History and Philosophy

Title of Contribution:

Time:

Inspiration and Creation. The relationship between philosophy and poetry in Schelling’s Philosophy of Revelation

9:00

9:30

University / Faculty / Department / Institute:

University of Perugia / Department of Philosophy, Social Sciences and Education

Abstract of the contribution:

Inspiration, imagination and interpretation are fundamental themes within Schelling’s aesthetic idealism. Art, in Schelling’s early writings, seems to provide a sure answer to the philosopher’s original questions: «What gives unity to though? What unites individuals in society?». Art is the instrument that can reconcile the infinite and the finite and give unity to though, through the harmonisation of unconscious inspiration and conscious interpretation. In the later Schelling, the importance of art seems to be attenuated: the focus shifts to religion. In a page of the Philosophy of Revelation, however, the theme of art appears again. The new question is now: «why revelation?». Revelation is God’s weakness, but at the same time it constitutes his power, his love. God’s madness in the creation of the world is the synthesis of this. God wills the finite, despite Adam’s sin. This will of God is a blind force that overcomes the contradiction between the finite and the infinite: this overcoming of the contradiction is the same as in art. God as infinite is not opposed to finiteness: He determines Himself as the highest artistic figure in His attempt to seek the finite, to shape it and redeem it.

Contrary to what it would seems in the Philosophy of Revelation, art does not assume a marginal role, but could be compared to the act of creation. Art, in the reconciliation of opposites, opens the way to the eternal. The relationship between art (poetry above all) and philosophy then changes. Poetry is the natural product of happy spirits, but it cannot be produced in crisis. Only philosophy can overcome the crisis and open up the possibility of an authentic way of poetising.

Title of Contribution:

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The spectral foundation of Inspiration: an “hauntological” lecture of Ion

9:30

10:00

University / Faculty / Department / Institute:

University of Perugia / Department of Philosophy, Social Sciences and Education

Abstract of the contribution:

This contribution questions the source of inspiration. Where intuition reveals itself to be structurally 'immanent' to the one who perceives it, inspiration, on the other hand, implies an alterity from which it springs according to a mechanism of 'revelation'. The question arises at the moment of identifying such alterity: which entity can rise to the role of inspirer? How can it do so without reducing its otherness, structuring the very essence of 'inspiration'? Such an issue will lead, at first, back to a certain contradiction that animates the "Ion" dialogue regarding poetic inspiration: while Plato tells us that it does not come from some knowledge or ability exercised by the poet, he does not make explicit, except through allegory, who or what originates inspiration. It will therefore be a second question to ask whether the Derridean concept of the "spectre" provides useful elements for identifying this otherness at the origin of artistic inspiration, which in Plato remains, unsurprisingly, vague. The deepening of the "spectrum" in its constitutive ontological contradiction will lead to thinking about the spectral foundation of Inspiration, implementing and elucidating the Platonic vagueness previously addressed, while safeguarding its dynamism and unreproducibility. Finally, if inspiration is the call of an other who remains other, to what role is the one who is inspired called? To imagine the application of a revelation of which he is in no way the owner, or to interpret what he has received by trying to adhere to something that remains inscrutable? The answer, as we shall see, will not be to close this paradox, but to accept it forcefully, with the ethical, artistic and political implications that will be revealed.

Title of Contribution:

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Imagining the sacred. Limits and potential of Roger Caillois perspective

10:00

10:30

University / Faculty / Department / Institute:

University of Perugia / Department of Philosophy, Social Sciences and Education

Abstract of the contribution:

Is it possible to "imagine" the sacred? Is it a fantasy operation, or is it an intuition capable of interpreting the enigma of life and, perhaps, inspiring it? The perspective of Roger Caillois represents, as Julien Ries observes, sociology that studies the sacred according to the Durkheimian lesson, that is, as a phenomenon of "horizontal transcendence", useful to explain the modalities of the social order through anthropological constants.

If this is true in the case of L'homme et le sacré (1950), in the last Caillois de L'Ècritures des pierres (1970) we can see a powerful vertical vocation, such that the sociological setting on the sacred gives way to mysticism of stones, to a "natural aesthetic". The surprising legacy of the signs of the times on the stones that Caillois collects is configured as a creative and philosophical process at the same time in which a hierophany without humanity is traveled backward.

The apparently involuntary drawings present in some incredible stones, however, write and describe anthropic scenarios and simulacra of life, as in the case of veins all too similar to cities, villages, animals, and men. As Marguerite Yourcenar notes, Caillois opposes a rejection of ephemeral humanity that does not care about the original clues in animals, plants, and minerals.

