Call for Papers "Culture and Modernity: Georg Simmel in Context" Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference Humanities Center, Harvard University Cambridge, MA (USA) 16-17 April 2005
An interdisciplinary graduate student conference hosted by the Humanities Center at Harvard University on April 16th and 17th, 2005. The conference seeks to disentangle and reshape the paths of Georg Simmels influence across disciplines. Keynote speaker will be Professor David Frisby of the University of Glasgow, Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Applied Social Sciences. Simmel consciously presents his oeuvre for appropriation and reinterpretation, allowing for, even necessitating, its simultaneous perpetuation and disappearance. Unconcerned with bequeathing a unified set of ideas, Simmela thinker obsessed with originsdenies his own body of thought a unified point of originary importance. Against the backdrop of Simmels effacement and versatility, where do we locate his scholarship in the overlapping between cultural and social studies? We encourage graduate students from all departments, including economics, history, literature, philosophy, sociology, and psychology, to submit their abstracts for papers. Presentations aim to contextualize Simmels impact on the following topics, but not limited to: 1. Conflict and Creativity: How can we understand Simmels concept of conflict as a binding cultural force fruitful for an interpretation of a world characterized by global wars? How are we to conceive his idea that cultural creation is a source of tragic fragmentation? 2. Urbanism and Life: How do Simmels perspectives on individuality, modernity, and urbanism prefigure postmodern engagement with these topics? To what extent do we still see the contingencies in the urban space as Simmel delineates in Metropolis and Mental Life? How does Simmels theory of the urban space coincide or conflict with other views held by theorists and writers, like Walter Benjamin and Alfred Döblin? 3. Fashion and Society: Where do we observe constructive and destructive forces within the creation and dissemination of fashion? In what ways does Simmels insight into fashion at the junction between commodities and practices develop into his metaphysics of individuality? 4. Film and Modernity: How has Simmels writing helped us understand the relationship between film and modernity? From Simmels perspective, how do film and society engender each other? Where can one trace Simmels influence on other twentieth-century film scholars, like Siegfried Kracauer? 5. Money and exchange: During the process of rapidly expanding industrialization, where does Simmels Philosophy of Money (1900) situate the modern individual within the culture of exchange and the exchange of cultures? How is Simmels view of capitalism to be contextualized with respect to theorists, like Karl Marx, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim? 6. Religion and Individuality: How does Simmels theory of religion help us understand the tension between the individual and society? Confronted with religious clashes, such as the Middle East conflict, in what ways does Simmels concept of religiosity allow or disallow the communion between people(s) with different beliefs? Graduate students from all disciplines are encouraged to submit paper abstracts of 350500 words. Conference presentations are to be given in English and should not exceed 15 minutes, which correspond to papers of 6 to 8 pages double-spaced in ordinary type. Abstracts must be received by February 15th, 2005. Notifications of accepted papers will be sent out by March 1stth. Please email your abstract as a Word attachment to: Danny Bowles ([email protected]) or Kristin Jones ([email protected]). In the body of your email, please include the following: title of paper, authors name, institutional and departmental affiliation, email address and telephone number. For further information, please contact Gundela Hachmann and/or David Kim at [email protected]. _________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: http://interphil.polylog.org/ Intercultural Philosophy Calendar: http://agd.polylog.org/cal/
