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Call for Papers "Otherness and the Arts: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Otherness and Alterity in Literature, Film and Culture" Global Conference University of Aarhus University of Limerick Aarhus (Denmark) 8-9 August 2008 __________________________________________________ The Delphic injunction to know thyself, to understand oneself as self, entails alienating self-reflection and the awareness that the limits of any entity, hence its individuation, are determined by what lies outside these borders - otherness. But where is this division between the I and other located? How is this schism constructed? Or can this schism even be discerned? Instead, the injunction of the Arts articulates an inverse yet more immediate approach to the problem of knowing thyself. It entails an understanding of oneself as other: the boundary between "I" and "that which I am not," necessary for our constitution as subjects, dissolves in our Homeric hero's proclamation "Nobody - that's my name." Invited keynote speakers: - Luce Irigaray (video conference) - Thomas Hylland Eriksen, University of Oslo - Svend Erik Larsen, University of Aarhus - Eugene O'Brien, University of Limerick - Ann McCulloch, Deakin University The conference is open to scholars and students of all disciplines. Those wishing to participate in the conference are invited to submit an abstract of no more than 300 words to <[email protected]> by Thursday, 15 May, 2008. The convenors will let the proponents know whether their proposals have been accepted no later than 15 June, 2008. Papers may be given in English with citations in any language, and are limited to 20 minutes. Selected papers will be eligible for publication in a peer reviewed academic journal, and possibly a hard copy edited essay collection. We invite papers and speakers across a broad spectrum of interests which might connect with the following ideas: Otherness and fear are two concepts that offer an intriguing dynamic of cause and effect: the 'otherness' approached in the experience of fear almost acts as a mirror of both personal and public anxiety or terror of the other. In consequence, representations of 'otherness' are all too often dark and fearful, dominated by hesitation and repression. In much art and literature, shadows of the other abound, haunting the disillusioned subject with reminders of a dark and unrepresentable object ('absolute otherness' or 'the real') that is so intrinsic to subjectivity. What specific role does the other play in the formation of normative/deviant subjectivity? As speaking subjects constituted through processes of signification, the otherness of our subjectivity becomes most profoundly known when the ineffable other of psychic disorder disrupts our sense of internal coherence and linguistic transparency: as speaking subjects, we are thus faced with painful paradoxes of needing to, but being incapable of, voicing the intense subjectivity inherent in experiences of inexpressible mental suffering. Painfully located beyond the realm of signification, the otherness of pain and psychopathology is characteristically circumnavigated as a consequence of sanity's supposed 'sameness' promoted by Western ideals; however, it is always already resonating in the lacunae among articulations of the wounded self. Figures of otherness do not only form a part of our contemporary literature, art, and critical theory but also of dominating Western political rhetoric. The 'othering' of vast numbers of the world's population by European colonial thought depended on the construction of a series of binary oppositions. Colonial discourses conceived of the alterity of the non-European subject in terms of terror or deficiency, a figure that provided the threat of both similarity and difference. The colonised land offered a consequence free site for European transgression, an unleashing of an unfamiliar self/other from the bounds of civilisation, a doorway into a heart of darkness. How can we ethically relate to, represent, and narrate the inaudible voices of the subaltern, concrete marginalized others embedded in the materiality of everyday existence, if the absolute other is inevitably translated into a relative or relational other within the economy of the self-same? Similarly, when otherness is seen through a gendered lens, how is it possible to undermine self-enclosed signifying systems that exclude feminine identity and disavow sexual difference? Can the other be known without recourse to the self? Is it possible to distinguish other-than-self from the other defined by and for itself, as well as otherness qua construct from otherness qua ontological category? In our rapidly changing world, dominated by communication technology, we are ever faced with encounters with 'other' cultures and arts. Nonetheless, we continue to erect and enforce borders and boundaries between peoples and countries. As a natural course of conflict, this complicates relations to and understandings of cultural others and otherness; thus, it compels exigent discussion. When the world is simultaneously increasing and decreasing in time and space, creating a world increscently global yet local, uniform yet diversified, which brings into relief the vexed politics of 'othering' and 'saming', how does one navigate and negotiate cultural identity? In this context, how does the self and the same coexist with the other in an at times estranged and estranging transcultural urban milieu? It is precisely this variety of formulations, the polysemy of alterity, which this conference wishes to examine from divergent disciplinary and theoretical perspectives. Its aim, therefore, is to convene on the notion of Otherness as a site for critical, socio-political, cultural, and literary exploration. Welcome topics include but are not limited to the following: - Otherness in Cultural Representation - Hybridity, Creolization, and the Global other - Memory, History, Trauma, and Otherness - Ethics, Responsibility, and the Other - Sexuality, Gender, the Body and the Other - M/other / Sm/other: Engendering Otherness - Ambivalence and Otherness: Mimicry & Menace - Absolute Otherness vs. Self-Same Other - Monstrosity, Spectrality and Terror of the Other - Uncanny or Abject Others; or The Familiar Other - The Sublime or the Unimaginable Other - Malignant Otherness: Madness/Sadness - Healing Otherness: Sanity & Suffering - Pathography: Voicing the Otherness of Pain Contact: Peter Mortensen, PhD University of Aarhus Institute of Language, Literature and Culture Building 1463 Jens Chr. Skous Vej 7 DK-8000 Aarhus C Denmark Tel: +45 89456511 Fax: +45 89456540 Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.othernessandthearts.org __________________________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: http://interphil.polylog.org Intercultural Philosophy Calendar: http://cal.polylog.org
