Corps - Collectivité - Coopération // Körper - Kollektivität - Kooperation

"A philosophy that does not use its body as an active platform for vital transformation is an empty task. Ideas are not enough. Art is not enough. Destiny is not enough. Good intention is not enough. Sympathy is not enough. All philosophy is necessarily an art of self-vivisection, if not of dissection of the other or of otherness. An exercise in self-cutting, of incision of one's own subjectivity. When the love of vivisection escapes from one's own body and is directed towards the body of others, the body of the collectivity, the body of the Earth, the body of the Universe, philosophy is transformed into politics."

Testo Junki, Paul B. Preciado

Where does thought happen? Embodied epistemologies have, in the last years, pointed to the necessity of the situatedness of knowledge. No judgement comes from an abstract subject spinning in a void. There is no view from nowhere. The space of assertion has been multiplied. Since the locus of speech is decentralized, how do we talk to each other? How do we learn to speak the tongues of the many? 

The spe/acialization and professionalization of thought in global academic contexts disassociates bodies of collectivity. The multiplication of spaces for thought runs therefore the risk to become particularized, producing discourses enclosed in themselves. Thus, we ask, how are epistemologies situated inside and outside academia? A re-distribution of inwards and outwards is necessary. Specialized thought needs to become countered by effective co-operation. Individualization needs to become countered by forming collective bodies.

The Colloquium for so-called french philosophy calls for perspectives on forms of constructive collectivities where thought and praxis are brought together. Academic presentations as well as experimental formats are welcomed. We would like to open spaces to exercise the various forms in which thought acts.

For the past six years, the colloquium has been organized by students of Bonn University trying to highlight neglected philosophical projects in that institution, with a focus on the so-called french philosophy. However, contributions are not bound to this field.

The events will take place in June and July, in person and/or online. If you would like to participate send an email by June 8th to: [email protected]