The first Ereignis conference will be free for up to 100 participants. Mark the date in your calendar:
How does the event
puncture the smooth flow of becoming? And what is it like, the event in which
we become ourselves?
These are among our
key questions in this first, inaugural Ereignis conference, to be held
online Friday, June 11, 2021. Hosted by the Ereignis Center for Philosophy and the Arts, and headlined by internationally acclaimed
speakers on appropriation and becoming, this conference seeks to merge profound
and innovative thought with practical approaches to becoming. How do we come into our own?
When philosophy in
the 20th Century took a renewed interest in the concept of event it was
with a critique of the classical notion of substance and its modern heir,
subject. Accordingly, what we find is a body of thought in which the
ontological affirmation of pure becoming as the ground of the genesis of
objects reflects the epistemological and ethical priority of events over
subjective ideas or concepts. On this basis, the conference aims to provide a
platform for conversations between different figures who, each in a way, belong
to this body, from Henry Bergson, Alfred North Whitehead, and Martin Heidegger
to Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, and Alain Badiou.
Prioritizing the
event involves emphasizing existence and experience as well as Being. Here it
might be relevant to cast a brief glance at Søren Kierkegaard’s concept, or
rather non-concept, of mellemværende. The English translation
‘being-between’ unfortunately misses the additional connotation of the Danish
word which implies accountability, or, to settle an account. This ethical
demand involves the positing of the subject in a state of relationality.
Existence and experience is a continuous process that precipitates the subject
into a direct confrontation with reality and with others. This confrontation is
on-going and cannot be resolved by thought; rather, the subject must choose
her/his existence, or better the manner of her/his existence. The necessity of
choice is highlighted in times of social, political and cultural crises where
the deeper resources of the mind are evoked.
You are invited to participate with a paper/presentation under one of these main conference rubrics:
Being/s: We seek
contributions that interrogate Being and being/s in their singularity and
multitude. We are particularly interested in interventions that break open the
deadlock between sacred and secular thought.
- How is thinking about Being or being/s relevant in our time?
- Have we lost touch with our being, or should we take up the tasks of guardians and carers for B/being?
Event/s: This
conference will further a view of society, technology and personal histories
that goes beyond the static and spatial. We are looking for papers that espouse
the event as a moment of appropriation and becoming.
- How do we think about events in their relation to our personal sense of being?
- How can a thinking about events enable us to go from a static view of technology to an approach that is dynamic and freed from anthropomorphism?
Practice/s: This
inaugural Ereignis conference seeks to not only prepare the ground for
novel thinking about Being, being/s, and events, but also to show and
experiment with formats that combine rigorous thinking with creative and
interactive practice. We therefore invite talks, presentations and interactive
paedagogical interventions that challenge us to rethink the format of the
traditional conference paper. We invite artists, teachers and activists to
experiment and engage listeners and viewers in new ways: arts presentations,
scripted discussion groups, small workshops.
- How can the thought of Ereignis, the event of becoming, enable us to find new forms of interaction set in a video conference?
The conference will
be held on the Zoom videoconferencing platform, and is free of charge for up to
100 participants. Registration will be required on the eventbrite.co.uk/ platform.
Invitation
We invite papers that address any of the topics and formats above.
Submissions under the Being/s and Event/s headers should be
structured, well-argued, and show evidence of rigorous scholarship. For the Practice/s
section we seek interventions that challenge the traditional academic
conference format, establish new ground, and open up for new ways of thinking
and being together. Submissions should include an abstracts (max. 300 words)
and a short author bio (max. 50 words), including the authors current affiliation
and interest.
Send proposals/abstracts via e-mail by April 15, 2021 to ereignis@tankebanen.no. We will return by the end of April with a
notification on acceptance.
All presentations
will be considered for publication either in a themed issue of Inscriptions or in a dedicated volume of Conference
Proceeding on Tankebanen forlag.
Keynote Speakers
James Bahoh,
Professor at the University of Memphis;
Jørgen Veisland,
Professor at the University of Gdańsk, Poland: “The Appropriation of Being.
Dismantling totalitarianism in Unto Madness, Unto Death by Kirsten
Thorup”;
Mehdi Parsa,
University of Bonn, Germany: “Ethics of Psychosynthesis: Desiring the Event”;
Sharif Abdunnur,
Yeditepe University, Turkey: “Think existentially, act on your personal
mythology: an interactive workshop.”
