[MaFLa] THE SELF IN THE ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL WORLDS: two-day workshop at CEU IAS; MAY 22-24 (fwd)

[Istvan Bodnar]

Kedves Kollégák!

Mellékletben, és alább küldöm egy jövő heti workshopról az értesítést és a 
programot.

A szervezők a részvételi szándék jelzését az

Adrienn Kácsor (kacsora at ceu.hu)

címre kérik, május 20-szal bezárólag.


Üdv: I.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
 

The CEU Institute for Advanced Study

 

in cooperation with

The CEU Department of Philosophy

and Department of Medieval Studies

 

cordially invites you to

 

The Self in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds:

Conceptions and Practices in China and the West

 

May 22 - 24, 2014

 

Central European University

Budapest 1051, Nádor u. 13

Room 001

 

 
 

The purpose of this two-day workshop is to bring together scholars of early
and medieval philosophy, intellectual history and religion, working in both
the Chinese and

Western traditions, to explore the problem of how the self has been
approached, structured and represented in early texts. The focus of our
activities will be to discuss texts together, and to have conversations
inspired by this reading. Each participant will lead a close reading and
discussion of a text (or set of texts) and offer an interpretation.

 

In this endeavor, we begin neither with a modern conception of an
individuated, autonomous self that we search for in the past, nor with some
fixed, essential concept

whose evolution we trace over time, as in a history of ideas. Rather, we
approach the term ?self? as a placeholder ? as a moving target with shifting
properties and whose meaning and contours can emerge, for instance, through

 

(1) its relationships with other entities ? things (both animate and
inanimate), other human beings, the cosmos and the realm of the afterlife
and supernatural;

(2) spatial and temporal configurations of the person and personal
identity/experience;

(3) models and ideals of self-cultivation and self-realization;

(4) conceptions of the body/self ? its structure and constituent parts (and
corresponding functions).

 

By engaging with diverse traditions of thought and practice, we hope to
achieve a broader and more nuanced picture of the vast repertoire of
approaches with which

individuals and societies in the past have attempted to make sense of the
self, broadly conceived. The perspectives opened by this encounter will
hopefully give rise to further collaborations among scholars working on
shared problems in vastly different philosophical and religious traditions.
But just as importantly, they may have direct and immediate repercussions
for our respective, on-going research projects: they could offer a richer
vocabulary and set of categories for thinking about the problem of the self;
shake up existing preconceptions and limitations by offering radically
different possibilities of understanding; and generate new questions and
topics of inquiry. Making the familiar less familiar, and the unfamiliar
more familiar, can be one of the most powerful tools for opening up new
spaces of understanding, as well as for sharpening insight into known
territory.We hope that this workshop can provide a point of departure for
such fruitful reorientations. 

 

 

Organizer

Curie Virág
Humanities Initiative Fellow, CEU Institute for Advanced Study 2013-2014

Assistant Professor, Department of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto
Contact:H-1051 Budapest, Zrinyi u. 14, #306; visvirag at ceu.hu



 

RSVP to Adrienn Kácsor (kacsora at ceu.hu) by May 20

 

 

 

Eva Gonczi
Academic Secretary
Institute for Advanced Study
Central European University
 
Budapest
Nádor u. 13
1051 Hungary
gonczi at ceu.hu
+36 1 327-3000/2596 
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