Metamorphoses Seminar: New Mimetic StudiesMimesis, metamorphoses, gendered, interdisciplinary seminar, KU Leuven, Institute of Philosophy, homo mimeticus, gendered mimesis, continental philosophyhttps://hiw.kuleuven.be/hua/events/hom-seminarhttps://hiw.kuleuven.be/++resource++plone-logo.svg
Metamorphoses Seminar: New Mimetic Studies
Metamorphoses Seminar: Steps for Mimetic Studies
Joining the insights emerging of both theHomo Mimeticus(HOM, 2016-2022) and the Gendered Mimesis(GM 2021-) sibling projects, the MET Seminar aims to further the relational, affective, plastic, and relationally-inclined dispositions of human and nonhuman others from a multiplicity of--gendered, racial, sexual, human, posthuman, nonhuman, and other--trans-disiciplinary perspectives. Our general goal is to further new mimetic studies in view of promoting life-affirmative metamorphoses in the age of the Anthropocene.
The seminar is open to all students (3rd year BA, MA, PhD), postdocs, and faculty members. Drawing on emerging figures in continental philosophy, feminism, literary theory, and the social sciences, the seminar proposes to take short excerpts of texts on the plural facets of metamorphoses as a starting point for discussion. Participants are welcome to sign up for short (ca 20 min) introductory presentations of authors / texts / problems that fall within their areas of specialization and/or interest. We will consider inviting speakers from other faculties and universities as well.
Catherine, Malabou, "Epigenetic Mimesis: Natural Brains and Synaptic Chips" in S.E. Wilmer, Audronė Žukauskaitė Critical Responses to the Anthropocene, Edinburgh University Press, 2023
Metamorphoses of Mimesis Reading Group. Session 2.
Thursday, January 26, 2023, 4:30 pm CET, online.
Presentation: Prof. Nidesh Lawtoo, Dr. Isabell Dahms
Catherine Malabou, "Introduction," What Should We Do With Our Brain?, Fordham University Press, 2008, pp.3-8.
Catherine Malabou, "Preface," Morphing Intelligence, Columbia Press, 2019.
Nidesh Lawtoo, "The Plasticity of Mimesis" (chapter 4), in Homo Mimeticus. A New Theory of Imitation, Leuven University Press, 2022,pp. 144-155 (second part).
Metamorphoses of Mimesis Reading Group. Session 1: The Plasticity of Mimesis
Thursday, December 8, 4:30 pm CET, online.
Catherine Malabou, "The Example of Plasticity," Plasticity: The Promise of Explosion, Edinburgh University Press, 2022, pp. 309-320.
Nidesh Lawtoo, "The Plasticity of Mimesis" (chapter 4), in Homo Mimeticus. A New Theory of Imitation, Leuven University Press, 2022,pp. 129-144 (first part).
BOOK LAUNCH. "HOMO MIMETICUS: A NEW THEORY OF IMITATION" BY NIDESH LAWTOO
Friday, November 18, 4-5:30 pm, Kardinaal Mercierzaal, Institute of Philosophy (& online).
5 years ago, the HOM project promised a new theory of imitation to face some of the main challenges of the present. Here it is, Homo Mimeticus: A New Theory of Imitation, with Leuven UP!
Homo Mimeticus is freely available for download HERE.
All welcome and followed by RECEPTION.
METAMORPHOSES SEMINAR: Session 2. The Biomimicry Revolution: Contributions to Mimetic Studies.
Thursday, November 3, 5pm CET (online).
Presentation: Dr. Henry Dicks
Readings:
Henry Dicks, The Biomimicry Revolution, Columbia University Press, 2023. Preface and introduction. (proofs; please don't circulate)
Judith Butler, "Imitation and Gender Insubordination," 1991, Reading
Sara Ahmed, Living a Feminist Life, Duke University Press, 2017, Reading
Readings:
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil §203, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge University Press, 2002. Reading
Friedrich Nietzsche, On The Genealogy of Morality, Second Essay §1 and 2, Cambridge University Press, 2006. Reading
León Chertok & Isabelle Stengers, A Critique of Psychoanalytic Reason: Hypnosis as a Scientific Problem from Lavoisier to Lacan. Stanford University Press. 1992. Reading
Isabelle Stengers, "The Doctor and The Charlatan," in Thobie Nathan & Isabelle Stengers, Doctors and Healers. Polity Press. 2018. Reading
The Mimetic Turn: Final International Conference on Homo Mimeticus (ERC)
Keynotes & invited speakers: Jane Bennett, Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, Vittorio Gallese, William E. Connolly, Michael Butter, William A. Johnsen, Andrea Mubi Brighenti, Greta Olson, Sara Polak, Matthew Potolsky, Herman Siemens, Henry Staten
Adriana Cavarero, preface, chapter 5, chapter 6, in Surging Democracy: Notes on Hannah Arendt’s Political Thought, Stanford University Press, 2021, pp. ix-xvi; pp- 59-71; pp. 72-85.
