FYI and sorry for cross-posting

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THE FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY AND THE CULTURAL CENTRE OF SOFIA UNIVERSITY

in partnership with

Faculty of Philosophy, University of Guanajuato
Center for Philosophy, University of Tokyo
Faculty of Humanities, National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy”
Department of Comparative Literature, Istanbul Bilgi University

ANNOUNCE

CALL FOR PAPERS

for an international interdisciplinary conference

THE ENLIGHTENMENT FROM A NON-WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

THEMATIC AREA OF THE CONFERENCE

The Enlightenment is an intellectual and philosophical high point of
European historical development. It created powerful ideas and ideals –
such as freedom, moral law, empowered, autonomous citizenship, fraternity
and equality, representative democracy and tolerance, along with the ideas
of progress and rational governmentality of society. At the same time,
however, it also legitimized the Eurocentric domination of the world,
serving as universal justification for all imperial conquests, for the
destruction of local traditions, for ruthless technologization and
exploitation of various non-European cultures and the forceful export of
“civilization,” and “modernity”.

Today, the general consequences of the Enlightenment seem to be ambiguous:
spread of literacy, scientific and economic progress, rule of law,
emancipation movements along with centuries of colonial rule, violent
political changes, disastrous world and local wars. The Enlightenment ideas
have inspired several revolutions – political, philosophical and
technological. They are the normative basis of democracy, yet of free
market, technology and capitalism, too; they legitimize colonization, yet
also anti-colonial and anti-capitalist resistance movements. Philosophers,
writers and public figures of the Enlightenment, along with agents of mass
education and literacy, spread across the world the standards of human
dignity, sovereignty and emancipation, which are still enshrined in the
legal and moral order of the “global present”. However, their dark doubles
– eurocentrism, nationalism, racism, xenophobia, patriarchalism – are
rooted in the very same intellectual, moral and political project and
continue to shape our present as well.

All this shows that the Enlightenment is still very much a topical,
controversial issue that has important political and intellectual
implications; it raises questions and doubts – is Modernity a finished or
still an unfinished project? In this strict sense, thinking about the
Enlightenment and Modernity means not only thinking about our own origin;
it means justifying our present and designing our future.

This conference aims not only to rethink those already known and inevitable
contradictions, but also to de-Europeanize the history of the Enlightenment
and its contemporary condition: to offer new perspectives from the
“peripheries” which will, as we hope, re-examine the ambivalent legacy of
the Enlightenment in a new heuristic way.

We propose the following possible topics:

   - The historical fate of the Enlightenment in non-European peripheries.
   Political, public and cultural effects and their development. Agents,
   channels, discourses, events, personalities.
   - Enlightenment in non-European peripheries/cultures/modernities:
   imported or autochthonous?
   - Are there specific contexts and traditions – local, pre-Enlightenment,
   indigenous; what is the specificity of the regional modernizations?
   - Internal “peripheral” discussions about Enlightenment ideas and
   ideals. What are the local variants of general disputes and controversies?
   - Reception of Eurocentric metanarratives of the Enlightenment and
   reception of the great philosophers and writers of the Enlightenment: their
   function, fate and local specificity in non-European contexts during
   colonialism.
   - The Enlightenment and post-colonial studies. Differences between
   non-European and non-Western perspectives. Revision of the stereotype
   “non-Western perspective.” Is “periphery” a good concept and a real
   alternative? The ideas and values of the Enlightenment in the contexts of
   colonization, post-colonial condition, self-colonization.
   - The problems of desecularization of the world and the critique of the
   Enlightenment. Do we need a revision of the secular world order?
   - What is the legacy of the Enlightenment in a global world where
   freedom, the power of reason, and human dignity are endangered? Can we
   defend and redefine those idea(l)s today?
   - What are the different types of anti-Enlightenment movements: ideas,
   personalities, debates, events? How do peripheries question and challenge
   the Eurocentric universalism of the Enlightenment?
   - What are the local answers to these global issues: what happened after
   the critique and crisis of the metanarratives, are there the new
   alternative political projects, how should one react to the crisis of the
   imagination and the absence of neoliberal alternatives?
   - End of the Enlightenment? The local and historical exhaustion of the
   Enlightenment wand of all its ideas, utopias, concepts and discourses. Are
   these local crises a sign of global decomposition of the Enlightenment
   project
   - Utopia and the legacy of the Enlightenment. What is the fate of utopia
   after the collapse of state communism, in the neoliberal present of “no
   alternative”? What are the ways and models of imagining the future today?


PARTICIPATION TERMS

The conference will be held from 23 to 27 May 2016 in Bulgaria. The main
part of the conference will take place at Sofia University, Sofia, on 23,
24 and 25 May. The second part (the Doctoral School) will be held in the
rest-house in the area of Gyolechitsa in the Rila Mountain on 25, 26 and 27
May. The official language of the conference will be English.

The expected participants should be experts in philosophy, cultural
studies, cultural history, anthropology, sociology, literary and art
criticism and other branches of humanities. The call is also open for young
scholars and PhD students who will take part in the Doctoral School, led by
prominent scholars.

Application deadline: 1 February 2016

Applications (accompanied by a topic within the thematic areas of the
conference, a 300-word abstract, a short bibliography and a scholarly CV)
should be sent via e-mail [log in to unmask] The
Conference Committee (consisting of senior scholars, representatives of the
partner universities) will select and announce the final list of the
participants.

The Host organization will cover the costs of accommodation for all
selected participants (invited keynote speakers, senior speakers and PhD
students). The travel costs should be covered by the participants.



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M.

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