] of belief in God. Noble explains that, by listening to the artists, the churches and theologians can deal with questions about the nature of the world, memory and ultimate fulfilment in a more nuanced way. Then, as partakers in the search undertaken by their secular and post-secular contemporaries, theologians can penetrate a new depth of meaning, sending out shoots from the stump of Christian symbolism. Drawing on the rich cultures of Central and East Europe and both Western and Eastern theological traditions, this book presents a theological reading of contemporary culture which is important not just for post-Communist countries but for all who are engaged in the debate on the boundaries between theology, politics and arts."
Endorsement: "Noble offers us in the West an encounter with the Other that cannot but give much food for thought about religion in our own increasingly post-institutional religious situations. Original not only in content but also methodology, her text promises numerous insights for political theology, liturgical studies, theological aesthetics, indeed, for all seeking to construct theologies at once fundamental and practical in this postmodern age." (Bruce T. Morrill, SJ, Boston College)
Ivana Noble is Associate Professor of Ecumenical Theology at Charles University and a Senior Research Fellow at the International Baptist Theological Seminary in Prague.
31 March 2010
Book: From Utopia to Apocalypse: Science Fiction and the Politics of Catastrophe
Just published: Peter Y. Paik, "From Utopia to Apocalypse: Science Fiction and the Politics of Catastrophe" (University of Minnesota Press, March 2010).Publisher's description: "Revolutionary narratives in recent science fiction graphic novels and films compel audiences to reflect on the politics and societal ills of the day. Through character and story, science fiction brings theory to life, giving shape to the motivations behind the action as well as to the consequences they produce. In From Utopia to Apocalypse, Peter Y. Paik shows how science fiction generates intriguing and profound insights into politics. He reveals that the fantasy of putting annihilating omnipotence to beneficial effect underlies the revolutionary projects that have defined the collective upheavals of the modern age. Paik traces how this political theology is expressed, and indeed literalized, in popular superhero fiction, examining works including Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's graphic novel Watchmen, the science fiction cinema of Jang Joon-Hwan, the manga of Hayao Miyazaki, Alan Moore's V for Vendetta, and the Matrix trilogy.
"Superhero fantasies are usually seen as compensations for individual feelings of weakness, victimization, and vulnerability. But Paik presents these fantasies as social constructions concerned with questions of political will and the disintegration of democracy rather than with the psychology of the personal. What is urgently at stake, Paik argues, is a critique of the limitations and deadlocks of the political imagination. The utopias dreamed of by totalitarianism, which must be imposed through torture, oppression, and mass imprisonment, nevertheless persist in liberal political systems. With this reality looming throughout, Paik demonstrates the uneasy juxtaposition of saintliness and cynically manipulative realpolitik, of torture and the assertion of human dignity, of cruelty and benevolence."
www.upress.umn.edu/Books/P/paik_utopia.html
Contents: Introduction: The God That Succeeded; 1. Utopia Achieved: The Case of Watchmen; 2. The Defense of Necessity: On Jang Joon-Hwan's Save the Green Planet; 3. The Saintly Politics of Catastrophe: Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind; 4. Between Trauma and Tragedy: From The Matrix to V for Vendetta
Endorsements: "I read Peter Y. Paik's lucid, graceful, ruthless book in one single astonished sitting. I scarred it all over with arrows and exclamation points, so I can read it again as soon as possible." (Bruce Sterling, novelist)
"Uncommonly powerful and original, From Utopia to Apocalypse both raises issues that are disturbing and disturbingly relevant, and casts a whole genre of cultural fictions in an entirely new light." (Steven Shaviro, Wayne State University)
Peter Y. Paik is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Book: Representations of Homosexuality: Black Liberation Theology and Cultural Criticism
Just published: Roger A. Sneed, "Representations of Homosexuality: Black Liberation Theology and Cultural Criticism" (Palgrave Macmillan, March 2010):
http://us.macmillan.com/representationsofhomosexuality
Publisher's description: "This book challenges black religious and cultural critics to rethink theological and ethical approaches to homosexuality. Sneed demonstrates how black liberation theology and [sic] has often characterized homosexuality as a problem to be solved, and his work here offers a different way for black religious scholars to approach black homosexuality and religious experiences. Drawing on a range of black gay writers from Essex Hemphill to J.L. King, Sneed identifies black gay men's literature as a rich source for theological and ethical reflection and points black religious scholarship toward an ethics of openness."