Thursday 7 October, 4-6 pm CEST online (zoom details below) and in person (everyone should bring their laptops to connect online), Room 03.15, Faculty of Arts, Blijde Inkomststraat 21, Leuven
HOM videos: screening interview with Jean-Luc Nancy on philosophy and mimesis
Online Premiere Thursday, 8 October:Time 8pm via this link.
We are also happy to share the recordings of our last seminar session:
Nidesh Lawtoo’s "The Mimetic Turn: Reloading Mimesis" via this link.
Carole Guesse’s "Towards the Mimetic Posthuman" via this link.
Session 20: HOM Seminar Reloaded: From Poststructuralism to Posthumanism (+ Screening with Jean-Luc Nancy)
Friday 2 October: Time 4-6pm, Room N, Institute of Philosophy, Kardinaal Mercierplein 2. (HOM Seminar 4 to 5.30pm; Nancy Video 5.30 to 6pm). If you are unable to attend the seminar but would still like to come to the screening, you are welcome to join us! The trailer is available here.
Our new HOM member Dr. Carole Guesse will give a short presentation on the topic of posthuman mimesis.
Keynote 6 December, 4h15, Kardinaal Mercierzaal: Prof. Gunter Gebauer (Free University of Berlin): "Worldmaking of the Hand: The Mimetic Creation of Human Nature" (Reception to follow).
session 17: The Mimetic Unconscious
Friday, November 15: Time 4 pm, Room S, Institute of Philosophy, Kardinaal Mercierplein 2
See also Connolly's Lecture " Sophocles, Mary Shelly and the Planetary" on Thursday, October 10, 5-7pm, Kardinaal Mercierzaal, Institute of Philosophy. More details here
BOOK LAUNCH (NEW) FASCISM: CONTAGION, COMMUNITY, MYTH BY NIDESH LAWTOO
Friday, September 27: Time 3-4 pm, Salons, Institute of Philosophy, Kardinaal Mercierplein 2.
Lawtoo, Nidesh. “The Classical World: Sacrifice, Philosophy and Religion,” in The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion, ed. James Alison and Wolfgang Palaver. New York: Palgrave, 2017, 119-126.
Le Bon, Gustave. Psychologie des foules. Paris: PUF, 2003.
Roustang, François. L’Influence. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1990.
Tarde, Gabriel. Les Lois de l’imitation. Paris : Seuil, 2001.
Taussig, Michael. Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses (Routledge 1993).
Phenomenology of Mimesis
Dufrenne, Mike. The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience, trans. by Edward S. Casey (Northwestern 1973).
Husserl, Edmund. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy – First Book: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology, 1982. Trans. Kersten, F. The Hague: Nijhoff.
---. Phantasy, image consciousness, and memory (Hua 23), trans. by John Brough (Springer 2001).
Gallagher, Shaun and Meltzoff A. "The Earliest Sense of Self and Others: Merleu-Ponty and Recent Developmental Studies." Philosophical Psychology 9.2 (1996): 211-233.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phénomenologie de la perception. Paris: Gallimard, 2004.
Henry, Michel. Généalogie de la psychanalyse. Le commencement perdu. Paris : PUF 1985.
Ricoeur, Paul. Time and Narrative, vol. 1, trans. Kathleen McLaughlin and David Pellauer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984
Sartre, Jean-Paul. L’Imaginaire, PUF, Paris, 1943
Mimesis and Literature
Abrams, M. H. The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1953.
Armstrong, Paul B. How Literature Plays with the Brain: the Neuroscience of Reading and Art (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014).
Auerbach, Erich. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Trans. Willard R. Trask. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.
Barthes, Roland. “The Structuralist Activity.” Critical Theory Since Plato, ed. Hazard Adams. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc, 1971. 1196-1999.
Beebee, Thomas. Transmesis: Inside Translation's Black Box. Palgrave, 2012.
Costa Lima, Luiz. Control of the Imaginary: Reason and Imagination in Modern Times. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988.
Girard, René. Deceit, Desire and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure. Trans. Yvonne Freccero. Baltimore: The Johns. Hopkins University Press, 1965.
---. To Double Business Bound: Essays on Literature, Mimesis and Anthropology. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988.