Contemporary art, according to our author, helps and supports this particular speculative pace: with the advent of the non-figurative in art, contemporary man has begun to become familiar with a new way of seeing reality and interpreting it, educating himself to know how to see beyond mere representation, going to look for the geometric source of “pre-established harmony”.

The stone represents the atavistic search for what Caillois defines as an "immortal autograph" of an "imprint before the great book of age".

Caillois emphasizes creaturely beauty without ever openly considering it as such; his asymptotic proceeding, however, betrays an interesting kinship with the homo religiosus of the philosophies of religious sentiment (cf. Soderblom, Otto), accompanied by an esthetology imbued with mysticism.

Title of Contribution:

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The representations of the main characters of Islam in the Kingdom of Castile in the 13th century: Representing the past to interpret the present

11:00

11:30

University / Faculty / Department / Institute:

Charles University / Faculty of Humanities, Department of Anthropology

Abstract of the contribution:

In the long conflict between Christian and Muslim kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula during the 13th century, the representations of the other played a fundamental role in the Castilian discourse. These representations not only focused on the actors of that present but also very notably on historical-mythical characters. This does not seem to be a characteristic of the representations of Islam from the West at a specific historical moment or geographical area, taking into account the critical analysis of Orientalism, in which Edward Said placed the representations of Muhammad as a central element in the imagined construction of the Muslims, that the West has made since the Middle Ages until the 20th century. From my point of view and taking into account the content of sources in the studied century, this role does not only apply to Muhammad’s case but, at the same time, characters such as Ishmael and Satan share similar features and symbolic importance. In this sense, these representations are central in the symbolic system of Islam as other, and, therefore, in the construction of Castilian own identity and in the legitimization of the dominance over the disputed territory. The study seeks to analyze the representations of Muhammad, Ismael and Satan, and their connection with the anti-Muslim discourse of the thirteenth century in the kingdom of Castile and how those representations linked the past with the present in an imagined world, giving meaning to the facts and events the Castilians were living in their historical moment.

Title of Contribution:

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Religious Belonging and Multinational Encounters in “Infidel Izmir” Past and Present

11:30

12:00

University / Faculty / Department / Institute:

Charles University / Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of International Studies, Russian and East European Studies

University of Groningen, The Netherlands / Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, Christianity and the History of Ideas

Abstract of the contribution:

In Turkey, the Roman Catholic Church faces an uncertain future as it lacks official recognition of its legal status. Thus, the survival of the small parishes signifies the survival of the Catholic Church in contemporary Turkey. This article focuses on the perseverance of the multicultural Roman Catholic community of Our Lady of Lourdes (Notre Dame de Lourdes) of Göztepe (in Izmir) after the arrival of Father Gabriel Ferone in 2008. The revival of Our Lady of Lourdes resulted from people of different backgrounds (i.e., Europeans, African students, Turks) moving to Izmir and joining this parish. The paper also explores the change in the demography of the parish during its transformation throughout the years.

Title of Contribution:

Time:

Heinrich Schliemann: «I never forgot Troy». On the 200th anniversary of the birth of Heinrich Schliemann (1822-1890)

12:00

12:30

University / Faculty / Department / Institute:

Charles Univeristy / Catholic Theological Faculty / Institute of Christian Art History

Abstract of the contribution:

Heinrich Schliemann: self-taught archaeologist, founder of Mycenaean archeology, discoverer of Homeric Troy. All of these high-profile events occurred at the end of the life of Heinrich Schliemann. But what do we really know about his childhood, adolescence, and adulthood?

There’s no doubt that Heinrich Schliemann lived a bright life, was an extraordinary personality, and at the same time very complicated. He possessed an undeniable polyglot talent and a genius commercial instinct. At the same time, Schliemann was not deprived of imagination, possessed a lively mind, amazing purposefulness, and an ardent, sometimes uncontrollable, passion. Sometimes these virtues took him too far.

A rather difficult youth, according to Autobiography, taught Schliemann to look for alternative ways of education, career growth, and obtaining social status. This was reflected in the tendency to hyperbole and borrow. Commercial flair and imagination made Schliemann listen to Frank Calvert and begin excavations on the Hisarlik Hill. Alas, these same qualities led to the fact that Schliemann, during and after his life, overshadowed the names of fellow scientists with whom he worked on the excavations of Troy, Mycenae, Tiryns and also to the destruction of the very precious Homeric Troy, around which Schliemann built his autobiography and the last 20 years of his real life.

