Archive of 2006 Inaugural North American Levinas Society Conference
Conference CFP
Forthcoming
Conference Schedule
May 13-15, 2006 at Purdue University
Inaugural meeting: Levinas and the Political
May 13-15, 2006
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907 (USA)
Stewart Center [STEW]: Rooms 214 A, B, C, D; 218ABC
4:00-5:00pm | Registration | STEW 218ABC
5:00-5:30pm | Opening Remarks | STEW 218 ABC
- Sandor Goodhart, Deptartment of English, Jewish Studies Program (Purdue University)
- North American Levinas Society executive committee
5:30-6:45pm | Sessions 1-3 | STEW 214 A, B, C
- Session 1, STEW 214A
Discourse and Alterity
Moderator: David Weir (Independent scholar)- Andrew McGettigan (Middlesex University), “The Philosopher’s Fear of Alterity: Levinas against Structuralist Anthropology”
- Jason McKinney (University of Toronto), “The Limits of Discourse in Levinas and Laclau”
- Cara O’Connor (SUNY–Stony Brook), “Sharing Secrets: Arendt and Levinas on the ‘Who’ of Discourse”
- Session 2 STEW 214B
Ethics, the Prophetic, and Literary Criticism
Moderator: Monica Osborne (Purdue University)- Jana Evans Braziel (University of Cincinnati), “’I am Become Death’: Levinasian Alterity and Cold War Politics; or, Violent Love (De)Facing the Other in Nicole Brossard’s Desert Mauve”
- Octavian Gabor (Purdue University), “Otherwise than Philosophy”
- Paulette Gergen Lane (University of South Florida), “Reading Levinas, Reading Woolf”
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Session 3 STEW 214C
Moderator: Jason Buchanan (Purdue University)
- Michael Bernard-Donals (University of Wisconsin), “An Ethics of Forgetting: Levinas, Israel, and the Politics of Exile”
- Cynthia Kraman (College of New Rochelle), “Levinas and Reconciliation: A Difficult Freedom”
- Ilana Maymind (Ohio State University), “Levinas and the Morality of Responsiveness”
6:45-7:00pm | Break
7:00-8:15pm | Sessions 4-6 | STEW 214 A, B, C
- Session 4, STEW 214A
The Ethical and the Political
Moderator: Adryan Glasgow (Purdue University)- Corey Beals (George Fox University), “Levinas and the Birth of the Political”
- Jeffrey Dudiak (Kings University College), “Just Ethics? The Question of the Transition to Politics in Levinas”
- Jules Simon (University of Texas–El Paso), “Ethics as First Politics, or Face to Face with an Illegal Alien”
- Alex Stehn (Pennsylvania State University), “Politics as First Philosophy (Dewey) Face-to-Face with Ethics as First Philosophy (Levinas)”
- Session 5, STEW 214B
The Visual, the Literary, and the (Anti-) Representational
Moderator: Shannon Nason (Purdue University)- Daniel T. Kline (U of Alaska Anchorage), “The Afterlife of Sacrifice in Medieval Dramatizations of the Akedah”
- Jeanne Marie Kusina (Bowling Green State University), “Cave Paintings: Levinas, Plato, and the Possibility of Art in Ethics and Politics”
- Rebecca Nicholson (Purdue University), “Reading a Levinasian Critique of Representation in Cynthia Ozick’s Heir to the Glimmering World”
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Session 6, STEW 214C
Politics and the Exemplar
Moderator: Robert D. King (Purdue University)- Pamela Brown (Yeshiva University), “Levinas and the Moral Imagination: The Politics of Intelligibility”
- Bonnie Million (Westminster College), “Ascendancy as Transcendence: A Levinasian View of the Hero”
- Ernst Wolff (University of Pretoria), “The Saint, the Fanatic, and the Categorical Imperative: A Reading of Levinas’s Politics”
8:15-11:00pm Informal Gathering, Cash Bar Lafayette Brewing Company
8:00-10:00am | Registration | STEW 218ABC
8:30-9:45am | Sessions 7-9 | STEW 214 A, B, C
- Session 7, STEW 214A
Humanism of the Other Human
Moderator: Erin Kealey (Purdue University)- Michael Burke (Loyola University–Chicago), “Situating the Space of Transcendence: The Crisis of Humanism in Heidegger and Levinas”
- Elliot Ratzman (Princeton University), “Levinas and Globalized Humanitarianism: Managing Infinite Responsibility”
- Shokufeh Sakhi (York University), “Levinas: Humanity as Resistance”
- Session 8, STEW 214B
Contemporary Political Theory
Moderator: Tony Russell (Purdue University)- Gregory Kaplan (Rice University), “Immanence or Biopolitics: Levinas, Agamben, and the Wages of Ontology”
- Jack Marsh (Boston College), “What Hath Paris to do with Frankfurt? On Levinas and the Frankfurt School”
- Aysegul Sabuktay (TODAIE), “A Levinasian Answer to the Question of Possession and Right to Property: A Liberal View or Not?”
