Call for papers

!!! The call for papers is closed. Attending without presenting is still possible. See below for registration details !!!

A striking feature of Deleuze’s writings is that one never finds a sharp distinction between philosophy and art. Within Deleuze’s philosophy, art – taken here in its widest sense to include media, popular culture and the creative industries – is always already present in discussions on politics, language, science, and metaphysics. By no means does this entail that art is reduced to a second-rate phenomenon. On the contrary, a well-known Deleuzian dictum holds that the work of art must be able to stand on its own. For Deleuze, philosophical thought itself must always be a creative act, and the arts are privileged laboratories in which to learn from and experiment with creative processes. This makes Deleuze’s philosophy an ever fresh and relevant source from which to investigate not just the arts, but also their relations to a host of contemporary issues.

When philosophy, art, and experiment align, our concern is no longer the mere reflection on, but first and foremost the very production of reality. Approaching art as a productive rather than reflective force provokes questions concerning artistic practice and the creative process itself. Issues at stake are the relation of art to pedagogy, politics and ethics; the (non-)distinctions between artist-spectator, museum-public space, and amateurs-professionals; the relation of art to technology and the digital revolution of today; ‘classical’ notions of goodness, beauty, style, and taste; and perhaps above all our co-constitutive relation to color, sound, matter, form, narrative, and movement. Also of interest is the often discussed predicament of contemporary art and thought, in which sincere inventiveness, exploration, emancipation, engagement, and creativity are permanently at risk of regressing into hedonism, relativism, nihilism, and commercialization.

We invite paper proposals concerning these and related issues. We especially welcome papers operating on the intersection of theory and practice, in which a genre, style, medium, oeuvre, or individual work is used as a ‘case’ to clarify, mobilize, or transform concepts or passages in Deleuze’s work, or vice versa.

Submissions should consist of a single PDF or .doc(x) file including a 300 word abstract, three to five keywords, your name and contact information, and a short biography.

* Please send your submission to DeleuzeNL2015@gmail.com before the 15th of March, 2015. Please use the subject line “Abstract [your surname]”. We aim to inform you about the result of our selection process just after Easter in April 2015.

* If you want to attend without presenting, please register via DeleuzeNL2015@gmail.com . Please use the subject line “Registration [your surname]”.

This one-day conference will consist of 3 panels with 3 speakers each, a lunch, a keynote address at the end of the day, and a concluding reception. Accepted speakers can sign up for a conference dinner at their own expense. The fee for speaking at or attending the conference is € 15,-.

Keynote speaker:
Professor Mark B. Hansen, Duke University

Scientific committee:
Prof. R. Braidotti, Utrecht University; Dr.ir. A. Radman, TU Delft; Dr. S. van Tuinen, Erasmus University Rotterdam; Dr. R. Dolphijn, Utrecht University.

Organization:
The conference is organized by prof.dr. Anneke Smelik and Arjen Kleinherenbrink, with the support of the Radboud University’s Institute for Historical, Literary, and Cultural Studies and Faculty of Philosophy, Theology, and Religious Studies.