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Frontières, Déplacements et Création. Interrogations sur le contemporain

Université Internationale d’Été & Conférence Internationale - Septembre 2011. Porto. Université de Porto. Portugal

Présentation du Réseau Organisateur
de l’Université Internationale d’Été & Conférence Internationale

Le réseau organisateur de cette Université Internationale d’Été est composé du Département de Philosophie de l’Université de Porto (Professeur Responsable : Eugénia Vilela), “Aesthetics, Politics and Arts” Research Group (Institute of Philosophy – University of Porto), au Portugal, du Département de Philosophie de l’Université Paris 8 – Saint-Denis (Professseur Responsable : Alain Brossat) en France, du Graduate Institute for Social Sciences and Cultural Studies de l’Université Nationale Chiau-Tung (Professeurs Responsables : Joyce C.H. Liu et Yuan Horng Chu) à Taiwan, de l’Association française Ici et ailleurs – pour une philosophie nomade, ainsi que d’autres partenaires universitaires européens et extra-européens (Université de Weimar en Allemagne, Université Européenne de Tirana, Académie Royale des Arts de Copenhague, Institut de Philosophie de l’Université de Moscou, École Normale Supérieure de Port-au-Prince à Haïti, Université de Tokyo au Japon, Université Nationale de Taipei à Taiwan).

These International Congresses & International Summer University have been organized every two years, having different themes focusing on the encounter between Contemporary Political Philosophy and Aesthetics, with the contribution of several fields from the Social Sciences and Humanities. The specific character of these events lies in their organizational and scientific structure : designed according to the logics of a ‘dorm’, for about a week the researchers are in permanent contact in a shared space, developing an intensive work programme. It aims at the creation of communal reflection and a structure of training and research, through the contribution of international researchers, PhD and postgraduate students, in a spirit of debate, criticism, demand and sharing of knowledge. The host country of each conference is in charge of its organization.

Ce réseau s’est mis en place dès 2005, lorsque le Département de Philosophie de Paris 8, le Graduate Institute for Social Sciences and Cultural Studies de l’Université Nationale Chiau-Tung (Taiwan) et d’autres partenaires universitaires ont organisé en commun (juin 2005) à Yilan (Taiwan) un Colloque internationale intitulé « Polemos et Stasis ». Se donnant comme visée première le développement d’un cadre d’échanges permanents entre partenaires européens et extrême-orientaux, dans le domaine de la Philosophie et, plus généralement, en Sciences humaines et Sociales, ce réseau s’est développé et diversifié au cours des années suivantes. Une étape importante dans ce processus a été l’Université Internationale d’Été tenue à Chilhac (Auvergne, France) en septembre 2007 et qui a rassemblé plus d’une centaine de participants venus de quinze pays autour de l’intitulé général « Le différend culturel ». Les délégations les plus importantes étaient issues de France, Taiwan, du Portugal – mais des chercheurs japonais, allemands, albanais, italiens, chinois, australiens, états-uniens… étaient également présents lors de cette manifestation qui s’est étendue sur une semaine.

Lors de l’Université Internationale d’Été de Chilhac, la décision fut prise par la coordination du réseau de tenir une Université Internationale d’Été tous les deux ans. A l’initiative du Graduate Institute for Social Sciences and Cultural Studies de l’Université Nationale Chiau-Tung (Taiwan), une nouvelle session s’est donc tenue en juin 2009, sur le campus de l’Université Nationale Chiao-Tung, à Hsinchu (Taiwan) autour du motif « Biopolitics, Ethics and Subjectivation. Questions on Modernity ». De nombreux chercheurs issus d’universités japonaises, coréennes, taiwanaises ont participé à cet événement, au côté de leurs collègues venus d’Europe et des Etats-Unis. Les délégations issues de France et du Portugal étaient, à nouveau, les plus nombreuses parmi celles-ci.

Des initiatives intermédiaires ont également lieu dans les périodes qui séparent deux Universités Internationales d’Été, destinées à renforcer le réseau : échange d’enseignants, conférences dans les universités partenaires, séminaires décentralisés, échange de publications, édition commune d’actes des Universités Internationales d’Été, animation d’un site sur Internet, activités artistiques, entre autres.

La préparation de l’Université Internationale d’Été qui aura lieu à Porto au cours de l’été 2011 s’inscrit dans la logique du développement de cette discussion permanente dont l’un des enjeux est l’élaboration critique de notions aussi problématiques que « Occident » et « Orient », dans leur dimension philosophique et culturelle. L’Université International d’Été qui aura lieu à Porto se tiendra autour de l’intitulé « Frontières, Déplacements et Création. Interrogations sur le contemporain ».

Invitation Call

In September 2011, Porto will be the stage for an International Conference & International Summer University under the theme « Borders, Displacements and Creation. Questioning the Contemporary ». It will be focusing on the encounter between Contemporary Political Philosophy and Aesthetics, with the contribution of several scientific fields within the Social Sciences and the Humanities.

