Call for Papers
"Levinas and the political"
1st Annual Conference
North American Levinas Society
Purdue University
West Lafayette, IN (USA)
13-15 May 2006
The burgeoning North American Levinas Society invites
submissions of individual paper proposals and panel
proposals for the inaugural meeting to be held May 12-14,
2006, at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. In an
effort to draw together the widest interests for this
inaugural meeting, we are accepting proposals for papers and
panels on any topic related to Levinas. Still, we propose
generally organizing the conference around the broad theme
of Levinas and the political.
As interest in Levinasian scholarship continues to develop,
one of the more urgent and controversial areas concerns the
political. As Simon Critchley has stated, politics is
Levinas Achilles heel, but what does this mean for
developing a general ethical critique of social relations,
organizing community through the imperatives of justice, or
effecting a shared sense of the transcendent that we can
employ as a means of addressing global injusticesif such a
program is even possible, or indeed even desirable, in light
of the ethical priorities of Levinas work?
Additionally, the same concern for the political accompanies
an admonishment against Levinas scholars not to become too
enamored with the thinker at the risk of foreclosing debates
and critical assessments of Levinas sometimes conflicting
political pronouncements. It is with this critical attitude
in mindone which keeps us from contributing to a certain
idolatry of Levinasthat we propose opening the inaugural
meeting and conference of the North American Levinas Society
with the broad theme of Levinas and the political.
Does Levinas understand liberal democracy as an end or as a
means? What is the status of an(-)archy in Levinas theories
of justice and the political compared to his understanding
of an-archy in the ethical sense? How does Levinas work
contribute to developments in feminisms, or reciprocally how
do various feminist concerns critique and develop Levinas
works in important ways? Where does Levinas stand with
regard to (Post)Zionism? What is Levinas attitude toward
utopian traditions? What is the meaning of finding an enemy
in alterity? In what important ways is Levinas work
developed by liberation theology? In what ways is Levinas
phenomenology political? How do Levinasian concerns for the
ethical intersect with a Marxist critique of political
economy? Can there be a secular critique of violence
vis-à-vis Levinas, or is any critique of violence already
religious? How does Levinas turn toward the general economy
of being develop or respond to other important theorists of
general economy? Or, how can Levinas articulation of
ontology as war respond to pure war theorists such as Paul
Virilio, Giorgio Agamben, or Michel Foucault, and how is
Levinas ontology as war different from the ontologizing of
war? How do Levinas considerations of timesuch as
diachrony, messianicity, or a phenomenological horizon of
timeprovide means for a more invigorated political
critique? What is the political status of hostage,
sacrifice?
This inaugural meeting and conference hopes to bring
together Levinasian scholars from a wide range of interests,
positions, and institutional affiliations; as such, we again
emphasize that the theme of Levinas and the political is
to be interpreted in the very broadest sense. Indeed, all
Levinasian scholarship is political in some sense.
- Individual paper proposals: Individual abstracts should be
200-300 words for a 20 minute presentation. We will assess
and organize individual papers into panels of three or four.
- Panel proposal: Panel proposals should be 500 words for an
1 hour-15 minute session. Please include the session title,
name of organizer, institutional affiliation, discipline or
department, along with the chairs name and participants
names in addition to brief abstracts detailing the focus of
each paper.
The deadline for submissions is January 15, 2006.
Contact:
Sol Neely
Department of English
Purdue University
500 Oval Drive
West Lafayette, IN 47907-2038
USA
Email: [email protected]
Michael R. Michau
Department of Philosophy
Purdue University
100 N. University Street
West Lafayette, IN 47907-2098
USA
Email: [email protected]
Web: http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~sjneely/levinas.htm
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