Endorsement: "This important work by Sneed challenges theologies that ground themselves in Black experience – Black and Womanist
[–], to recognize that without the inclusion of the experience of gay Black men our work is incomplete. This book will add significantly to conversations about the future of Black and Womanist theologies." (Stephen G. Ray Jr., Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary)
Roger A. Sneed is Assistant Professor of Religion at Furman University.
http://us.macmillan.com/representationsofhomosexuality
Publisher's description: "This book challenges black religious and cultural critics to rethink theological and ethical approaches to homosexuality. Sneed demonstrates how black liberation theology and [sic] has often characterized homosexuality as a problem to be solved, and his work here offers a different way for black religious scholars to approach black homosexuality and religious experiences. Drawing on a range of black gay writers from Essex Hemphill to J.L. King, Sneed identifies black gay men's literature as a rich source for theological and ethical reflection and points black religious scholarship toward an ethics of openness."
Endorsement: "This important work by Sneed challenges theologies that ground themselves in Black experience – Black and Womanist
[–], to recognize that without the inclusion of the experience of gay Black men our work is incomplete. This book will add significantly to conversations about the future of Black and Womanist theologies." (Stephen G. Ray Jr., Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary)
Roger A. Sneed is Assistant Professor of Religion at Furman University.
29 March 2010
Book: A Protestant Theology of Passion: Korean Minjung Theology Revisited
Just published: Volker Küster, "A Protestant Theology of Passion: Korean Minjung Theology Revisited" (Brill, March 2010):
www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=210&pid=31210
Publisher's description: "Minjung Theology is introduced here through theological biographical sketches of its main representatives. They formulated a protestant liberation theology under the South Korean military dictatorship of the 1970s and 80s. Their strong emphasis on the suffering (han) of the people (minjung) led them to the formulation of a genuine theology of the cross in Asia. Volker Küster explores the reception of Minjung Theology and raises the question what happened to it during the democratization process and the rise of globalization in the 1990s. Interpretations of art works by Minjung artists provide deep insights into these transformation processes. Prologue and epilogue abstract from the Korean case and offer a concise theory of contextual theology in an intercultural framework."
Endorsements: "This important book provides the first thorough academic discussion of Korean Minjung theology in any Western language, introducing key Korean theologians in the movement, in relationship to one another and to contextual theological developments elsewhere. A unique feature of this study is Küster's use of visual art as an inculturated expression of Minjung theology in its own right. His contention that contextual theologies are 'open systems' suggests the continuing relevance of Minjung theology for our 'glocalized' future." (Philip L. Wickeri, San Francisco Theological Seminary/Graduate Theological Union)
"'A Protestant Theology of Passion' chronicles an important movement in Korean theology that has significance far beyond the borders of that country. True to Minjung method, Küster includes not only texts, but art and poetry as sources for this theology as well. In doing so, he makes an important contribution to the wider discussion of contextual theology today." (Robert Schreiter, Catholic Theological Union; here and above bold removed, here italics removed)
Volker Küster is Professor of Crosscultural Theology at the Protestant Theological University in Kampen, the Netherlands.
www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=210&pid=31210
Publisher's description: "Minjung Theology is introduced here through theological biographical sketches of its main representatives. They formulated a protestant liberation theology under the South Korean military dictatorship of the 1970s and 80s. Their strong emphasis on the suffering (han) of the people (minjung) led them to the formulation of a genuine theology of the cross in Asia. Volker Küster explores the reception of Minjung Theology and raises the question what happened to it during the democratization process and the rise of globalization in the 1990s. Interpretations of art works by Minjung artists provide deep insights into these transformation processes. Prologue and epilogue abstract from the Korean case and offer a concise theory of contextual theology in an intercultural framework."
Endorsements: "This important book provides the first thorough academic discussion of Korean Minjung theology in any Western language, introducing key Korean theologians in the movement, in relationship to one another and to contextual theological developments elsewhere. A unique feature of this study is Küster's use of visual art as an inculturated expression of Minjung theology in its own right. His contention that contextual theologies are 'open systems' suggests the continuing relevance of Minjung theology for our 'glocalized' future." (Philip L. Wickeri, San Francisco Theological Seminary/Graduate Theological Union)
"'A Protestant Theology of Passion' chronicles an important movement in Korean theology that has significance far beyond the borders of that country. True to Minjung method, Küster includes not only texts, but art and poetry as sources for this theology as well. In doing so, he makes an important contribution to the wider discussion of contextual theology today." (Robert Schreiter, Catholic Theological Union; here and above bold removed, here italics removed)
Volker Küster is Professor of Crosscultural Theology at the Protestant Theological University in Kampen, the Netherlands.
