Call for Papers "Configurations of the Third: 1800 to the Present. Third Agents and the Missing Links of Modernity" International Conference St. Johns College, University of Cambridge Cambridge (UK) 29-31 August 2005
Organisation Department of German, University of Cambridge Research Group Figur des Dritten, University of Konstanz Keynote Addresses Zygmunt BAUMAN, Leeds (Sociology) Andrew BOWIE, London (Philosophy) Rüdiger GÖRNER, London (Literary Theory) Ann HARDY, Wellcome Institute, London (History of Medicine) George HUNSINGER, Princeton (Theology) Judith RYAN, Harvard (Comparative Literature), tbc Webpage: http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/bfm22/conference.html Parasites, miasmata and missing links; dialectics, the unconscious and chiliasm; Hermes figures, rivals and tricksters all these catchphrases refer to third agents or tripartite agencies. The figure of the third often takes the form of a privileged entity or space which overcomes binary oppositions and effects transformation. Post-Cartesian intellectual and scientific enquiry has witnessed an explosion in attempts to move beyond the dichotomy of mind vs. matter and develop and criticise triadic structures of thought. This has unleashed modes of thinking which relate the figure of the third to fundamental questions of subjectivity and self-consciousness. With this conference we want to create an opportunity to engage in an interdisciplinary debate on continuities and discontinuities between tripartite configurations during the last 200 years. Linking the imaginative and theoretical implications of these structures to post-Enlightenment cultures unease with both ambivalence and binary oppositions has been a central preoccupation of cultural theory (e.g. the Frankfurt School, J. Habermas, N. Elias, Z. Bauman). The conference will pursue this further and ask whether the modern human condition can be adequately captured as an unfinished project of invoking third agents to reconfigure ambivalence and binarity. We are inviting contributions in the following fields: 1. Philosophy and Theology: · 1800 and all that? The late 18th century as a paradigm shift · Idealism and Materialism · German philosophy - French theory: the migrations of thirdness · Configurations of the Third in Modern Theology · Chiliasm, millenarianism and utopia in the 19th and 20th centuries 2. History & Philosophy of Science: · Third bodies · Parasites, epidemics, infections: configurations of the Third in the history of medicine · The dialectics of evolution · The uncertainty principle and metareflexivity in modern science 3. Social and Political Sciences: · Third ways · Money, circulation, acceleration: reflections on modernity · Concepts of time and space in postcolonial discourse · Jürgen Habermas and the public sphere · Giorgio Agambens concept of homo sacer 4. Literary Studies: · The Third as a literary theme: demigods and angels, rivals and voyeurs, pícaros and tricksters · Theories of metaphor · Reader-response criticism and the author-text-reader triangle · The sublime, the uncanny, the individual: psychoanalysis and literature 5. Media Studies / Cultural Studies: · Intertextuality, Intermediality · Tertiary models in media studies and communication theory · Configurations of the uncanny in media studies · The Third in cultural studies (eg cultural materialism, postcolonial theory) · The notion of 'ecology' in cultural theory Papers are welcome in English, French and German. Abstracts should be sent to Ulrich Bröckling ([email protected]), Ian Cooper ([email protected]), and Bernhard Malkmus ([email protected]) by 15 January 2005. A selection of papers will be published. _________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: http://interphil.polylog.org/ Intercultural Philosophy Calendar: http://agd.polylog.org/cal/
