LITERARY TRANSCENDENCES
7-8 October 2010, University of Tampere, Finland
Abstract submission dead line: 2 April 2010
Keynote speakers: *Kevin Hart* (Edwin B. Kyle Professor of Christian Studies, University of Virginia) and *Shira Wolosky* (Professor of American Studies and English Literature, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
CALL FOR PAPERS
The conference *Literary Transcendences* welcomes contributions on the contemporary notions and significance of transcendence, be they reinterpretations of literary, philosophical or theological texts and traditions, or novel theoretical openings.
In the wake of the “immanent turns” in philosophy and cultural studies in the 1970s and 1980s transcendence was deemed a relic and a hierarchical concept that established false authority and even spiritual tyranny. In recent years thinkers in diverse fields have turned to transcendence again, not in order to rehabilitate but to rearticulate ‘transcendence’ as a concept for epistemological, literary and aesthetic criticism. It seems that philosophies of all-inclusive immanence repeat the same hegemonic mistakes for which thinkers of transcendence were previously criticized. Hence immanence needs to be radically revised and cracked open — not in order to establish other worlds or any deeper realities with their paramount Others, but so as to reveal ontological and epistemological blind spots unattainable by means of ordinary language and thought.
Despite the common conception of transcendence as a plane beyond language, language is a fundamental locus at which the divide between the immanent and the transcendent is determined. Language is also where the divide itself is always already suspended. Conversely, the very suspension applies to plain immanence too: when the place of transcendence is disputed, the ontology of immanence becomes a matter of negotiation. How, then, is transcendence written today and what is at stake?
The organizers welcome proposals for contributions (max. 400 words, for a 20 minute paper + 10 minute discussion time). The abstract and a short bio-bibliography should be e-mailed to
transcendences(at)uta.fi *by 2 April 2010*.
Speakers will be notified by the end of April. Full conference info will be available by the end of May.
ORGANISERS:
The Project *Literature, Transcendence and Avant-garde* www.littravant.eu
Department of Literature and the Arts (University of Tampere, Finland)
Further information: paivi.mehtonen(at)uta.fi