September 4 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Alfredo Vernazzani (Ruhr University, Bochum)
Urban Aesthetics, Capabilities, and The Pursuit of Well-Being
September 18 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Antony Aumann (Northern Michigan University)
On Being Transformed by Literature: from Inspiration to Conversion
October 2 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Alex King (Simon Fraser University)
Exquisite Feeling
October 16 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Joe Han (New York University)
Games, Art and The Magic Circle (provisional title)
October 30 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Vanda Metzger (Bergen Community College)
Aesthetics of Ornament
November 6 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Jeffrey Strayer (Purdue University Fort Wayne)
Art and Identity: Nothing, Something, and Everything
November 13 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Laura Di Summa (William Paterson University)
Who’s Reading? Children’s Aesthetics and an Epistemology of Parenting Through Picture Books (provisional title)
November 27 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Francesco Campana (University of Padua – The New School)
Artistic Space as Political Space
—
Upon entering the building, non-CUNY attendants will need to show an ordinary ID at the front desk.
—
Elisa Caldarola
Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow
The Graduate Center, City University of New York
RTDb
Department of Philosophy and Education Sciences, University of Turin
The philosophy of art, as practiced in the western world, has tended to have two divided homes: in analytic philosophy and continental philosophy. Within the analytic tradition, the philosophy of art has recently undergone a revival with the emphasis on perception. This has more closely aligned art theory to science and questions of biology as well as to issues within psychology. The continental tradition has traditionally drawn upon phenomenology’s first-person experience with its ties to embodied perception as well as the social and historical concerns of the social aspect of art. In the realm itself of visual art, the state of (so-called) post-post modernism has resulted in both the dissolution of belief in progress and even, according to some art critics, a lamentable stagnation. But many philosophers of the last century, beginning with Walter Benjamin, Adorno, Nelson Goodman, etc., have suggested that art needs to be thought of within its social, pragmatic, or epistemological functions, suggesting perhaps a need to think of art outside the confines of modernism’s stylistic revolutions and formalist issues. Relatedly, the pluralism within science could be accessed as model for this enterprise. Multiple views on a phenomenon are required due to the complexity of the enterprise, and the practice of both making art and of perceiving it might be in that category. This conference seeks to bring these strands, the analytical and the continental ones, together and evaluate how to move forward with art theory in an age of globalization.
We welcome submissions on these possible questions:
1. Should we value a diversity of perspectives in art theory? If so, what is the value? If not, why not?
2. Are there aspects of art that we presume to be universal that are, in fact, culturally situated?
3. How should different ways of experiencing art be characterized?
4. What is the epistemological function of art?
5. How does the monetary role in art affect both the artist and the perceiver of art?
6. How do the mechanics of seeing (e.g., gist perception, peripheral vision, etc.) affect how we experience art?
7. How does the practice of making art relate to the first-person experience?
8. What role does Husserl’s “bracketing” have in the viewing or making of art?
9. Are there specific non-western traditions that provide a better explanatory solution for the role of art than have the competing paradigms of continental and analytic?
We welcome your participation and look forward to your contributions. Papers should not extend over 45 minutes. Q & A are 15 minutes.
To submit anonymized abstract BY JULY 15, 2024: papers: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe5c9bmoBYb3hCAb0YWWfzV0BLWbhig2PD5VeKU358VA3RKGw/viewform?usp=sf_link
September 4 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Alfredo Vernazzani (Ruhr University, Bochum)
Urban Aesthetics, Capabilities, and The Pursuit of Well-Being
September 18 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Antony Aumann (Northern Michigan University)
On Being Transformed by Literature: from Inspiration to Conversion
October 2 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Alex King (Simon Fraser University)
Exquisite Feeling
October 16 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Joe Han (New York University)
Games, Art and The Magic Circle (provisional title)
October 30 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Vanda Metzger (Bergen Community College)
Aesthetics of Ornament
November 6 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Jeffrey Strayer (Purdue University Fort Wayne)
Art and Identity: Nothing, Something, and Everything
November 13 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Laura Di Summa (William Paterson University)
Who’s Reading? Children’s Aesthetics and an Epistemology of Parenting Through Picture Books (provisional title)
November 27 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Francesco Campana (University of Padua – The New School)
Artistic Space as Political Space
—
Upon entering the building, non-CUNY attendants will need to show an ordinary ID at the front desk.
