Call for Papers: ICNAP 2023

ICNAP XIV: AFFECT IN DIALOGUE | A CONFERENCE ON PHENOMENOLOGY OF AFFECT

May 30th – June 1st 2023 | Center for Phenomenological Psychology and Aesthetics | University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Venue: City Campus, Øster Farigmagsgade 5a, 1353 Copenhagen K

Submission of abstracts and registration are now open for the Interdisciplinary Coalition of North American Phenomenologists’ (ICNAP) conference on the phenomenology of affect. The conference is hosted by Center for Phenomenological Psychology and Aesthetics (CPPA) at Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen.

Affect has been a central theme of inquiry throughout the history of phenomenology. As the coloring of our experiences, it relates to aesthetics, ethics, psychopathology, social justice and many other areas of investigation. We call for abstracts on research concerning the various questions within the topic of phenomenology of affect.

Questions include, but are not limited to:

• What is affect?
• How does affectivity emerge?
• How does affectivity relate to the body?
• What is the role of affectivity in other dimensions of experience, such as perception, imagination, and judgement?
• How can the experience of affect be approached methodologically?

Confirmed speakers include Claire Petitmengin (Institut Mines-Télécom Business School & Husserl Archives École Normale Supérieure), Sara Heinämaa (University of Jyväskylä), and Susi Ferrarello (Cal State East Bay).

While we welcome submissions relating to the phenomenology of affect, we also welcome submissions on other topics within the scope of phenomenological scholarship and interdisciplinary phenomenology.

Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be sent to conference@icnap.org on February 1st 2023 at the latest. Please include name of author and title of the presentation. Information on acceptance of abstracts should be ready 1st of March 2023.

There will be a 1290 DKK registration fee for non-student participants and a 1000 DKK fee for students (bachelor, master, and PhD). The price includes conference dinner at a restaurant in Copenhagen. Sign up for the conference in the menu on the left on 15th of March 2023 at the latest. See more information here: https://eventsignup.ku.dk/icnap2023/conference

New Publication: Carol Bove's Kristeva in America: Reimagining the Exceptional

Carol Bové of the University of Pittsburgh has published a new volume on the influence of Julia Kristeva's work on American literary and film studies. The text considers "how critics in the United States receive Kristeva's work on French feminism, semiotics, and psychoanalytic writing in complex, controversial ways." Her analysis includes attention to the work of Hortense Spillers, Jack Halberstam, Paule Marshall, Bram Stoker, Kelly Oliver and Frances Restuccia. Now available from Palgrave Macmillan. 

Julia Kristeva's "Interpreting Radical Evil"

At the 2016 meeting of The Kristeva Circle, Julia Kristeva gave a keynote lecture entitled "Interpreting Radical Evil." Download it here in English and French! 

 

Feminism is Flourishing at the University of Memphis

Though Julia Kristeva has often expressed ambivalence toward feminism and feminist movements, feminist philosophers and theorists have been among the leading scholars, especially in the United States, to engage with her work. Kristeva’s themes, from the abject to her revaluation of motherhood, have been both appropriated and attacked by feminist philosophers. This tradition makes the Department of Philosophy at the University of Memphis especially suited to host this year’s Kristeva Circle meeting.

            Feminist philosophy has a strong home in Memphis. Though the push to include diverse figures in course syllabi is not department-wide, many professors and graduate instructors, each in her or his own way, incorporate female and feminist philosophers into their undergraduate courses. This is not just true of introductory courses. The department regularly runs courses on feminist philosophy at the upper-undergraduate and graduate-levels. Professor Mary Beth Mader, for example, has taught courses, such as “Continental Philosophy” and “The Family, Gender and Sexuality,” which have had strong components of feminist philosophy. Courses like “Philosophy of Law” and “Philosophy of Literature” taught by Professor Verena Erlenbusch and “African American Philosophy” by Professor Luvell Anderson also incorporate diverse, feminist figures. Professor Deborah Tollefsen recently led a graduate seminar on the epistemologies of ignorance. Several years ago, former Memphis professor, Dr. Sarah Clark Miller, led a seminar on the ethics of relationships which incorporated many feminist challenges to canonical ethical theories and inspired the following year’s Philosophy Graduate Student Association Conference on “Feminism and Liberalism.” Last semester, Professor Shaun Gallagher taught a seminar on action and interaction in which the works of fifteen female philosophers were studied. And two recent seminars led by Professor Pleshette DeArmitt have explicitly taken up feminist themes, one on Kristeva’s most recent work, and the other on understandings of narrative and subjectivity by female and feminist philosophers.

In addition to bringing feminist themes into the classroom, Memphis is home to Philosophical Horizons, a volunteer program in which students from the department discuss philosophical themes with students in local K-12 schools and incarcerated persons at the Shelby County Correctional Facility. The program’s aims of bringing philosophy to underrepresented persons and encouraging more diverse thinkers to enter the field of philosophy is a fundamentally feminist one.

In these ways, the Department of Philosophy at the University of Memphis promises to be an excellent host for the 2015 Kristeva Circle.

Video: Kristeva at the Chicago Humanities Festival

Julia Kristeva partcipated in the 2013 Chicago Humanities Festival last month. A video of the event "On Julia's Kristeva's Couch" is now available here. 

Julia Kristeva is one of France's most admired intellectuals and one of the world's leading psychoanalytic thinkers. In the tradition of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan, she has probed the vicissitudes of human nature as analyst and cultural critic, arriving at a novel conception of the subject as always in crisis. Developed in a series of books on such topics as abjection, desire, and melancholia, Kristeva's corpus has unparalleled influence across the contemporary humanities. Kristeva joins Northwestern University English professor Jules Law for a conversation about her remarkable life and work.

This program is generously underwritten by Ellen Stone Belic and features an artist, writer, or other creative authority reflecting on her extraordinary career. It is also presented in partnership with the Consulate General of France in Chicago.