Huhn, Tom. Imitation and Society: The Persistence of Mimesis in the Aesthetics of Burke, Hogarth, and Kant. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004.
Lawtoo, Nidesh. The Phantom of the Ego: Modernism and the Mimetic Unconscious. Michigan State UP, 2013.
Poulet, Georges. "Criticism and the Experience of Interiority." The Structural Controversy: The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man, eds. Richard Macksey and Eugenio Donato. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2007.
Mimesis and Visual Arts
Benjamin, Andrew. Art, Mimesis and the Avant-Garde. New York: Routledge 2001.
Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Illuminations. New York: Schocken Books, 1969.
Didi-Huberman, George. La Ressemblance informe, ou Le gai savoir visuel selon Georges Bataille. Macula, 1995.
Fried, Michael. Absorption and Theatricality: Painting and Beholder in the Age of Diderot. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.
Gombrich, Ernst. “From Representation to Expression.” Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation. Princeton University Press, 1969. 359-392.
Frigg, Roman, and Matthew Hunter eds. Beyond Mimesis and Convention: Representation in Art and Science. New York: Springer 2000.
Manguel, Alberto. Reading Pictures: What We Think About When We Loot at Art. 2000.
Onians, John. European Art: A Neuroarthistory. Yale UP, 2016.
Mimesis and Difference
Agacinski S. Derrida, J. S. Kofman, Ph. Lacoue-Labarthe, J.-L. Nancy, B. Pautrat. Mimesis des articulations. Paris: Aubier-Flammarion, 1975.
Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacres et simulation. Paris: Galilée, 1981.
Deleuze, Gilles. “Platon et le Simulacre. ” Logique du sens. Paris. Les Editions de Minuit, 1969. 292-306
---. “Lucrèce et le Simulacre.” Logique du sens. 307-324.
Derrida, Jacques. “Plato’s Pharmacy.” Dissemination. Trans. Barbara Johnson: Chicago: The Chicago University Press, 1981.61-171.
---. “The Double Session.” Dissemination.173-286.
Diamond, Elin. Unmaking Mimesis: Essays on Feminism and Theatre. New York, NY: Routledge, 2003.
Nancy, Jean-Luc. "The Image: Mimesis and Methexis." In Nancy and Visual Culture, edited by Janus Adrienne and Giunta Carrie, 73-92. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016.
Figures de l’imposture, Entre philosophie, littérature et sciences, sous la direction de J-Ch Darmon. Paris, Editions Desjonquères, 2013.
Kendall L. Walton, Mimesis as Make-Believe, On the Foundation of the Representational Arts, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, Harvard Univ. Press, 1990.
Non-Western Mimesis
de Castro, Eduardo Viveiros. Cannibal Metaphysics. U of Minnesota P, 2014.
Tomonobu Imamichi, “Mimesis and Expression: A Comparative Study in Aesthetics”, in Facts and Values: Philosophical Reflections from Western and Non-Western Perspectives, ed. by M.C. Doeser and J.N. Kraay (Martinus Nijhof, 1986).
Miki Kiyoshi, Logic of the Imagination (English translation not yet available)
John W.M. Krummel, "Introduction to Miki Kiyoshi and his ‘Logic of the Imagination’”, Social Imaginaries, 2 (1), 2016, 13-24.
Byung-Chul Han, Shanzhai, Dekonstruktion auf Chinesisch, Berlin, Merve Verlag, 2011
MIMESIS AND SCIENCE
Gallese, Vittorio “The Two Sides of Mimesis: Mimetic Theory, Embodied Simulation, and Social Identification.” Mimesis and Science: Empirical Research on Imitation and the Mimetic Theory of Culture and Religion, edited by Scott R. Garrels. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2011. 87-108.
Hurley, Susan and Nick Chater, eds. Perspectives on Imitation: From Neuroscience to Social Science, vol. 1 Mechanisms of Imitation and Imitation in Animals, vol. 2 Imitation, Human Development, and Culture. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2005.
Meltzoff, Andrew. al. "The Human Infant as Homo Imitans." In Zentall and Galef (Eds.), Social learing: Psycholoiical and Biological
Perspectives(pp. 319-341). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Rizzolatti, Giacomo, Sinigaglia Corrado. Mirrors in the Brain: How our Minds Share Actions, Emotions. Trans. Frances Anderson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Lawtoo, Nidesh. “Virus mimetico e mimesi virale.” In Virale: Il presente al tempo dell’epidemia, eds. Roberto De Gaetano, Angela Maiello (Cosenza: Pellegrini Editore, 2020).
