Call for papers
Växjö University is pleased to announce the conference
Writing in a post-Derridean era
to be held in Växjö, Sweden 23–25 October 2008
How do we write today after years of criticizing the limiting and
controlling powers of logos? How have poststructuralism and Derridean
deconstructive investigations been expanded into new intellectual and
artistic territories? Have we or are we ever going to arrive at the futures
that Jacques Derrida has written about? Can we think, write and act
affirmatively, beyond the negative movement – the ”neither-nor” – upon which
even Derrida was dependent?
The conference will address these and similar questions, and we welcome
proposals that discuss whether thinking, writing, and creative forms or
practices (with or without deconstruction’s help) have or have not succeeded
in giving us theories, novels, poems, dramas, films or art that make use of
logos without making use of the violence that has been a constitutive part
of it. Possible topics and areas of investigation for twenty-minute
presentations include (but are not limited to) the following:
Writing: What are the possibilities and characteristics of writing today?
How is feminine writing possible today? Can we speak of a masculine writing
(that is removed from phallogocentrism)? How would such writing differ from
logocentric or phallogocentric writing?
Otherness: How is the other and the responsibility towards the other
addressed and expressed today in writing, arts, bodies, cultures,
technologies, media and societies?
Dichotomies: How do we negotiate and express, today, the binary pairs
(speech/writing, male/female, black/white, nature/ culture, centre/margin
etc.) that have shaped and governed our world views? How do these
dichotomies and their inherent connection to logos influence, infuriate, or
complicate our intellectual/creative practices after the surge of Derridean
criticism?
The impossible: How do we make possible and (re)present the impossible that
writers like Maurice Blanchot, Hélène Cixous, and Derrida have placed in a
beyond? How does this making possible and present take place without turning
such a making into a ground, an origin, an arche? How is the singular given
to us today without the strictures of identity?
The body: We think that it is of vital importance to trace corporeality and
materiality within the space that has been opened after almost five decades
of questioning boundaries.
Tragedy: How is tragedy constructed today, when metaphysical certainty has
long been removed? Is then tragedy possible in art or in life?
Aesthetic and ethical values: It is important to discuss whether beauty
and/or morality are achieved today and, if so, how. How does the affirmation
of beauty or goodness inform thinking and creativity?
Confirmed keynote speakers are professor Nicholas Royle (University of
Sussex) and author Thanasis Valtinos (Greece).
The call for papers is directed to writers, scholars, intellectuals, and
artists alike. We welcome proposals that are theoretical, critical,
assertive as well as pertaining to the various processes of aesthetic
creation. Proposals for artistic performances are particularly welcome. Our
aim is to establish a research area and a series of conferences that will
combine the study of different forms of writing today with the study of the
different forms of power that in one way or another inform or dictate our
ways of expressing ourselves.
The conference will have an open structure in line with its subject. Apart
from papers, we welcome alternative forms of participation: events,
installations, performances, screenings, posters, panels. The time for
either form of participation is limited to 20 minutes, followed by 10
minutes of discussion. The official language of the conference is English.
Please send pictures, abstract and/or description of your participation
(maximum 400 words) to: openwriting.hum@vxu.se
Submissions are due by 17 March 2008. You will then be contacted by the
conference committee no later than 4 April. The conference fee will be SEK
1700, including three lunches, coffee and fruit twice a day, at least one
reception, one banquet, and various artistic performances.
Please visit the website of the conference. It will be continuously updated:
http://www.vxu.se/hum/forskn/konferens/openwriting