Varieties of Continental Thought and Religion conference

Varieties of Continental Thought and Religion

June 15-16, 2012

Ryerson University

Toronto, Canada 

Confirmed Speakers: John Caputo (Syracuse U.), Bettina Bergo (U. de Montreal), more to be announced in the near future.

We invite submissions from scholars and graduate students based in Canada and abroad on the topic of Continental Thought and Religion. The general theme of the conference is meant to reflect the variety of articulations of religion that have emerged in contemporary European thought. While the focus of the conference is continental thought, we nonetheless conceive the latter in an interdisciplinary manner (including literary theory, social and political thought, psychoanalysis, and religious studies). We also encourage submissions from people interested in exploring possible connections with analytic philosophy.

In addition to our keynote speaker, John Caputo, we will have four commissioned workshops comprised of two papers and a response, and a series of themed panels. We invite submissions of three-page proposals for essays for the following themed panels with included possible topics:
Phenomenology of Religion

• The thought of Chrétien, Henry, Lacoste, Levinas, Marion, and Ricoeur
• Topics: the gift; the work of art; appearance and transcendence; call and response

Religion and Politics

• The thought of Agamben, Asad, Connolly, Derrida, de Vries, Girard, Habermas, Schmitt, and Taylor
• Topics: political theology; the post-secular; sovereignty; religion and violence; pluralism

Religion and Speculative Realism

• The thought of Brassier, Harman, Laruelle, and Meillassoux
• Topics: materialism; correlationism; nihilism; the things themselves; divine inexistence; “future Christ”

Beyond Theism and Atheism

• The thought of Caputo, Kearney, Kristeva, Milbank, Vattimo
• Topics: kenosis; anatheism; weak theology; a/theology; radical orthodoxy

Continental Thought, Religion, and Aesthetics

• The artwork of Bresson, Caravaggio, Celan, Chagall, Dostoyevsky, Dumont, Artemisia Gentileschi, Kahlo, Kapoor, Kiarostami, Kiefer, Malick, Newman, O’Keefe, and Stevens
• The thought of Cavell, Cixous, Critchley, Irigaray, Marion, Nancy, and Rancière
• Topics: transcendence in art; image and icon; creativity and creation; representation and idolatry

Immanentism and Religion

• Agamben, Badiou, Bergson, Deleuze, James, Foucault, Keller, and Žižek
• Topics: self-organization; the event; plurality; bio-power; polydoxy

History of Continental Thought and Religion

• Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Freud, Benjamin, Heidegger
• Topics: death of God; reason and faith; scripture and philosophy; religion and fantasy; onto-theology

Please send only one three-page (double-spaced) proposal on one of the above themes and any questions to varieties2012@gmail.comby December 31, 2011. We intend to notify authors about our decisions by February 28, 2012. Other conference details (registration fee, preliminary program, etc.) will be announced in new year.

The VCTR Conference is organized by John Caruana (Philosophy, Ryerson University) and Mark Cauchi (Humanities, York University).