CFP: Literature as an Epistemological Model

Call for Papers

Literature as an Epistemological Model

International interdisciplinary conference

Organized by

the Literaturarchiv Saar-Lor-Lux-Elsass of Sarrland University

and Centre de Recherche en Poétique, Histoire littéraire et linguistique (CRPHLL)

of the University of Pau

March 26th/27th, 2015 in Pau (France)

Since Plato’s dialogues, each period of Western thought has (re)evaluated and (re)determined the relationship of interdependence and of conflict between literature and philosophy. However, it is not until the Enlightenment that literature is bestowed with a new and important role: From this time on, it is no longer simply a means of representation, but also serves as an epistemological model. For the thinkers of the Enlightenment, literature was to play a fundamental role in terms of a medium of education and of perfectibility in the context of  popular and moral philosophy, but above all in the context of the correlation between thought and action which notably takes on a programmatic character with the Revolution of 1789. At the same time, the new concept of scientificity introduced by Rationalism brings about a clearer and clearer separation between esthetic discourse and epistemological discourse. It is in this context that the conference sets out to analyze the relationship between literature and philosophy in Germany and in France in the “long” 19th century. We are particularly interested in (a) the problem of the growing skepticism as concerns philosophical knowledge and language, (b) the competition between knowledge specific to poetry and knowledge specific to philosophy, (c) the potentialities and limits of knowledge (d) the conceptualizations of knowledge in literature and of the epistemological potential of literature, (e) the claims made by poetry of being able to access the/one/certain truth(s) and knowledge, and (f) the analysis of the mediality of literature in the sense of the representation and of the representability of metaphysical issues.

Abstracts (1500 characters maximum) and a brief bio-bibliography are to be sent before October 31st, 2014 to

Sebastian Hüsch

Centre de Recherche en poétique, histoire littéraire et linguistique (CRPHLL)

Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour

email: [email protected]

and

Privatdozent Dr. phil. Sikander Singh

Literaturarchiv Saar-Lor-Lux-Elsass

Universität des Saarlandes | Université de la Sarre

email: [email protected]

Conference languages : French, English, German

A publication of contributions is planned after acceptance by the editorial committee.