28 January 2010
CFP: Walter Benjamin: Convergences of Aesthetics and Political Theology
An international conference organized by Universidad de Chile, Instituto de Humanidades/Universidad Diego Portales, Goethe Institut, and DAAD, to take place in Santiago de Chile, 20-22 October 2010
Call for papers: "Walter Benjamin: Convergences of Aesthetics and Political Theology"
With his stress on the constellation of art, religion, and politics, Walter Benjamin has become a key thinker for the contemporary debate on the role of religion in the public sphere. Benjamin placed philosophy – the practice of criticism – at the service of art, seeking to release a political and theological potential he called "messianic", far from every theocracy and fundamentalism.
Benjamin's urgent demand for the "politicization of art" as an antidote to the fascist "aesthetization of politics" is well known. The aim of this international conference is to understand and discuss the bridge between the aforementioned demand and the contemporary attempts, by many thinkers influenced by Benjamin, to "politicize theology", now understood as an antidote to the fundamentalist theologization of politics.
Proposals are welcomed for 20-30 minute papers on all topics relevant to the conference theme, including the following: The artwork's aura and its effacement: technical reproducibility or alterity of the absolute?; The crisis of experience; The concept of "profane illumination"; Language and the sacred; The Angel of History and "dialectics at a standstill"; Allegory and melancholy from the Trauerspiel to Baudelaire; Benjamin and the question of sovereignty; The Benjamin-Scholem dialogue; Kabbalah and Messianism; Benjamin and Political Theology
Papers on other relevant topics will also be considered. Conference languages are Spanish and English. The organizers will work with simultaneous translation during plenary sessions.
Please send an abstract of max. 600 words and a short bio to: conferenciabenjamin@gmail.com
Deadline: 15 April 2010
Early submissions are welcome. Notification of acceptance will be sent no later than 30 April 2010.
Confirmed international speakers: Hauke Brunkhorst (University of Flensburg), Gertrud Koch (Free University of Berlin), and Bettina Menke (University of Erfurt)
Conference Committee: Vanessa Lemm, Eduardo Sabrovsky, Miguel Vatter (all Universidad Diego Portales), Horst Nitschack, and Pablo Oyarzún (both Universidad de Chile)
For further information, please contact the organizers at the above e-mail address.
Call for papers: "Walter Benjamin: Convergences of Aesthetics and Political Theology"
With his stress on the constellation of art, religion, and politics, Walter Benjamin has become a key thinker for the contemporary debate on the role of religion in the public sphere. Benjamin placed philosophy – the practice of criticism – at the service of art, seeking to release a political and theological potential he called "messianic", far from every theocracy and fundamentalism.
Benjamin's urgent demand for the "politicization of art" as an antidote to the fascist "aesthetization of politics" is well known. The aim of this international conference is to understand and discuss the bridge between the aforementioned demand and the contemporary attempts, by many thinkers influenced by Benjamin, to "politicize theology", now understood as an antidote to the fundamentalist theologization of politics.
Proposals are welcomed for 20-30 minute papers on all topics relevant to the conference theme, including the following: The artwork's aura and its effacement: technical reproducibility or alterity of the absolute?; The crisis of experience; The concept of "profane illumination"; Language and the sacred; The Angel of History and "dialectics at a standstill"; Allegory and melancholy from the Trauerspiel to Baudelaire; Benjamin and the question of sovereignty; The Benjamin-Scholem dialogue; Kabbalah and Messianism; Benjamin and Political Theology
Papers on other relevant topics will also be considered. Conference languages are Spanish and English. The organizers will work with simultaneous translation during plenary sessions.
Please send an abstract of max. 600 words and a short bio to: conferenciabenjamin@gmail.com
Deadline: 15 April 2010
Early submissions are welcome. Notification of acceptance will be sent no later than 30 April 2010.
Confirmed international speakers: Hauke Brunkhorst (University of Flensburg), Gertrud Koch (Free University of Berlin), and Bettina Menke (University of Erfurt)
Conference Committee: Vanessa Lemm, Eduardo Sabrovsky, Miguel Vatter (all Universidad Diego Portales), Horst Nitschack, and Pablo Oyarzún (both Universidad de Chile)
For further information, please contact the organizers at the above e-mail address.
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