LLAMADO A PONENCIA: Conferencias/Seminarios
“The Human Life and the Sacred”. International Conference. Università Ca’ Foscari de Venezia. 9^th -10^th December 2010
Confirmed speakers: Robert Spaemann, Mary Ann Glendon, Carmelo Vigna, Rafael Alvira, Raquel Lázaro, Jaume Aurell, Susy Zanardo, José Mª Beneyto, Montserrat Herrero
Spaemann has repeatedly pointed out that one of the concepts which deserve particular attention by philosophers in the 21st century is that of life and, more specifically, that of human life. This concept is usually associated with qualifications such as: dignity or sacred. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) echoed this in its third article, where it says: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person”. We all agree in principle with the content of this article. However, actual facts such as active and passive euthanasia, prenatal diagnosis, the legalization of abortion, experimentation with embryos, the possibility of cloning, the loss of the meaning of the sacred in society, the lack of recognition of something given and originally gratuitous surrounding life, etc., compel us to formulate the question again whether we all have the same conception of human life.
For many, abortion, euthanasia, clonation, etc., insofar they are, with the aid of technology and of science, open possibilities for human action, do not pose any threat to life, but reveal precisely a way of living worthy of it, since what defines the human would be the unlimited use of our freedom, which does not acknowledge a human nature, neither in biological nor in metaphysical terms. Others, in turn, think that such possibilities are not justified by the mere fact of their technical feasibility, but that in order to understand what life is, besides considering science as a procedural knowledge, which makes possible to know the different vital processes always better, we need some kind of foundational and normative knowledge, such as philosophical knowledge, both in its metaphysical and its ethical sense. As a matter of fact, it does not seem to be sufficient to know merely how life works and how it can be interrupted, eliminated, duplicated, etc.
In an interview published in /Politische Studien/ (Heft 372, Jahg. 51, Juli/August 2000, pp. 9-22) Spaemann said that “The reasons which lead to deprive some persons of the status of personhood e.g. the not yet born, small children, severely mentally handicapped people has nothing to do with science. They are based in presuppositions that have been argued in the history of thought which are clearly related to the withdrawal of religion”. Since this [religion] provided people in the first term with the possibility of dealing with suffering and death in their full meaning.
In the making of society, religion has played, among other roles, that of providing an answer to the limits with which life confronts itself, namely sickness and death. In this sense, religion became a knowledge of salvation and it provided the ultimate sense of the totality. Together with the desacralization of social life that began in the 18th century, religion has been progressively relegated to an increasingly more private sphere. On the contrary, in the public sphere, the presence of political power and that of the market, on the one hand, and of new scientific and technical knowledge, on the other hand, have been growing. How far the State and the market, the same as science and technology, can take responsibility for the meaning of human life and give adequate answers to the paradoxes that suffering and death keep on perplexing man with? Can the State make use of technology and scientific knowledge in order to regulate population according to its objectives? Is the market allowed either to encourage or to deter the increase of population, depending on its interests? Is there any ethical limit to the experimentation with the different phases of human life? Is it possible to preserve a sacral sphere for the human apart from the presence of religion in social life? What happens when politics assumes the domain which is proper to religion? On the other hand, however, did not religion cause so many times violent manifestations against life: suicide attacks, bloody confrontations between ethnicities and so far? In which sense can religion be the safeguard of the sacredness of human life?
Michel Foucault has brought into light part of this problematic. Already in the 70 he realized that the problem of life was a challenge for political struggles and economic strategies. According to the French author, from the 18th century on, the processes of knowledge and power take life into account in view of its control and manipulation. Life can be modified. With his concept of “biopolitics”, Foucault refers to the possibility of governing and producing new forms of life. The technology we are in possession of today, if used with discipline, allows us to do so.
Information about the call for papers:
Admissible languages: Spanish, English, German or Italian.
Paper submission to the Organizing Committee: Please send an abstract (600-800 words) before 15^th October to mherrero@unav.es. You will receive an answer regarding the admission of the paper in 10-15 days.
Maximum presentation time: 20 minutes.
“Biopolitics and the Humanities: States of Subjectivity”
2010 Rice University Graduate Symposium in Houston, Texas
September 17th – 18th, 2010
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Timothy C. Campbell*
Submission deadline: June 15th, 2010.
Biopower, according to Michel Foucault, is the application and impact of sovereign power and governmentality on all aspects of political and biological life. The study of biopolitics invites interdisciplinary connections between various theoretical approaches and disciplines among the humanities. Since Machiavelli, the role of the sovereign and its ability to control and manage populations has led to conflicting understandings of biological matter’s relationship to political subjectivities. Looking at the ways in which biological bodies navigate, interrupt or are complicit in the sovereign power’s machinations of control can complicate both theoretical constructions of the body and also practical debates regarding the impact of
authority.
We invite submissions that examine and play with connections between sovereign power, politics, biological and institutional subjectivities and identities from a variety of disciplines and approaches including:
feminism, sexuality, gender, literature, history, anthropology, philosophy, architecture, performance, political science, linguistics, physics and mathematics.
Possible paper topics might include:
• Overlapping or competing claims of sovereignty and governmentality vis-à-vis biopower,
• Sexual identity roles and their institutional and political management,
• Enslavement and histories of subjectivity,
• Economic imperialism and the 3rd world,
• Literature as a laboratory for deconstructing ideology.
