Call for papers
‘Beyond the Postmodern: Reading the ‘late’ Lyotard’ edited by Heidi Bickis and Rob Shields
We invite submissions from philosophers, social and cultural theorists as well as artists and writers to be considered for an edited collection on Jean-François Lyotard’s later philosophy. Texts from this period include Lectures d’enfance (1991); The hyphen: Between Judaism and Christianity (1999 [Un trait d’union, 1993]); Soundproof Room: Malraux’s Anti-Aesthetics (2001 [Chambre Sourde: L’antiesthique de Malraux, 1993]); Signed, Malraux (1999 [Signé, Malraux, 1996]); The Confession of Augustine (2000 [La confession d’Augustin, 1998]) and La misère de la philosophie (2000).
This collection seeks to engage with Lyotard’s thought beyond the limited and misguided label of the postmodern, a label associated with the predominant influence of The postmodern condition (1984 [1979]). We wish to focus specifically on these later works that have received limited academic engagement and reflect on what Lyotard’s thought says to us ‘now’. Our goal is to develop an interdisciplinary dialogue to show the ongoing relevance of Lyotard’s thought for contemporary theoretical debates relating to (but not limited to): art and aesthetics; affect and the sensuous; time (especially around beginnings and the event); the sexual (sexual difference); infancy; ethical relations; and biography and the subject.
We invite papers that consider any of these themes in relation to the above texts or other topics that resonate with the collection’s general theme.
Confirmed contributors include: Keith Crome, Neal Curtis, Margret Grebowicz, Antony Hudek, Rachel Jones, Matthew McClennan, Matthew Pateman and James Williams.
Please send full papers with abstract and institutional affiliation and/or professional title by February 20, 2010. Please send submissions and direct inquiries to Heidi Bickis at hbickis@ualberta.ca
Heidi Bickis and Dr. Rob Shields
Department of Sociology
University of Alberta
Edmonton, AB
T6G 2H4
Perverse Egalitarianism 