CALL FOR PAPERS


A Conference on
TERROR(ISM) AND AESTHETICS
University of Szeged (Hungary), September 22−24, 2011

Confirmed keynote speaker:
Prof. Samuel Weber
(Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Northwestern
University, Chicago-Evanston, IL, USA, and Co-Director of the Paris
Program in Critical Theory)


Hosted by the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of
Szeged (in association with the Section of Language and Literature of
the Szeged Branch of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), the conference
will focus on the multifaceted and at times uncanny relation between the
political notion and discourse of terror(ism) and the tradition of
aesthetic thought from antiquity to the present.

The prime goal of the conference is to provide new critical perspectives
and conceptual tools for the analysis of the complex and controversial
phenomenon called “terrorism” from the direction of aesthetic theory,
and thereby to displace the far too militarized rendering of the issue.
The insights of historical and political studies, as well as the
practical demands of security politics are fully acknowledged. However,
an aesthetic approach might complement and critically enhance such
investigations and efforts. Aesthetics is to be understood here in a
broad sense, including theories of passion and affect, as well as
theories of rhetoric and mediation. The scope of the conference will
therefore not be limited to “artistic” representation, but inversely,
the “artifactuality” implicit in all modes of representation will be
rigorously considered.

This implies, among others, an analysis of the diverse theorizations of
“terror” and of related concepts (catharsis, sublime, sympathy, fear,
distance etc.) in ancient poetical and rhetorical discourse (Plato,
Aristotle, Demetrius, Cicero, Longinus etc.), in early modern aesthetic
speculations (Hobbes, Milton, Boileau, Le Brun, Diderot, Addison,
Baillie, Burke, Mendelssohn, Lessing, Kant, Schiller etc.), as well as
in 19-20th century modernist theory and praxis (Jarry, Artaud, Bataille,
Blanchot, Newman, Hajas etc.). Contemporary critical discourse,
including acknowledged political experts (Jenkins, Schmid, Laqueur etc.)
as well as philosophers or theoreticians (Derrida, Habermas,
Baudrillard, Weber, Redfield etc.) will, of course, also be involved in
the discussions.

Related issues could include, for instance:
- politics of feeling (pathos, sympathy, telepathy, apathy)
- terrorism as figural rhetoric (dissimulation)
- terrorism as performative rhetoric (symbolic action)
- poetics (verbal, visual, auditory, and performative modes of terror)
- theatricality and performance art
- calculation (scripts, scenarios, effects)
- the event and its mediation (or the event in and of mediation)
- aesthetic distance, negative pleasure
- danger and safety
- networking (franchise, proliferation, metastasis), and its relation to
language
- asymmetry (war/terrorism, conventional/unconventional warfare)
- suicide and autoimmunity
- movement in politics and art (the question of -isms)

Other points of focus, including literary and artistic works as well as
individual analyses of specific critical notions or texts, are also welcome.

Proposals are invited for 20-minute presentations. The primary language
of the conference will be English, but proposals for papers in German or
French are also expected and will undergo equal perusal. We envision the
edited publication of the conference proceedings in both electronic and
printed format. Proposals (with an abstract of max. 250 words, including
name and affiliation, as well as the indication of AV needs) are to be
sent via email to the chief organizer György Fogarasi
([log in to unmask]).

Deadline for the submission of proposals: May 31, 2011. A notice of
acceptance will be sent out by June 15, 2011. No registration fee will
be required. All costs (travel, accommodation, and other) shall however
be covered by the participants.

For information on travel and accommodation, or for program details,
please visit our website (www.complit.u-szeged.hu/conference.php), or
send a message to [log in to unmask]

The Organizing Committee:
György Fogarasi, PhD, Department of Comparative Literature
Jon Roberts, PhD, Department of American Studies
Katalin Kovács, PhD, Department of French Studies
Ervin Török, PhD, Department of Visual Culture and Literary Theory
Zoltán Cora, Department of English Studies

Student Assistants:
Zoltán Gyulai, Katalin Pál, István Zoltán Szabó

--
========================================
György FOGARASI
Chair, Associate Professor
Department of Comparative Literature
University of Szeged, Faculty of Arts
H-6722 Szeged, Egyetem u. 2. (Hungary)
Phone: +36-62-544828, Fax: +36-62-544244
www.complit.u-szeged.hu
========================================

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