• Neoliberalism and the economy of biological bodies,
• Medicine and health care as a means of subject to government interaction,
• History of mental health,
• Graphic representations of populations to signifying biological relations to power,
• Global tourism and 1st, 2nd and 3rd world perspectives,
• The configuring of space to manage the biological body’s relation to power.
We are now accepting abstracts of 250 words or less to rice.symposium@gmail.com
*Dr. Timothy C. Campbell will be joining us from Cornell University.
Dr. Campbell’s book publications include Wireless Writing in the Age of Marconi, University of Minnesota Press, 2006 and Bios: Biopolitics and Philosophy, Roberto Esposito, University of Minnesota Press, 2007 (translation and introduction). His teaching and professional interests lie in biopolitics and contemporary Italian thought, fascist films, fascist bodies, modern Italian travel writing and perspectives in Italian culture.
I Coloquio Nacional de Pensamiento Político: “La pregunta por Occidente, tensiones y posibilidades”
Santiago de Chile, 24 y 25 de Agosto de 2010
Lugar: Universidad Diego Portales
Organiza: Centro de Análisis e Investigación Política / Instituto de Humanidades, Universidad Diego Portales
Fecha límite de presentación de resúmenes de ponencias: 14 de Mayo de 2010
Informes e inscripción:
http://www.caip.cl
http://humanidades.udp.cl/
coloquiopensamientopolitico@gmail.com
Presentación
El Centro de Análisis e Investigación Política (CAIP) y el Instituto de Humanidades de la Universidad Diego Portales (IDH-UDP), convocan a estudiantes de pre y posgrado, académicos e investigadores del campo de las ciencias sociales y humanidades a proponer ponencias y mesas temáticas sobre teoría política, historia de las ideas políticas y filosofía política para el Primer Coloquio Nacional de Pensamiento Político: La Pregunta por Occidente, tensiones y posibilidades, que tendrá lugar en Santiago de Chile durantes los días martes 24 y miércoles 25 de agosto de 2010.
La pregunta por Occidente es algo recurrente en la historia del pensamiento político; sin embargo, es en el presente, frente a un mundo globalizado y donde se postulan desde un choque de civilizaciones hasta la disolución de las mismas, que la pregunta por Occidente se hace más recurrente. ¿Podemos seguir hablando de Occidente en un proceso de mundialización como el que estamos viviendo? ¿O presenciamos la retirada de Occidente en el léxico político? Tal vez, la pregunta por la civilización occidental responde precisamente aquella disolución que exige, a su vez, su cuestionamiento. O, por otro lado, la pregunta que titula este coloquio refleja la urgencia de pensar el avance civilizatorio de Occidente. En este sentido, ¿qué implicancias para el pensamiento de la política tendría el uso de una categoría como Occidente? ¿Cuáles son las consecuencias políticas y resistencias al desarrollo de Occidente? Este coloquio tiene por propósito problematizar cuestionamientos como los antes realizados y dar amplitud suficiente para desarrollar líneas de investigación en el marco de la historia de Occidente.
Algunos de los variados temas a tratar serán:
- Metafísica y pensamiento político en Occidente.
- Los orígenes de la civilización: naturaleza, animal, hombre.
- Los avatares del realismo político.
- Las resistencias a Occidente.
- Pensamiento greco-romano: los cimientos de las ideas políticas de Occidente.
- Religión y política.
- Teorías del Estado y el gobierno.
- Pensamiento político Medieval.
- Política radical, subjetividad y nueva formas de resistencia.
- Lenguaje, política y verdad en la historia del pensamiento político.
- La pregunta por la modernidad: liberalismo, capitalismo y revolución.
- Estética, ética y política.
Inscripciones y participación
Se recibirán resúmenes de ponencias hasta el 14 de mayo de 2010. Los resúmenes serán de hasta 500 palabras y deberán indicar título, pertenencia institucional, un breve descriptor académico del ponencista y dirección de correo electrónico. Recepción de resúmenes: coloquiopensamientopolitico@gmail.com
La lista de resúmenes seleccionados por el comité organizador será divulgada el día 31 de mayo de 2010 y las ponencias finales serán recepcionadas por el comité hasta el viernes 20 de agosto.
IX Congreso Chileno de Ciencia Política: “La Ciencia Política en el Bicentenario: 200 años de la Política en Latinoamérica”
Santiago de Chile, 11, 12 y 13 de noviembre de 2010
Lugar: Universidad Diego Portales
Organiza: Asociación Chilena de Ciencia Política (ACCP)
Fecha límite de presentación de resúmenes de ponencias: 4 de junio de 2010
Presentación
El tema principal del Congreso nos convoca a reflexionar sobre los desafíos políticos, económicos y sociales que enfrenta la región en el marco de la celebración de los doscientos años de vida republicana de los países latinoamericanos. En este sentido, tenemos la convicción de que este congreso será un aporte sustancial en el debate y producción de conocimiento en torno a importantes áreas y desafíos relevantes como la consolidación democrática y vinculación con la desigualdad; relaciones Estado-Sociedad, evaluación de las políticas sociales y su impacto en la ciudadanía, representación y participación política, entre otras.
Las temáticas a tratar en el IX Congreso han sido agrupadas en 5 grandes áreas: Teoría Política; Política Comparada; Políticas Públicas; Relaciones Internacionales; Economía Política; Metodología y Métodos de Investigación; y Sesiones Especiales en torno al quehacer de la ciencia política. [ver más]