ANK: Summer School 2022: »TACET AD LIBITUM! TOWARDS A POETICS AND POLITICS OF SILENCE«, öffentliche Vortragsreihe, Zoom (25.-28.07.2022)

Die Summer School "Tacet ad Libitum! Towards a Poetics and Politics of Silence" der Universität, die sich dem Thema der politischen Marginalisierung und Exklusion, sowie der Frage nach "deterritorialisierenden" 'Formen' politischen Widerstands widmet, veranstaltet zugleich eine interdisziplinär angelegte öffentliche Vortragsreihe (im hybriden Format) zwischen dem 24.07.- 28.07.2022. Wir laden Interessierte ein, sich unter den entsprechenden Links anzumelden. Weitere inhaltlichen Infos zur Summer School finden Sie auf unserer Website und auf Indico.

Montag, 25. Juli 2022

18.30-20:00

"Multiplicities of Silences", Prof. William Watkin (Brunel University)

Abstract:

Sigetics is the name for the philosophy of silence. It is concerned with what philosophers cannot say or name. As such it constitutes the outside of philosophy, that thinkers need to make their various systems consistent. Yet sigetics as a discipline is also marked by an essential paradox, the saying of the unsayable. In his brief history of sigetics, Prof. Watkin visits the quiet cells and still offices of many thinkers (the Gnostics, Hegel, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Husserl, Bataille, Blanchot, Derrida, Agamben, Ranciere and Badiou) and asks if their multiplicities of silences might be less a limit to philosophy, than a mute indication of its future. For what is silence but that which has no distinction, discernibility or difference? And what is sigetics but the philosophy of this radical indifference?

Zoom-Link: https://wwu.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5ckf-ihpjkuGtdF0zIRaHRnMbb7UhPZ4iPo

Dienstag, 26. Juli 2022

18:30-20:00

"Wer kann schweigen? Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Bergman", Prof. Alexander García Düttmann (Berlin University of the Arts)

Abstract:

Der Vortrag kreist um die doppelte Schwierigkeit, zwischen Rede und Schweigen und zwischen Schweigen und Stummheit zu unterscheiden, und um die politische Tragweite dieser Schwierigkeit.

Zoom-Link: https://wwu.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5AvdeGgpzwvHdSsxH4vFI-YML2SKacLkyL2

Mittwoch, 27. Juli 2022

18:30-20:00

"Toward a Political Theology of Silence", Prof. Adam Kotsko (North Central College)

Abstract:

My talk attempts to make a connection between political theology, conceived as the study of systems of legitimacy, and silence starting from the role of silence in music. According to philosopher Susanne Langer, true rest or silence only occurs in the context of a musical work. Going a step further, Jacques Attali argues that the silence of the audience is foundational for Western classical music, just as the silence of the masses is foundational for the early modern political order. After showing the parallels between political theology and Attali's political economy of music, I turn to abortion politics in the US as an example of the foundational role of silence for politics. Drawing on Lauren Berlant's analysis of the cultural effects of fetal photography, I argue that the reactionary right has found the perfect "silent majority" in the unborn -- a perfectly passive, permanentaly silent victim on whose behalf they can say or do absolutely anything. I conclude by asking whether this perverse attempt to "give voice to the voiceless" is merely an abuse and parody of a positive political strategy or whether it should instead cause us to ask serious questions about the politics of silence.

Zoom-Link: https://wwu.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5Akf-CurTgqHtDMyxQ5_hoLULYXnYwJba53

Donnerstag, 28. Juli 2022

18:30-20:00

"On Being Silenced (Echoes of the Ineffable)", Peter De Graeve (University of Leuven)

Abstract:

Early modernist philosophy first noticed and conceptualized the irrevocable loss of "big silence" (in ancient Myth, Religion, Metaphysics). Huizinga and Heidegger are cited as examples in this respect. Especially Heidegger's Being and Time can be read as a thorough analysis of (or accusation against) modernity as the epoch of noise, responsible for silencing silence and for shaping - or "essentializing," if you like - contemporary Man as noisy animal, das Lärmtier. Heidegger's silent struggle with modern noisiness will be examined. However painful or even fatal - "nefastus" - the historical loss of big silence may be, contemporary philosophy doesn't seem to realize its own maladjusted reaction(s) to it. For a long time, maybe even still, it set its hopes on the meticulous de(con)struction of Western metaphysics - of onto-theology -, expecting some salvation from this ambitious endeavor. Yet, "breaking up" the old ontological structure (Jean-Luc Nancy), or else "weakening" it (Gianni Vattimo), did not offer us much of a relief, at least not for now. Admittedly, the alleged ecstasies-of-Being (Heidegger) might have vanished but Being itself (ontology) remained firmly in place - and our modern noisiness with it. We just seem to be stuck in the middle (of both being and noise). That is why we venture to introduce a new task - both "beyond" and "before" taciturnity - for us, philosophers of the future, as Nietzsche called us: silencing being. Getting access to some alternative acoustics, so to speak, will be our final focus: by reinventing new echoes of the past (which are always, by nature, the very old ones), and by starting to write humanity's echography - next, not just opposed, to its ontology.

Zoom-Link: https://wwu.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5UkduuprzouEt1G7xRBo8xwHlVBWRgcRb-3

Organizers: Hector Feliciano, yashka, Michael Mason

Partners institutions: Graduate School Practices of Literature, Chair of English, Postcolonial and Media Studies, FB09

Funding Bodies : Universitätsgesellschaft, International Office, Equal Opportunities Office

Website: https://www.uni-muenster.de/Practices-of-Literature/aktuell/summerschool/2022/program/index.html

Indico: https://wwuindico.uni-muenster.de/e/silence2022

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Redaktion: Constanze Baum – Lukas Büsse – Mark-Georg Dehrmann – Nils Gelker – Markus Malo – Alexander Nebrig – Johannes Schmidt

Diese Ankündigung wurde von H-GERMANISTIK [Lukas Büsse] betreut – editorial-germanistik@mail.h-net.msu.edu