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italian-studies: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies www.gsh-education.com Deadline March 31 FIGURES OF THE o/OTHER: BROTHER, NEIGHBOUR, STRANGER, ENEMY Established in 2013 and directed by Lorenzo Chiesa and Raffaello Palumbo Mosca, the Genoa School of Humanities (GSH) offers weekly series of seminars held by scholars of literature, philosophy, and other subjects, as well as by novelists, filmmakers and psychoanalysts. In the seminars of Spring 2016 we will focus on the question of otherness from the standpoints of psychoanalysis, fiction writing, literary criticism, philosophy, and political theory. Christianity preaches the love of the neighbour, yet ultimately reduces him to a repetition of the self. Modern democracy rests on fraternity, but all too often distorts it into inconsistent ideologies of identity, which pave the way for more or less explicit forms of racism. The battle for the emancipation of woman runs itself the risk of succumbing to a global dispositif of sameness dominated by Capital and its ruthless values. Faced with unprecedented social, economical, and political crises, we are today increasingly urged to treat any kind of otherness that challenges our fragile egos as an enemy. This series of seminars aims at countering such a desolate scenario by thinking alternative figures of the other through topical interventions in the fields of psychoanalysis, literature, philosophy, and political theory. Our basic hypothesis is that there can be no sincere appreciation of the other as another subject without acknowledging a more profound, albeit immanent, kind of Other: the linguistic/discursive nature of the animal that speaks and writes; its structural incompleteness and parallel desire for completeness. Each character in a novel is a language construction but also a concrete figure of the other conveying a story and a singular worldview, which thus continuously tests ours as readers. Starting at least from Stavrogin in Dostoevsky’s Demons, narrative writing also often presents us with monstrous characters with which we are nonetheless asked to empathize. How should we treat them? Can the encounter with these figures of radical otherness constructively reshape our own political and ethical views, and, if so, in what ways? A long philosophical tradition including thinkers such as Hegel, Marx, and Sartre has insisted on the theoretical and empirical nexus between alterity and politics, focusing in particular on its agonistic status. What is today the legacy of this tradition? By way of example: how does it help us to account for the ever more evident short-circuit between fraternity and terror? Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis too deems alienation in the image and speech of the other to be a basic presupposition of our sexual identification and subjectivity in general. Feelings of love and hatred follow in an entanglement that is difficult to unravel. If aggressiveness and altruism are nothing but two sides of the same coin, is it possible to discern a kernel of otherness that suspends their dialectic? In what sense can we say that woman partly embodies this Other? And also, how can such a psychoanalytical approach to the o/Other contribute to a renewal of socio-political analysis? The GSH proposes itself as a venue where young scholars have a real possibility to deepen their knowledge, not only by attending seminars, but also by actively discussing in an informal context their own research projects with highly qualified teachers and among themselves. One of the basic ideas of the GSH is that learning is enhanced by the suspension of formalisms, hierarchies, and the principle of authority that usually define traditional academic contexts. Each day revolves around one or two presentations by an invited speaker and is enriched by roundtables, small study groups, and debates that are always attended by one or more seminar leaders. The exchange of knowledge and ideas is facilitated by the limited number of students, and by the interdisciplinary nature of the seminars. Speakers/seminar leaders at the GSH are leading international figures in their academic and extra-academic fields. They are based both in Italy and abroad. Participants are thus exposed to different cultures, teaching methods, and disciplinary perspectives. They are also enabled to establish new research networks and acquire practical information on how to access PhD and post-doctoral programmes. HOW TO REACH US Seminars are held in Genoa, Via Parini 10. From Genova Brignole railway station take bus number 43 toward Nervi. Get off in Via Albaro; cross Piazza Leopardi and you reach Via Parini. REGISTRATION FEES 6 days of seminars: €300; 4 days of seminars: €200; 2 days of seminars: €100 Please, pay by bank transfer to: Spazio Musica (reason for payment: GSH) Bank: CA.RI.GE. IBAN: IT72 M061 7501 44800000 0260 880 Payments should be received no later than March 31, 2016 PROGRAMME OF SEMINARS Monday 4 April: 10:00 Welcome and introduction to the Spring 2016 seminar series (Raffaello Palumbo Mosca & Lorenzo Chiesa) 10:30 Storie di anime sbagliate (Andrea Tarabbia) [seminar in Italian] 12:00 Q&A / Discussion 15:00 Roundtable on Andrea Tarabbia’s seminar and the question of alterity in fiction writing (chair: Raffaello Palumbo Mosca) [in Italian and English] 17:00 Drinks and nibbles Tuesday 5 April: 10:30 “The Other in contemporary literature. New Perspectives” 12:00 Q&A / Discussion 15:00 “Fraternity/Terror: Hegel, Sartre, Žižek” (Giorgio Cesarale) [seminar in English] 16:30 Q&A / Discussion 17:00 Roundtable on Raffaello Palumbo Mosca’s and Giorgio Cesarale’s seminars (chair: Lorenzo Chiesa) Wednesday 6 April: 10:30 “Aggressiveness I: From the Mirror-Stage to Geopolitics” (Lorenzo Chiesa) [seminar in English] 12:00, Q&A /Discussion 15:00 Roundtable on Lorenzo Chiesa’s seminar (chair: Davide Tarizzo) Thursday 7 April: 10:30 “Who do you think you are? Lacan, Politics, Antagonism” (Davide Tarizzo) [seminar in English] 12:00 Q&A / Discussion 15:00 Roundtable on Davide Tarizzo’s seminar (chair: Lorenzo Chiesa) Friday 8 April: 10:30 “Dying for a Signifier” (Sergio Benvenuto) [seminar in English] 12:00 Q&A / Discussion 15:00 Roundtable on Sergio Benvenuto’s seminar (chair: Raffaello Palumbo Mosca) Saturday 9 April: 10:30 “Aggressiveness II: Ambivalence, Jealousy, Destruction” (Lorenzo Chiesa) [Seminar in English] 12:00 Q&A / Discussion 15:00 Roundtable: “Which o/Other? Psychoanalysis between the Clinical and the Political” 17:00 Drinks and nibbles MORE INFORMATION [log in to unmask] Lorenzo Chiesa [log in to unmask] Raffaello Palumbo Mosca [log in to unmask] www.gsh-education.com ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: subscribe italian-studies YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: unsubscribe italian-studies to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/italian-studies