This scientific meeting is hosted by the University of Porto, and is organized by a network constituted by the Department of Philosophy of the University of Porto (Professor Eugénia Vilela), through the “Aesthetics, Politics and Arts” Research Group (Institute of Philosophy – University of Porto), Portugal ; the Department of Philosophy of the University of Paris 8 – Saint-Denis (Professor Alain Brossat), France ; the Graduate Institute for Social Research and Cultural Studies of the National Chiao Tung University (Professor Joyce C.H. Liu and Professor Yuan Horng Chu), Taiwan ; the French Association Ici et ailleurs – pour une philosophie nomade ; as well as other academic partnerships in and out of Europe (the University of Weimar, Germany ; the Copenhagen Royal Academy of Arts ; the Institute of Philosophy of the University of Moscow ; the École Normale Supérieure de Port-au-Prince, Haiti ; the University of Tokyo, Japan ; the National University of Taipei, Taiwan). This network was established in 2005 and has been growing and expanding since then, through numerous collaborations and through the organization of a biennial encounter (Yilan, Taiwan, 2005 ; Chilhac, France, 2007 ; Hsinchu, Taiwan, 2009 ; Porto, Portugal, 2011).

Therefore, we would like to invite you, your colleagues and students to participate in the International Conference, The Conference will be held between 29th August and 4th September in Porto (Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto)

You will find attached a file with the presentation of this year’s theme, as well as the presentation of the network and the work that has already been carried out.

The abstract of the paper you wish to present should be up to 250 words and should be accompanied by a short bio-bibliographic note. Please send both to the following address until 31st January : bordersconferenceporto2011@gmail.com

The travel costs are to be supported by the participants.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us through the email : bordersconferenceporto2011@gmail.com .

For further information on the Conference & the Summer School please visit the website : http://mail.aparg-ifup.org

Best regards,
Professor Eugénia Vilela
Department of Philosophy – Faculty of Arts &
Institute of Philosophy of the University of Porto. Portugal

Questioning the contemporary implies a double movement : an analysis of the traits of present-time experience and the clarification of the conditions that enable a contemporary thought. To question the contemporary immediately raises a problem : does one think the contemporary or in the contemporary ? And a series of questions arise subsequently : what is the possibility of considering the founding movement of that thought ? – ontological question ; what is the place of the ongoing relationships ? – political question ; which is the time of the affections without mediation ? – aesthetical question ; which is the mode of the constitution of being in a place in progress ? – ethical question ; what are the hypothesis for memory in a time without mediation ? – historical question. Is there any legitimacy for the separation between these questions ? What kind of rationality demands the definition of border ?

In this International Conference and International Summer University we intend to promote a forum for the discussion of the problematic complex brought by contemporaneity, based on the notions of border, displacement, and creation. How, then, does one interrogate the contemporary ?

The logics of contemporaneity seem to imply the distribution of the problems it introduces among various fields that aim at thinking the problematic in the contemporary. Nonetheless, the contemporary demands, simultaneously, a force of displacement into each border that is defined. To interrogate the contemporary may be nothing but a search for the borders that cause the paradox of being both the problematic horizon to be considered and the territory that bears out this consideration. Still, one can only look for borders by drawing them. Admittedly, in order to draw a boundary one needs to divide an extension in two. However, in terms of the contemporary, thought departs from the border itself to displace the sides. To draw a border is already a displacement ; it is the creation of a movement that shifts from one place to another, making the contemporary a complex field whose parts communicate with each other. It is by understanding the contemporary as a complex of borders and displacements that one may conclude that the first question doesn’t represent a disjunction but rather an implication : one can only think the contemporary by thinking in the contemporary. And this seems to be a specific disposition for the outside, to that which is strange to a discursively shared present that progressively defines the identitarian logics of affirmation of an epoch. The interrogation of the contemporary means to put forth a critique of the present from an absence of stable coordinates that enable the establishment of a field for thought. This is but one way of creative criticism or of a thought that deals with its potentiality as such.

Thus, from the inside of an intimate connection between politics and aesthetics, we would like to consider the ways by which thought is rooted in indefinite displacements that give rise, nowadays, to singular forms of life. We can try then to understand the mapping of contemporary rationality and the ways by which, in the worldwide geo-political context, borders are drawn, on the social, aesthetical and political scene, by a securitarian narrative, thereby creating figures intimately linked to a sovereign territory, or to a normative representation of bodies, gestures and languages. A crowd at drift experiments limit-situations in heterotopian spaces. Under the logic of immunization of the States towards the foreignness, the state of exception is reset under numerous legal, administrative or conceptual covers that tend to constitute spaces of abandonment, or temporalities that exist outside the frame of historical representations. However, by their very own existence, different individuals challenge the homogeneous static view of linear time and ask, by their unique entry into the world, a vital question : their untimeliness (inactualité) as a heterogeneous mode for the reinvention of history and its images. This question places us before a singular and problematic cross between creation, representation and historical experience.

Hence, let us consider the following questions. Is there any other time for creation besides the contemporary ? Is there any other space beyond the territory defined by the problematic borders ? Is there any other sense for creation that is not the expression of displacements around these borders ? Creation may, in the end, be nothing but the foundation of spaces of individuation whose borders are already open for transgression. It is from the point of view of contemporaneity as a creatively constituted territory that one can understand the border as a raw space for displacement and, in turn, the displacements as conditions for the determination of borders.