- Session 9, STEW 214C
Mediation and Totality
Moderator: Erik Baldwin (Purdue University)- Stephen Minister (Fordham University), “Levinas’s Third and Social Mediation: On the Way to a Levinasian Theory of Social Action”
- Marilyn Nissim-Sabat (Lewis University), “H(usserl) is Before L(evinas): The Politics of Philosophy”
- Anya Topolski (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), “The Tightrope between Tyranny and Totalitarianism in Emmanuel Levinas’s Politics of the Other”
10:00-11:15am | Plenary Session 1 | STEW 218ABC
Claire Elise Katz (Penn State University)
“The Politics of Education: Levinas, Rousseau, and the Failure of the Enlightenment”
11:15-11:30am | Break
11:30-12:45pm | Sessions 10-12 | STEW 214 A,B,C
- Session 10, STEW 214A
Ethico-Politics of Psychology
Moderator: Krista M. Paradiso (Ohio State Univ.)- Rusty Gentry (Independent scholar), “Pain, Addiction, Patience, and Possibility: A Levinasian Interpretation of Chronic Pain and Addiction”
- George Kunz (Seattle University), “Psychology for the Other: Levinas’s Challenge to the Political”
- Paul Marcus (Nat’l Psychological Assn. for Psychoanalysis), “Towards a Levinasian-Inspired, Ethically-Infused Psychoanalysis”
- Session 11, STEW 214B
The Ethical and/as the Literary
Moderator: Daniel T. Kline (University of Alaska Anchorage)- Ann W. Astell (Purdue University), “The Pardoner’s ‘Anxiety toward Death’ vs. the Parson’s Path of Penitence: Two Ways toward a Levinasian Chaucer”
- Marcelline Block (Princeton University), “The Political Representation of the Female Other in Two Post-World War II French Texts”
- Mark Dietrich Tschaepe (Southern Illinois University–Carbondale), “The Impossible Adieu: Levinas, Hamlet, Camus, and Self-Sacrifice”
- Session 12, STEW 214C
(Anti-) Globalization and Political Alterity
Moderator: Sol Neely (Purdue University)- Clint Baldwin (Asbury Theological Seminary), “And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: The Destabilizing Trace of the In-Finite within Totalizing Systems of Empire”
- Robert Eaglestone (University of London), “The Politics of Postcolonial Thought and Levinas’s Double Vision”
- Eduard Jordaan (University of Stellenbosch, South Africa), “Cosmopolitanism and Indifference: A Levinasian View”
12:45-2:00pm | Lunch | Purdue University Hillel
2:00-3:15pm | Plenary Session 2 | STEW 218ABC
Diane Perpich (Vanderbilt University)
“Scarce Resources? Levinas, Animals, and the Environment”
3:15-3:30pm | Break
3:30-4:45pm | Sessions 13-16 | STEW 214 A,B,C,D
- Session 13, STEW 214A
Feminism and the Feminine
Moderator: Dara Hill (Purdue University)- Sarah Allen (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), “Gendered Metaphors of Transcendence: Is the Feminine Really Subordinate in Levinas’s Thought?”
