Sensorium:
Philosophy and Aesthetics

University of Melbourne, Australia,
22—24 June, 2005

This three-day conference will cover a range of thinkers and issues in contemporary philosophy and aesthetics, with a particular focus on two French philosophers, Jean-François Lyotard and Gilles Deleuze. Offers of papers are invited from researchers in the fields of philosophy, the social sciences, literary and performance studies, the visual arts, architecture, and other creative disciplines interested in the work of Deleuze, Lyotard, or in aesthetics more generally.Confirmed keynotes and participants include:

John Armstrong (author The Secret Power of Beauty: Why Happiness is in the Eye of the Beholder and The Conditions of Love: The Philosophy of Intimacy);

Andrew Benjamin (editor of Judging Lyotard and The Lyotard Reader and author of Art, Mimesis and the Avant-Garde);

Barbara Bolt (author of Art Beyond Representation: The Performative Power of the Image).

Eugene Holland (author of Baudelaire and Schizoanalysis: The Sociopoetics of Modernism and Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus: Introduction to Schizoanalysis);

Ian James (author of Pierre Klossowski: the Persistance of a Name);

Arkady Plotnisky (author of Complementarity: Anti-Epistemology After Bohr and Derrida and the forthcoming Idealism Without Absolutes: Philosophy and Romantic Culture);

Daniel W. Smith (translator of Gilles Deleuze's The Logic of Sensation and Essays Critical and Clinical (with Michael Greco), and Pierre Klosswski's Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle).

Stelarc (Australian-based performance artist whose work investigates human-machine interfaces).

Stream One: Lyotard — Beyond the Postmodern Condition

The reception of the philosophy of Jean-François Lyotard in the English-speaking world has been sporadic and far from comprehensive. Regrettably, his influence has been largely felt through the infamous definition that opens The Postmodern Condition, and to a lesser extent the ironically-flavoured summary found in the 'Reading Dossier' of The Differend. The aim of this symposium is to redress this situation by drawing attention to the large amount of provocative and important work done by Lyotard throughout his career. Particular attention will be given to his early libidinal philosophy, his readings of other philosophers, his aesthetics, and his recent work (from Postmodern Fables onwards). Possible topics for presentations could include: art and aesthetics; Lyotard's readings of Freud, Marx, Kant, Lévinas, Malraux, Augustine, Adorno, or phenomenology; Libidinal Economy; Discours, Figure; paganism; Lyotard's politics and his theorizing of the avant-garde or the postmodern.

Stream Two: Deleuze and Creativity

Gilles Deleuze's work is replete with references to the arts: literature, film music, painting and theatre. Indeed, the aesthetic dimension plays a key role in his account of transcendental empiricism, and of the encounter that provokes thought and novelty. The aim of this symposium is to provide an opportunity for exploring Deleuze's account of creative production in the context of the various arts, and of culture more generally. Possible topics for presentations could include: schizoanalysis; the account of the discordant faculties; Deleuze's semiotics of film or painting; his notion of symptomatology in respect to literary texts; major and minor literature; his theorizing of novelty and difference; and the distinctions drawn in What is Philosophy? between the arts, science and philosophy.

Stream Three: Aesthetics

This part of the conference is open to papers from all disciplines theoretically or practically engaging with issues in aesthetics. Both academics and practicing artists are invited to contribute papers or works of relevance to the conference theme. Possible topics for presentations could include:
postmodern aesthetics; the changing role (and relevance) of art in contemporary culture; emergent art forms; the relation between thought and sensation; the sublime; gender and aesthetics; cross-cultural aesthetics; recent movements within the respective arts; art and politics; the relationship between the marketplace and the reception and consumption of artworks; art and ritual; art and religion; feminism and art; the viability of the avant-garde; Art brut; theorizing sensation, perception and/or representation; art and sub-cultures; cyber-culture; etc.

We welcome papers discussing philosophers, cultural critics, or artists who have written or commented on the philosophy of aesthetics or debates in aesthetics (e.g., Plato, Aristotle, Longinus, Hume, Burke, Goethe, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Bakhtin, Heidegger, Bataille, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Barthes, Kristeva, Blanchot, Lacan, Derrida, Nancy, Klossowski, Baudrillard, Adorno, Benjamin, Whitehead, Caillois, Genette, Ricoeur, Cixous, Bourdieu, Foucault, Virillio, De Certeau, Badiou, Artaud, Brecht, Cassirer, Arnheim, Marcuse, Debord, Cage, Jameson, McLuhan, Goodman, Eisenstein, Godard, Marker, Augé, Levy, Eagleton, Fish, Baba, Bal, Zizek, etc.)

Submission details for proposals:

Individual papers: A title and a 300 word abstract for papers of 30 minutes reading time.

Panels: 2-3 speakers (30 minutes each); a 300 word abstract for the panel plus up to 300 words for each paper.

Submissions should also include the following information:

Name(s) and title(s) of speaker(s)

Phone number

Postal address

E-mail address

Institutional affiliation (if any)

Special equipment needs (if any)

Submissions of abstracts should be sent by e-mail attachment (as Word or RTF files) to one of the following:

Stream One (Lyotard) to Ashley Woodward


Stream Two (Deleuze) to Graham Jones

Stream Three (open) to Felicity Colman

or to Jon Roffe

Closing date for submissions: 4th of April, 2005.

For those who require confirmation of acceptance before that date in order to secure funding, please request this on your submission (and include your funding deadline). This conference will be fully refereed, with select papers published. Notification of acceptance will be emailed by the 20th of April, 2005.

Details about accommodation, conference facilities, etc., will be available on-line shortly.

Registration rates (in Australian dollars):

Earlybird (by May 3rd): Waged $180
Unwaged $70

After earlybird deadline: Waged $220
Unwaged $100

Per day rate: Waged $100
Unwaged $50

Organising Committee (and contact addresses):

Felicity Colman (fcolman[at]unimelb.edu.au)

Graham Jones (grajones[at]unimelb.edu.au)

Jon Roffe (overground[at]imap.cc)

Ashley Woodward (phallacy[at]tpg.com.au)

This conference is organized by the following departments and groups at the University of Melbourne:

The School of Creative Arts;

The Department of Cinema Studies in the School of Art History, Cinema, Classics and Archaeology;

Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy (in association with the Department of Philosophy).

Further conference details can be found on-line

here.