Call for Papers: PHILOSOPHY AS LITERATURE
A Special Issue of "The European Legacy"
Guest Editor: Costica Bradatan (The Honors College, Texas Tech
University)
"The European Legacy" hereby invites contributions on the topic of
"Philosophy as Literature."
The issue will feature a conversation on the relationship
philosophy-literature with GIUSEPPE MAZZOTTA (Sterling Professor of the
Humanities for Italian, Yale University), ALEXANDER NEHAMAS (Edmund N.
Carpenter II Class of 1943 Professor in the Humanities, Princeton
University) & SIMON CRITCHLEY (Professor of Philosophy, The New School
for Social Research).
"The European Legacy," published by Routledge, is the official journal
of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas:
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/10848770.asp
This special issue is scheduled for late 2009.
CALL FOR PAPERS:
Like novelists, historians or columnists, philosophers, too, are
writers. They make sophisticated use of language, and employ - whether
deliberately or not - specific rhetorical and stylistic devices, as well
as certain repertoires of metaphors, images and symbols. As writers,
philosophers also have to adjust their writing to specific audiences,
tailor it to serve specific purposes, and strategically choose one genre
over another, with all its rules, protocols, and constraints. In short,
it is crucial for philosophers - if they are to persuade readers - to
advance their ideas following certain aesthetic rules, rhetorical
procedures and strategies of persuasion. This has led some authors to
speak of "the literariness of philosophical texts" (Berel Lang) as
something indistinguishable from the philosophical substance and
relevance of those texts.
A writer's relationship to language, writing and weaving of narratives
in general is always complex. For, if we are to believe Heidegger,
although "man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language,
...in fact language remains the master of man." Therefore, it might well
be the case that - as often happen with writers - philosophers, too, go
through some peculiar experiences: sometimes, for example, they become
so completely seduced by language that they almost lose themselves in
the act of writing and come to utter whatever language compels them to;
some other times, they become so deeply caught up in their own discourse
that it becomes difficult for them to separate from it: on such
occasions they are not very different from those novelists who end up
becoming characters in the narratives they are weaving.
The implication is that a work of philosophy might well be seen as a
work of (literary) art, as an autonomous world, for whose creation the
author's personal vision, imagination, playfulness and inventiveness
play a major role. In other words, according to this view, "The Critique
of Pure Reason" is, in a fundamental way, much closer to "Hamlet" or
"The Brothers Karamazov" than to, say, "On the Origin of Species."
With this in mind, some scholars of philosophy have been in a position
to say that philosophy is nothing other than literature. Others, more
cautious, have allowed philosophy to be literature only to some degree
or under circumstances. Then, there are, of course, those for whom
philosophy does not have anything to do with literature.
We invite submissions dealing with the multifaceted relationship between
philosophy and literature, some aspects of which have been pointed to
above. Interdisciplinary approaches (combining, for example, philosophy,
literary theory and intellectual history) are particularly encouraged.
Here are only some of the possible topics:
- The employment of literary categories (genre, tropes, narrative, plot,
point of view, etc.) in the production of philosophical texts
- The genres of philosophical writing (dialogue, treatise, meditation,
journal article, etc) and their significance for the content of those
writings; how exactly the adoption of a certain genre shapes the
philosophizing in question
- Philosophical styles: styles of writing / styles of philosophizing;
"the anatomy of the philosophical style" (Berel Lang)
- The variety of literary practices in the history of philosophy
- The philosophers' rhetoric; philosophy of rhetoric / rhetoric of
philosophy
- Canons and canonization in the history of philosophy
- Author/authorship/authority in the production of philosophical texts;
author's "voice"; the use of personae, masks, masquerades
- Philosophy as expression of the self (philosophy and autobiography)
- The art of the "literary philosophers" (Plato, Augustine, Giordano
Bruno, Vico, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein,
Heidegger, Unamuno, Benjamin, Sartre, Camus, Cioran, etc)
- Recent philosophizing on the relationship philosophy-literature
(contributions dedicated to the work of Jacques Derrida, Richard Rorty,
Paul Ricoeur, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Theodor Adorno, Stanley Cavell,
Alexander Nehamas, Slavoj Zizek, Jean-Luc Nancy, Berel Lang, Iris
Murdoch, Simon Critchley, etc)
- Literary theorists/historians on the relationship
philosophy-literature (contributions dedicated to the work of Mikhail
Bakhtin, Roland Barthes, Rene Wellek, Wolfgang Iser, Hayden White,
Giuseppe Mazzotta, Umberto Eco, etc)
SUBMISSIONS GUIDELINES:
Deadline for submissions: January 1, 2009
Length: 6000 words
All articles and reviews submitted to "The European Legacy" undergo
peer-review. Manuscripts and Notes, typed double-spaced, should be
submitted to the Guest Editor as e-mail attachments, using WordPerfect
or Microsoft Word. The author's full address should be supplied as a
footnote to the title page. Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance
with the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th edition.
You can submit your contributions to: [log in to unmask] Please allow
at least 4-6 months for the review process and editorial decisions.
Receipt of materials will be confirmed by email. Unless otherwise noted
in this Call for Papers, the Instructions for Authors on the journal's
webpage are adopted for this issue:
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/journal.asp?issn=1084-8770&linktype=44
We look forward to your submissions!
Sincerely,
Costica Bradatan
Guest Editor - "The European Legacy"
Assistant Professor of Honors - Texas Tech University
http://www.webpages.ttu.edu/cbradata
***************************************
Costica Bradatan, PhD
Assistant Professor
Texas Tech University
The Honors College
PO Box 41017
Lubbock, TX 79409
Senior Editor, Janus Head
http://www.janushead.org
http://www.webpages.ttu.edu/cbradata
***************************************
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The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
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