- Mielle Chandler (York University), “Globalization and the Feminine Reply: A Levinasian Critique of Hegelian Intersubjectivity”
- Sylvie Duverger (University of Paris-X): “Levinas and the Feminine: A Symptom of Allergy to the Other?”
- Cindy Torres (Purdue University-Calumet), “Dispelling Notions of the Female Other”
- Session 14, STEW 214B
Anarchism, Heteronomy, and Utopia
Moderator: Eduardo Mendieta (SUNY-Stony Brook)- Sol Neely (Purdue University), “An-Archy and Sociality: Unconditioning the Other”
- William Paul Simmons (Arizona State University), “The Post-Levinasian Heteronomic (Political) Philosophy of Enrique Dussel”
- Mitchell Verter (Independent scholar), “The Anarchism of the Other Person”
- Greg Wolff (SUNY-Stony Brook), “Utopia in Anarchy: From Ethics to Politics, From Levinas to Dussel”
- Session 15, STEW 214C
Violence and Exodus
Moderator: David Ross Fryer (University of Pennsylvania)- Drew M. Dalton (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), “Exodus and Odyssey: Levinas, Shame, and the History of Western Philosophy”
- John Drabinski (Assumption College), “The Precarious Life of Political Violence”
- Joachim Duyndam (University of Humanistics, Netherlands), “To Understand Suicide Terrorism: The Political Meaning of Levinas’s Concepts of Escape and Election”
- James McLachlan (Western Carolina University), “Violence and Escape: Levinas’s Review of Shestov’s Kierkegaard and the Existential Philosophy”
- Session 16, STEW 214D
Judaism and the Religious
Moderator: James D. Hatley (Salisbury University)- Menachem Feuer (Centennial College), “The Hostage Crisis in the Work of Emmanuel Levinas and Maurice Blanchot: Is It a Hostage Crisis for Jewish Identity?”
- Jason Flato (University of Denver), “Can Art Proclaim an Order of Justice? The Intersection of Judaism, Justice, and Aesthetics in Levinas”
- Matthew Wayne Guy (University of Tennessee–Chattanooga), “’Not to Build the World is to Destroy It’: Levinas on Holy History and Messianic Politics”
- Silvia Richter (Hochschule für Jüdische Studien), “Levinas’s Concepts of Eschatology and Their Implications for His Political Views”
4:45-5:00pm | Break
5:00-6:30pm | Business Meeting | STEW 218ABC
6:30-6:45pm | Break
6:45-8:00pm Plenary Session 3 STEW 218ABC
Enrique Dussel (UNAM-Mexico City)
“The Metaphysical Desire in Levinas and
Solidarity (A Confrontation with Derrida,
Nietzsche, and Schmitt)”
8:00-11:00pm | Reception Dinner | Parthenon
8:00-10:00am | Registration | STEW 218ABC
8:30-9:45am | Sessions 17-19 | STEW 214 A, B, C
- Session 17, STEW 214A
Visuality, the Face, and the Literary
Moderator: Gil Cook (Purdue University)- Brian K. Bergen-Aurand (University of Illinois–Chicago), “A Tendency of the Visible: Levinas and the Ethics of Contemporary Political Cinema”
- Mark Minster (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology), “Levinas and Blanchot on Prophetic Resistance”
- Monica Osborne (Purdue University), “Facing the Law: A Levinasian Approach to Krzysztof Kieslowski’s The Decalogue”
- Session 18, STEW 214B
The Embodied, Ethical, and Political Self
Moderator: Octavian Gabor (Purdue University)- Philip Lindholm (Oxford University), “The Politics of Incarnation”
- Joshua Mills-Knutsen (University of Kentucky), “Becoming Other: Rethinking Levinas’s Ethical Call”
- Christophe Wall-Romana (University of Minnesota), “From Imposition to Disposition: A Choice by Levinas”
- Session 19, STEW 214C
Levinas and Education
Moderator: Christopher McTavish (Loyola University–Chicago)- Jeffrey Dudiak (Kings University College), “Peace as Being Taught: The Philosophical Foundations of a Culture of Peace”
- Denise Egéa-Kuehne (Louisiana State University), “Levinas’s ‘Idea of Possibility’”
- Clarence W. Joldersma (Calvin College), “The Importance of Enjoyment and Inspiration for Learning from a Teacher”
9:45-10:00am | Break
10:00-11:15am | Sessions 20-22 | STEW 214 A,B,C
- Session 20, STEW 214A
Substituting the Ego for the Other
Moderator: Bob Robinson (Purdue University)- Philip J. Harold (Robert Morris University), “The Political Reversal of Substitution: Levinas and Charles Taylor”
- Max Maloney (Christian Brothers University), “Moments of Decision: Levinas and the Politics of Substitution”
- Emilie Van Daele (Brussels Free University), “Overturning the Ego and its Political Consequences: Levinas and the Political”
- Session 21, STEW 214B
The Question Concerning Liberalism
Moderator: Stephen Minister (Fordham University)- Michael R. Michau (Purdue University), “’Morality without Institutions’: A Levinasian Critique of Cohen’s ‘Political Monotheism’”
- J. Aaron Simmons (Vanderbilt University), “Is Levinas a Liberal Democrat?”
