CFP: Philosophy of final words | mongrel matter, melbourne

bidding an honest, last farewell calls for great courage and, arguably, a singular sense of clarity; it's a heuristic message worthy of our attention, particularly if we consider authors and artists who created their own worldviews for us, facing death head-on 

during this ordeal, there’s nothing to lose and hide – on the folded edges dividing death and life, every thing matters

it is therefore surprising that no collective philosophical study of this critical lacuna has been undertaken to date (see Lewis 2016, Ward 2004; cf. Critchley 2008)

based in melbourne, mongrel matter - mongrelmatter.com - welcomes contributions to an open book, intended to consist of free-styled responses to a range of farewell messages to posterity: 

- death-bed, e.g. Jacques Derrida, James Baldwin, Chairman Mao, J.-P. Sartre, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gertrude Stein, Karl Marx, Christina Rossetti, Friedrich Nietzsche, Oscar Wilde [taken], Ralph Waldo Emerson [taken], Henry David Thoreau, Soren Kierkegaard [taken], Charles Darwin, Johann Goethe, Heinrich Heine, Mary Wollstonecraft, J.J. Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, Machiavelli, Rabelais, Plotinus, Zeno, Epicurus, Zhuangzi, Gautama Buddha, Confucius, Cyrus the Elder

- death-row, e.g. George Floyd, Dostoevsky, Louis XVI, Simon Frazer reciting Horace, Joan of Arc, Hypatia, Archimedes, Pythagoras

- suicide notes, e.g. David Foster Wallace [taken], Kurt Cobain [taken], Arthur Koestler, Sid Vicious, Yukio Mishima [taken], Walter Benjamin [taken], Stefan Zweig, Virginia Woolf [taken], Sergey Yesenin [taken], Vincent van Gogh, Socrates, Diogenes the Dog, Cleopatra

+ anything we've missed!

now, many instances of farewell works seek atonement – a paradox of being and non-being together – pushing the boundaries of our book

specifically, memorial ceremonies and artefacts provide conditions to engage in the event of one's demise – a possibility of balance in a work already incorporating the unknowable:

- eulogy, e.g. Jean-Paul Sartre for Albert Camus, Jacques Derrida for Gilles Deleuze, Oprah Winfrey for Rosa Sparks, John Cleese for Graham Chapman; Ben Jonson for Shakespeare

- headstone epitaph (incl. interest in tombstones as works of art/nature), e.g. Michel Foucault, Albert Camus, Hryhoriy Skovoroda

contributions of any length are welcome, authors are encouraged to find a form of expression fitting their subject matter 

all contributions will be subject to double-friendly peer review process

confirmed authors: 

David Konstan (New York University)

Ken-Ichi Sasaki (University of Tokyo)

Justin Clemens (Melbourne University) 

Stefano Marino (University of Bologna)

Jon Roffe (Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy)

Joshua M. Hall (University of Alabama) 

Matthew Kruger (Boston College)

Christine Carmela Ramos (Mapua University)

Jones Irwin (Dublin City University) 

Anita Lunić (University of Split)

Zahra Rashid (Lahore University)

Xiao Ouyang (Peking University) 

Majid Heidari (Ferdowsi, Iran) 

Joel White (Dundee University) 

Fraser Logan (University of Warwick)

Martin Boszorad (Constantine the Philosopher University) 

Torgeir Fjeld (Ereignis Center for Philosophy and the Arts) 

Philippe Roepstorff-Robiano (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf)

Jamie Davies (GCAS College Dublin)

Zachary Poston (Texas State University)

Kalenga Leon Kalumba (independent) 

Ali Ben Nekhi (independent)

Rob Marks (independent)

Lars Straehler-Pohl (independent)

Rahenna Markova (independent)

expressions of interest: ongoing 

email: Dr Valery Vino at [email protected] 

submissions due: late February '24 

open e-publication: April '24