—
Elisa Caldarola
Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow
The Graduate Center, City University of New York
RTDb
Department of Philosophy and Education Sciences, University of Turin
September 4 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Alfredo Vernazzani (Ruhr University, Bochum)
Urban Aesthetics, Capabilities, and The Pursuit of Well-Being
September 18 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Antony Aumann (Northern Michigan University)
On Being Transformed by Literature: from Inspiration to Conversion
October 2 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Alex King (Simon Fraser University)
Exquisite Feeling
October 16 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Joe Han (New York University)
Games, Art and The Magic Circle (provisional title)
October 30 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Vanda Metzger (Bergen Community College)
Aesthetics of Ornament
November 6 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Jeffrey Strayer (Purdue University Fort Wayne)
Art and Identity: Nothing, Something, and Everything
November 13 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Laura Di Summa (William Paterson University)
Who’s Reading? Children’s Aesthetics and an Epistemology of Parenting Through Picture Books (provisional title)
November 27 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Francesco Campana (University of Padua – The New School)
Artistic Space as Political Space
—
Upon entering the building, non-CUNY attendants will need to show an ordinary ID at the front desk.
—
Elisa Caldarola
Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow
The Graduate Center, City University of New York
RTDb
Department of Philosophy and Education Sciences, University of Turin
September 4 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Alfredo Vernazzani (Ruhr University, Bochum)
Urban Aesthetics, Capabilities, and The Pursuit of Well-Being
September 18 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Antony Aumann (Northern Michigan University)
On Being Transformed by Literature: from Inspiration to Conversion
October 2 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Alex King (Simon Fraser University)
Exquisite Feeling
October 16 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Joe Han (New York University)
Games, Art and The Magic Circle (provisional title)
October 30 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Vanda Metzger (Bergen Community College)
Aesthetics of Ornament
November 6 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Jeffrey Strayer (Purdue University Fort Wayne)
Art and Identity: Nothing, Something, and Everything
November 13 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Laura Di Summa (William Paterson University)
Who’s Reading? Children’s Aesthetics and an Epistemology of Parenting Through Picture Books (provisional title)
November 27 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Francesco Campana (University of Padua – The New School)
Artistic Space as Political Space
—
Upon entering the building, non-CUNY attendants will need to show an ordinary ID at the front desk.
—
Elisa Caldarola
Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow
The Graduate Center, City University of New York
RTDb
Department of Philosophy and Education Sciences, University of Turin
September 4 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Alfredo Vernazzani (Ruhr University, Bochum)
Urban Aesthetics, Capabilities, and The Pursuit of Well-Being
September 18 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Antony Aumann (Northern Michigan University)
On Being Transformed by Literature: from Inspiration to Conversion
October 2 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Alex King (Simon Fraser University)
Exquisite Feeling
October 16 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Joe Han (New York University)
Games, Art and The Magic Circle (provisional title)
October 30 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Vanda Metzger (Bergen Community College)
Aesthetics of Ornament
November 6 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Jeffrey Strayer (Purdue University Fort Wayne)
Art and Identity: Nothing, Something, and Everything
November 13 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Laura Di Summa (William Paterson University)
Who’s Reading? Children’s Aesthetics and an Epistemology of Parenting Through Picture Books (provisional title)
November 27 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Francesco Campana (University of Padua – The New School)
Artistic Space as Political Space
—
Upon entering the building, non-CUNY attendants will need to show an ordinary ID at the front desk.
—
Elisa Caldarola
Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow
The Graduate Center, City University of New York
RTDb
Department of Philosophy and Education Sciences, University of Turin
September 4 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Alfredo Vernazzani (Ruhr University, Bochum)
Urban Aesthetics, Capabilities, and The Pursuit of Well-Being
September 18 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Antony Aumann (Northern Michigan University)
On Being Transformed by Literature: from Inspiration to Conversion
October 2 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Alex King (Simon Fraser University)
Exquisite Feeling
October 16 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Joe Han (New York University)
Games, Art and The Magic Circle (provisional title)
October 30 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Vanda Metzger (Bergen Community College)
Aesthetics of Ornament
November 6 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Jeffrey Strayer (Purdue University Fort Wayne)
Art and Identity: Nothing, Something, and Everything
November 13 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Laura Di Summa (William Paterson University)
Who’s Reading? Children’s Aesthetics and an Epistemology of Parenting Through Picture Books (provisional title)
November 27 (Wed), 11.45 – 1.15
Francesco Campana (University of Padua – The New School)
Artistic Space as Political Space
—
Upon entering the building, non-CUNY attendants will need to show an ordinary ID at the front desk.
