ARTICULATIONS: A CONFERENCE ON ART & PHILOSOPHY

A CONFERENCE AT T HE N EW SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: STANLEY C AVELL (HARVARD UNIVERSITY) & DMITRI NIKULIN (NEW SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH) A PRIL 22ND -23 RD, 2010 In crafting the ideal city in the Republic, Socrates banishes the poets yet continues to recite myths in advancing his arguments, thus blurring any firm boundary he ostensibly proposed between the arts and philosophy. With this inaugural moment of the Western tradition, Plato intently draws our attention to the question of their relationship. Philosophy and art have been continually entangled, their relationship in question, their necessity to each other dismissed and insisted upon in turn. Philosophy has ever defended itself by dividing itself from something, foremost its own past but it has always felt a particular threat from the realm of art. It would, of course, be too quick to say that philosophys relation to art is one of mere competition and struggle. Philosophy has perpetually returned to the aesthetic in considering the relation between the sensible and the intelligible, in thinking about the ethical, in contemplating beauty, and even in consideration of its own grounding and form. Art therefore occupies a distinguished, if precarious, relation to philosophy. Throughout an underlying question lingers: Is there something special about art, something it does that makes it in the end incommensurable with what philosophy does? It is precisely this relation that this conference aspires to explore.
We invite high quality philosophical pursuits on such topics as, but not limited to the following:
Aesthetics from a Historical Perspective Hume on Taste Kant on the Sublime Adorno on Aesthetic Experience Wittgenstein on the Imagination Arendt on Greek Tragedy Davidson on Metaphor Serious philosophical engagements with specific works of art. Thematic Topics Whether tragic structures are the only way to think human finitude The experience of temporality in art The role of art in a philosophical education The role of performativity in philosophy The philosophical availability of non-discursive artworks The role of genius and originality in artistic and philosophical endeavors Whether art can be unethical The end of art What constitutes a work of art The role of art in contemporary philosophical discourses, e.g. feminist theory, post-colonial theory, psychoanalysis, etc. EMAIL SUBMISSIONS TO : nssr.articulations@gmail.com SUBMISSION DEADLINE IS OCTOBER 16 , 2009 Papers should be sent as word documents, not exceeding 5000 words. Personal information is to be sent in the body of the email and should not appear on the paper itself.
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