- Jill Stauffer (Haverford College), “Can a Philosophy of Liberation be Freed of Its Weight?: The Levinasian Revision of Liberal Individualism”
- Session 22, STEW 214C
The Ethical in Practice
Moderator: Frank Tobienne (Purdue University)- Scott Davidson (Oklahoma City University), “Levinas and the Rights of the Other”
- Adam Dickinson (York University), “The Matter of Metaphor: Levinas and the Environment”
- John Farnsworth and Malcolm Lewis (University of Otago), “The Tyranny of Transparent Accounting: Corporate Face and Levinasian Ethics as a Political Critique of Business Practice”
11:15-11:30am | Break
11:30am-12:45pm | Plenary Session 4 | STEW 218ABC
Sandor Goodhart (Purdue University)
“Reading Levinas Reading Talmud:
Between Ethics and Politics, Theodicy and Midrash”
Introduction by Thomas Adler,
Dean of College of Liberal Arts (Purdue University)
12:45-2:00pm | Lunch honoring Richard A. Cohen | Purdue University Hillel
2:00-3:15pm | Plenary Session 5 | STEW 218ABC
Richard A. Cohen (U of North Carolina-Charlotte)
“Levinas in America”
Introduction by Sandor Goodhart,
Department of English, Purdue University
3:30-4:45pm | Sessions 23-25 | STEW 214 A, B, C
- Session 23, STEW 214A
Psychology and the Affects
Moderator: Deborah Achtenberg (University of Nevada, Reno)- Oona Eisenstadt (Pomona College), “Metaphysics and Trauma: Levinas and Adorno”
- Yvonne Haigh (Murdoch University), “Dilemmas in Ethics and Politics: Levinas’s Therapeutic Ethical Interruption”
- Joel W. Krueger (Southern Illinois University–Carbondale), “Levinasian Reflections on Somaticity and Moral Perception”
- Session 24, STEW 214B
Midrashic Reading, the Feminine, and Theodicy
Moderator: Joseph Haberer (Purdue University)- Leonard Grob (Farleigh Dickinson University), “Levinas on Theodicy in a Post-Holocaust World”
- James D. Hatley (Salisbury University), “The Devastation of Maternity: A Midrashic Reading of Levinas through the Book of Job”
- Dara Hill (Purdue University), “Levinas and the Concept of Relationality in Torah”
- Session 25, STEW 214C
The Ethico-Political
Moderator: Rebecca Nicholson (Purdue University)- René Harrison (Purdue University), “Ethics and the Tension of Consciousness: Reading Levinas with Voegelin”
- Andrew Saldino (Clemson University), “The Bhagavad Gita and Levinas: On the Ethical and the Political”
- Heather Wilburn (Southern Illinois University–Carbondale), “Toward a Levinasian Ethical Politics”
4:45-5:00pm | Break
5:00-6:15pm | Plenary Session 6 | STEW 218ABC
Bettina Bergo (University of Montréal)
“Levinas and the Paradoxes of Sensibility”
6:15-6:30pm | Closing Remarks | STEW 218ABC
North American Levinas Society executive committee