—
Elisa Caldarola
Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow
The Graduate Center, City University of New York
RTDb
Department of Philosophy and Education Sciences, University of Turin
Paternal, patriarchal, and fraternal concepts, metaphors, and images have long dominated thinking about politics. But the political, Gil Anidjar argues, has always been maternal.
In a series of finely woven meditations on slavery, sovereignty, and the social contract, this book places mothers and mothering at the crux of political thought. Anidjar identifies a maternal sovereignty and a maternal contract, showing that without motherhood, there could be no constitution, preservation, or reproduction of collective existence in time. And maternal power is also power over life and death, as he reveals through a nuanced consideration of abortion.
Through the concept of the maternal, Anidjar offers new insights into abiding sources from the Bible and ancient Greece to classical and modern political philosophy—the story of Hagar and Sarah, Oedipus and his two mothers, Hegel’s dialectic of master and slave—reinterpreted in light of Black and feminist criticism, psychoanalytic theory, and autotheoretical reflection. Elegantly written and provocative, On the Sovereignty of Mothers offers the maternal as a new frame for understanding the political order.
About the Author
Gil Anidjar teaches in the Department of Religion, where his interest in religion and politics, and more specifically in political theology and political philosophy, have guided courses such “God,” “Vampires” and “Mothers” for a number of years now. He is the author, among other books, of The Jew, the Arab: A History of the Enemy (Columbia University Press 2003) and Blood: A Critique of Christianity (Columbia University Press 2014). He has also edited Jacques Derrida’s Acts of Religion. Recent essays include “The Destruction of Thought,” “That Great Mother of Danger,” “The Rights of White (In Search of a Majority),” “D—nce,” and “Learning Waters.”
About the Speakers
Amaryah Armstrong is an assistant professor of race in American religion and culture at Virginia Tech. Her research cuts across the fields of Black Studies, American Studies, Political Theology, and Continental Philosophy of Religion to explore the relationship between religion and the reproduction of race in the aftermath of 1492. She is working on two projects: Reproducing Peoplehood: On the Afterlife of Christian Orde and A Measure of Existence: On the Value of Black Theology. She also has several articles in the works on the insights of various black intellectuals (W.E.B. Du Bois, Hortense Spillers) and the relationship between black culture and political theology.
Beth A. Berkowitz is Ingeborg Rennert Chair of Jewish Studies and Professor in the Department of Religion at Barnard College. She is the author of Execution and Invention: Death Penalty Discourse in Early Rabbinic and Christian Cultures (Oxford University Press, 2006; winner of the Salo Baron prize for First Book in Jewish Studies); Defining Jewish Difference: From Antiquity to the Present (Cambridge University Press, 2012); and Animals and Animality in the Babylonian Talmud (Cambridge University Press, 2018). She is co-editor of Religious Studies and Rabbinics: A Conversation (Routledge, 2017) and a contributor to it.
Matthew Engelke is Professor and Chair of the Department of Religion and a member of the Executive Committee of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society. From 2018-2024, he also served as Director of the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life. Trained as an anthropologist, Professor Engelke’s main research interests are on Christianity, secular humanism, media theory, materiality, and semiotics. He has conducted fieldwork in Zimbabwe and in Britain. He is currently working on a book about secularity and death, based on research among humanist funeral celebrants in London.
Zehra Mehdi is a PhD candidate in South Asian Religions, working at the intersections of religion, political violence, and psychoanalysis. Her dissertation is a thick psychoanalytic ethnographic account of how Muslims as religious minorities in India facing state oppression use religion to express themselves both emotionally and politically. Focusing on the lives of Muslims in north India, her research studies how persecuted religious minorities draw upon religion as a psychic reserve to articulate their trauma, mourn their losses, and forge political resistance against the state. Her dissertation is titled, “The ‘work of Religion’: Trauma, Mourning and Political Resistance in the lives of Muslims in ‘Old Lucknow.’”