Royal Holloway\, University of London and the London Post-Kantian Seminar host a one-day conference entitled &ldquo\;Losing Oneself: Self-Alienation in Post-Kantianism and Beyond&rdquo\;. The event receives funding from the Mind Association and Royal Holloway.
\nIt is among the most human and yet most dehumanizing experiences to lose oneself&mdash\;to suffer self-alienation. This can be brought on by everyday emotions like shame or guilt about a job done badly or a friend left hanging\; it can be a consequence of inhumane conditions of labour\; it can go along with traumatic or violent events\; and it can be a core experience of those going through persecution\, internment\, and civilizational collapse. Crucially\, even the mere reflection on oneself as human can engender self-alienation. The phenomenon of self-alienation thus has an array of aspects that range from the psychological via the social\, political\, existential\, and metaphysical\, to the aesthetic and literary.
\nIn modern times\, an important philosophical tradition that responds to this vulnerability of human life is post-Kantianism broadly construed: first taking center stage in Fichte\, Hegel\, and Marx\, the problem of self-alienation was further developed by Arendt\, the Frankfurt School\, and then post-Wittgensteinian authors like Cavell\, Diamond\, and Crary. The problem also reaches beyond post-Kantianism and is at the center of current debates in political philosophy\, philosophy of action\, feminism\, \;philosophy of gender\, \;aesthetics\, and the philosophy of epistemic injustice. This conference brings together authors from within and beyond the post-Kantian tradition\, as well as junior and senior researchers.
\nThe event is free and open to all! To register and for any inquiries please contact: jens.pier@rhul.ac.uk.
\nSpeakers and Respondents:
Benedict Blunt (Oxford) \;
Diana Craciun (UCL)
Lizzy Holt (UCL)
Thomas Khurana (Potsdam)
Quill Kukla (Georgetown/Hanover)
Spencer Alexandria Nabors (Georgetown)
Jens Pier (Royal Holloway)
Francey Russell (Barnard/Columbia)
James Ternent (Cambridge)
Schedule:
10:00am: \; \; Introduction
10.15am: \; \; &ldquo\;The Aesthetics of Opacity with Kant and Sontag&rdquo\;\, Francey Russell (Barnard/Columbia)
\; \; \; \; Response: Benedict Blunt (Oxford)
11:45am: \; \; Coffee
12:00pm: \; \; &ldquo\;Driving Around Alone at Night: A Case for a Theory of Action?&rdquo\;\, Thomas Khurana (Potsdam)
\; \; \; \; Response: Diana Craciun (UCL)
1:30pm: \; \; \; \; Lunch
3:00pm: \; \; \; \; &ldquo\;Code-Switching and Masking: Shape Shifting vs. Self-Alienation?&rdquo\;\, Quill Kukla (Georgetown/Hanover) and Spencer Alexandria Nabors (Georgetown)
\; \; \; \; Response: Lizzy Holt (UCL)
4:30pm: \; \; \; \; Coffee \;
4:45pm: \; \; \; \; &ldquo\;Creatures Void of Form: Hegel\, Radical Self-Alienation\, and Recognitive Injustice&rdquo\;\, Jens Pier (Royal Holloway)
\; \; \; \; Response: James Ternent (Cambridge)
6:15pm: \; \; \; \; Open discussion and closing
7:00pm: \; \; \; \; Conference dinner