Title of Contribution:

Time:

Literature as Media for Theological Reflection

12:00

12:30

University / Faculty / Department / Institute:

University of Latvia

Abstract of the contribution:

In the research “Literature as Media for Theological Reflection:” the author defines difference between literary-religious texts and fiction with religious motives, explaining how literature can be and is worthy issue for reflecting modern religiosity, or religiosity of the time it was written. Also, it gives an idea about religious views of the author. For example, novels of Margareth Atwood and Georges Bataille can be read as literary-religious texts, but Harry Potter series can be read as text with religious motives; analysis and appropriate interpretation of these texts may give an opportunity to construct new theologies, which may be more modern as classic systematic theologies or even challenging to them.

Title of Contribution:

Time:

Cultural localisation in poetry translation

14:30

15:00

University / Faculty / Department / Institute:

Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice

Abstract of the contribution:

The contribution aims to lay the very fundamentals of cultural localisation and to commence polemics on the role of cultural localisation in translation of poetry. The possibilities and specific aspects of localisation shall be determined and applied to translation of the selected poems by Oľga Urminská, an author who was born in Slovakia in the twentieth century, nevertheless, spent the majority of her lifetime in the United States of America, more specifically in the Hawaiian Islands, where her family emigrated in 1968. The language of the poetical works of the author was, however, written in the English language. Poetological aspects of the poems dependently relate to the cultural background of the Islands, including local realities and epochal particularities; which may originate from both the native country, and the most significant country and state of her life. Alongside the above-mentioned specifics, we shall present the most notable pitfalls of the translation of the selected poems, arising from cultural divergences and political and sociolinguistic polarity. The choice of cultural localisation in the translation of the selected poems by Oľga Urminská shall then be presented, stating the most crucial supporting ideas of the possible application of cultural localisation in poetry translation; hypothetically being considered as bearing significant importance.

Title of Contribution:

Time:

Evil Mythical Creatures in Maltese Tradition and Folklore; A Collection of Old Maltese Fairy Tales by Priest Emmanwel Magri

15:00

15:30

University / Faculty / Department / Institute:

Masaryk University / Faculty of Arts / Department of Classical Studies

Abstract of the contribution:

Manwel Magri (1851-1907) was an outstanding Maltese linguist, archaeologist and a devout priest who could preach in many languages. Magri always had a reverence and boundless love for his native archipelago and sought to map all Maltese traditions and to collect and record the cultural heritage and fairy tales of the Maltese Islands.

In all, Magri collected 62 tales (some of which have 13 variants) by visiting Maltese citizens and having these tales told. It is generally accepted that fairy tales are an important literary genre and aspect of social history, as they shed light not only on the way people lived, but also on the interactions and important cultural links between very diverse national circumstances. Various fairy tale motifs in the Mediterranean have constantly travelled and been transmitted by oral tradition, which may to some extent mirror the collective national memories of different Mediterranean national literatures. It is the meeting of familiar southern European bestiary (or fairy tale) motifs with Arabic ones that creates unique stories in Malta that straddle three religions: Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.

While giants, witches and dragons, and other creatures representing evil in stories, appear in many tales across Europe, Asia and Africa, some Maltese tales contain endemic mythical creatures such as Kaw kaw, Il-Belliegha and L-Imphalla. The traditional Maltese obsession with maintaining spiritual (or ritual) purity meant that many of these creatures were tasked with policing forbidden or restricted areas of human interest and attacking individuals who violated the strict codes of conduct that characterised 19th century Maltese island pre-industrial society.

Title of Contribution:

Time:

Social violence, its functions and what lies in-between: What do Dostoevsky and Süskind have to say about peace?

15:30

16:00

University / Faculty / Department / Institute:

Charles University / Faculty of Social Sciences

Abstract of the contribution:

The present article proposes an ontological reconstruction of the concept of social violence in order to re-problematise how peace is approached and studied. It is guided by the logic of social and political ‘fracturing’. In brief, the concept entails that the cracking of our habitual perceptions permits us to expand on certain structural reproductions, hence to acquire new mindsets and behaviours. Adjacent to the ‘fracturing’ concept, terminology from peace studies and Juri Lotman’s critical geographies are used to bring about social inherent violent mechanisms and their functions into the analysis. In doing so, the inquiry focuses on assessing how violent narratives circulate and transfuse into cultural mechanisms in the literary novels of Patrick Süskind’s ‘Perfume’ and Fyodor Dostoevsky's ‘Crime and Punishment’ . Thus, the present article examines the creative resources of literature and their ways to ‘fracture’ and re-invent the habitual structural explanations of the peace-violence continuum. Notably, it demonstrates that imagination and creation can instruct an active and responsible civic engagement with peace, provided that conceding violence and its conditions for possibility are approached differently. Lastly, this investigation wishes to spark creative and alternative research inquiries that can result from a dialogue between humanities and security studies scholars.

