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International Conference Literature and Ethics: nihilism and antinihilism

Literature and Ethics 1Literature and ethics 2

International Conference

Literature and Ethics: Nihilism and Antinihilism

Federal University of Juiz de Fora 

July 04 a 05, 2023

Levinas’s philosophical criticism of Proust’s art, in which “all is dizzyingly possible “, is an important starting point for thinking about the relationship between literature and ethics. The exile of the poet from the city that follows his entry into the vertiginous rhythm of aesthetics inaugurates an experience of nihilism that crosses modern literature and atrophies the “muscles of the mind” necessary for ethics. Levinas’s judgment that “there is something egoist in artistic enjoyment” corresponds to the same hesitation in the face of aesthetics that we also find in Tolstoy, for whom the rhythm of art “dulls the mind” and could lead the firmest of consciences to dissolve in the mysteries of Sodom and Gomorrah. At the same time, the anti-nihilistic dimension present in modern literature, embodied in the art of Tolstoy himself, exposes a reality that questions the nihilistic character of literary experience and undoes, within the artistic process, the abyss that separates the ethical requirement from the aesthetic temptation. The antinihilist drive that shaped Ukrainian and Russian literature, from Nikolai Gogol to Vasily Grossman, points to the ethical requirement of literature that exposes itself to the risks of non-meaning and swings between the pendulum of nihilism and antinihilism.

Derrida’s affirmation, that literature is an institution which “allows one to say everything,” finds common ground with Levinas’ criticism of literature and translates the ambiguity of writings that found in literary performativity the possibility of an ethical event. By inscribing in reality an experience of “suspension of the law”, modern literature frees itself from all the traditional figure of the bond and makes possible a “being-suspended” which is faced with a differance and immeasurable reality. What Levinas described as the eruption of the “fantastic” places “the whole ‘real situation’ above a precipice”. Therefore, the Gogolian fantastic, the polyphony of Dostoevsky, the defamiliarization of Tolstoy, the involuntary of Proust—and the whole aesthetic constellation that crossed the 20th century—from Kafka to Guimarães Rosa—gives us a glimpse of the ethical concern and the “almost maniacal need for contact” of an anti-nihilist writing that feverishly sought ways to penetrate into the mystery of the other.

From this perspective, the conference will constitute a place for thinking on the possible relationships between ethics and literature, considering artistic and philosophical expressions from different latitudes

Conference Speakers

• Maxim D. Shrayer (Boston College)
• Gérard Bensussan (Université de Strasbourg)
• Andrea Potestà (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile)
• Ricardo Tim de Souza – (Pontificia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul)
• Renato Lessa (Pontificia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro)
• Marcus Lopes (Unicamp)
• Maria Clara Lucchetti Bingemer (Pontificia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro)
• Fernando Perlatto (Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora)
• Frederico Pieper (Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora)
• Marcio Cappelli Lopes (Pontificia Universidade Católica de Campinas)
• Jimmy Sudário Cabral (Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora)

Thematic Panels

• Literature and ethics
• Nihilism and Philosophy
• Nihilism and Literature
• Literature, philosophy, and animal ethics
• Literature, nihilism, and war
• Literature, Faith, and Genocide

Guidelines

1) 1 or 2 speakers per paper. No more than one paper per author will be accepted;

2) Abstract between 200 and 350 words;

3) 3 to 5 keywords;

4) The text should contain the explanation of what is proposed with methodology, justification, objectives, and contribution to the work of the season;

5) Proposals are open until June 26th, 2023;

6) Papers in Portuguese, English, French, or Spanish will be accepted.

Conference registration by email: nerdt.ufjf@gmail.com