Title of Contribution:

Time:

Mephisto's motifs in the directorial work of Jozef Bednárik

16:30

17:00

University / Faculty / Department / Institute:

Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra

Abstract of the contribution:

In this thesis, the Mephisto´s motifs using in theatre productions directed by Jozef Bednárik will be discussed. The work is focused mainly on his opera productions, but the research will also touch his drama, ballet and musical productions. The aim is to point out the frequent presence of Mephistopheles motifs in the productions of Jozef Bednárik (in the form of the characters of the devil, manipulator, destroyer of happiness, etc.), which have become an important phenomenon of directing interpretation practice and a personal artistic memento of the director. Our analysis will point to the existence of these motifs not only in works where the Mephisto figure is explicitly present in the text (for example Christopher Marlowe: Doctor Faustus; Charles Gounod: Faust and Marguerite,), but also in works, where the tempter is an implanted character by the director (mainly Jacques Offenbach: Tales of Hoffmann; Charles Gounod: Romeo and Juliet; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Don Giovanni). The aim of the work will be to identify Mephisto motifs in Jozef Bednárik's productions and to analyze the way the director depicts and uses them for his interpretive purpose. At the same time, on the basis of these analyses, we characterize Jozef Bednárik's overall view of the dramatic text and the essence of theater, which in his understanding differed significantly from the opinion of other directors. We will try to name not only the external features of Bednárik's work, such as the directorial approach, poetics, used means of expression, etc., but also the inner philosophy of the director's work. We will point out the strong internal links between the individual productions, which in Bednárik's work combine into a kind of cycle with a clear, in our territory never-before-formulated message. However, it is precisely this that makes Jozef Bednárik one of the most interesting directors of the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Title of Contribution:

Time:

Sacred Mission or Bloodshed Unjustified? Representations of Colonialism in Czechoslovak Travelogues

17:00

17:30

University / Faculty / Department / Institute:

Charles University / Faculty of Humanities

Abstract of the contribution:

Czechoslovakia enjoyed a particular position within the post-war colonial discourse, which Sarah Lemmen describes as “non-colonial orientalism“, and which differentiates the situation in Czechoslovakia from the „classic“ conceptual framework of Said´s orientalism. The Czech lands do not namely fit into any category of colonial powers, for they never had any colonies, were not a colony, nor do they define themselves as a part of the western world. All this put Czechoslovakia in a unique, albeit ambivalent position. Even so, the colonial imagination was more than prevalent in Czechoslovakia. My paper wants to show how exactly the concept of European imperialism was constructed in Czechoslovak travelogues, and what influence had the representations of the authors on the power relations within this country.

The aim of this talk will be on two different interpretations based on travelogues written from the 1950s to the 1970s - the view of Jiří Hanzelka and Miroslav Zikmund, who have built a reputation as the most renowned Czechoslovak travelers of their time, and whose travelogues consist largely of a critique of the colonial establishment. In the next step, I will focus on the view of Jaroslav Putík, Ivan Frič and Vojtěch Zamarovský. Jaroslav Putík and Ivan Frič visited Egypt together, publishing a travelogue “Pod egyptským půlměsícem” as a result of that visit. Vojtěch Zamarovský, as a great enthusiast for ancient history, is the author of several publications on the verge of scholarly and travel literature, of which the “Jeho veličenstva pyramidy”, written about Egypt, shall be of the greatest importance for my purposes.

Title of Contribution:

Time:

Imagining East and West in the 1990s Czech Republic: The Western Expatriate Experience

17:30

18:00

University / Faculty / Department / Institute:

Charles University / Faculty of Humanities

Abstract of the contribution:

This paper builds on the rich body of literature dealing with the imagology of East and West within the European cultural and historical context. The idea of a “West vs. East” cultural and civilizational dichotomy substituted the previous “South vs. North” polarity during the period of Enlightenment and later took on a much more concrete political significance after World War Two. After 1989, it was widely presumed that the East (or at least its Western fringe) would follow the example of the West and would try to “catch up”. The Cold War ideas of East and West, while still being very much embedded in peoples’ minds and in public discourse, started to be redrawn. Central and Eastern Europe of the 1990s offers the perfect social context to explore this process of re-imagining.

The dismantling of the Iron Curtain opened up opportunities for travel and exchange of ideas to an extent which had not been possible for the previous 40 years. Based upon oral history interviews, this paper examines the images of East and West as expressed by Western expatriates who came to the Czech lands in 1990s to teach their native languages. It confronts their preconceptions with their actual post-arrival experience of what they had thought of as “the East”. It also takes into consideration the ideas of “the West” held by the Czech society and the social role of the expatriates who were perceived as “bearers of the Western light”. Finally, it compares these images and experiences with the tropes which have been repeatedly emerging in images of East and West over the last two centuries and reflects upon the extent to which they correspond or differ.