Ereignis Seminar

Next seminar: Wednesday 6 December, 2023 @ 16h00 CET

We wish you welcome to the Ereignis Seminar, a monthly open and free seminar where invited scholars present work in progress and ongoing projects. The seminar will serve as a vehicle to gather together people, ideas and interests, to generate interest around our common purposes, and to inspire further study. We welcome open, informed and generous discussion about thoughts and propositions forwarded by our outstanding speakers, specially invited guests and other scholars connected with the Ereignis Seminar. The seminar is conceived as an open-ended continuation of the annual Ereignis Conference.

The seminar is held on Zoom every first Wednesday of the month at 16h00 CET, and is scheduled for one hour. On the most general level the seminar seeks to further and encourage thinking about the Ereignis philosophy. Relevant topics include literature and philosophy, theology and psycho-analysis. Papers and perspectives from all schools and traditions are welcome. There is no participation fee, and attendance is open to all interested. However, we ask that you register your interest in advance by sending an email with the subject-header “Ereignis Seminar” to ereignis@tankebanen.no. A Zoom-link with passcode will be sent out to all registered attendees in advance of the seminar.

Scheduled seminars

Wednesday, 6 December, 2023

Dr. Gray Kochhar-Lindgren (University of Hong Kong and Wild Studios Consulting): The Enigma of Writing: Habits, Genres, Styles

Including brief encounters with Pinxtos: Small Delicacies and Chance Encounters, which will be published in Ereignis’s utopos: creative criticism series, we will talk with one another about our own experience of, and experiments with, the mysterious act of writing. How do we organize it for ourselves; what complexes, phantasms, and aspirations does it touch upon; how do writing, reading, and the world traverse each other? Why, in fact, do we even bother with writing at all? We’ll be accompanied by a few well-known figures who have spoken, now and again, about writing. Please bring a sentence or a short paragraph of your own writing to throw into the ring of conversation! Read an excerpt from Pintxos here.

Wednesday, 7 February, 2024

Dr. Mehdi Parsa (University of Bonn and Ereignis Center for Philosophy and the Arts): Einstein and Philosophers on Time

Philosophy, spanning from Aristotle’s *Physics* to Heidegger’s *On Time and Being*, delineates a distinction between the essence of time and the quantifiable, spatialized notion of time. Particularly after Kant’s powerful skepticism, the viability of maintaining Newtonian homogeneous space housing objects governed by a universally linear time became untenable. Both Bergson and Heidegger critiqued the reduction of time in physics to mere space, isolating it from the essence of temporality. This reduction occurs to facilitate the measurability of time, enabling its systematic management. This is the case not only in physics but also in ordinary use of time which operates as an instrument to structure social life.

The central inquiry in this seminar revolves around whether the Theory of Special Relativity introduces a modification or revolution in the Newtonian paradigm of space-time. This exploration aims to assess whether Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity can circumvent philosophical criticisms of physical time and, more ambitiously, provide a positive account of time capable of compensating Bergson’s and Heidegger’s negative ontologies. My preliminary response to this query leans towards the negative. I endeavor to illustrate that while the constancy of the speed of light as a measurement tool complicates the concept of absolute time, Einstein’s genius lay not in fundamentally revolutionizing physics but in instituting necessary adjustments to salvage classical physics. The crisis in physics prompting the emergence of relativity theory stemmed from attempts to reconcile Maxwell’s principles of electromagnetism with Newtonian principles of movement. Physicists sought to measure the speed of electromagnetic waves while applying Galilean classical relativity to these waves. Einstein exceptionalized the speed of electromagnetic waves but retained fundamental classical concepts such as inert frameworks, speed, and timekeeping. From a philosophical standpoint, in his theory, the temporality of inert frameworks, including simultaneity, priority, or posteriority of events, are contemplated in a classical sense. Einstein’s theory of special relativity unfolds within the spatially linear conception of time, creating a complex interplay between space and time.

In conclusion, I argue that the quest for a revolutionary account of physical concepts and an alternative ontology faithful to Kant’s Copernican turn should be directed toward quantum mechanics rather than the theory of relativity.

Wednesday, 6 March, 2024

Dr. Jytte Holmqvist (University of Melbourne) and Dr. Torgeir Fjeld (Ereignis Center for Philosophy and the Arts): Bergman obscure

Wednesday, 3 April, 2024

Dr. Anda Pleniceanu (Western University).

Wednesday, 8 May, 2024

Prof. Dror Pimentel (Bezalel Academy of Art and Design Jerusalem).

Wednesday, 5 June, 2024

Giulia Zerbinati (University of Bologna): Models of dialectics and aesthetic truth in Hegel and Adorno

August, 2024

Ereignis Conference and Summer School

More information to come. Read about our previous conferences here.

Wednesday, 4 September, 2024

Prof. Andrew Jorn (Tsukuba Gakuin University in Ibaraki, Japan and Ereignis Center for Philosophy and the Arts): Temporal castration and capitalist realism beyond psycho-analysis

Wednesday, 2 October, 2024

Prof. Dr. Jørgen Veisland (University of Gdańsk): Liberty and the New World Order

On geopolitical states of power, surveillance, and of freedom of speech, with reference to George Orwell’s 1984.

Previous seminars

Wednesday, 1 November, 2023

Prof. Dr. Jørgen Veisland (University of Gdańsk): Transcendence in Cormac McCarthy’s novels The Crossing and Stella Maris

About the Ereignis seminar

The Ereignis Seminar is a live event, and is not recorded. General academic standards for participation apply. If you are interested in presenting a paper, an ongoing research project or work in progress at the Ereignis Seminar send your short abstract and author bio to ereignis@tankebanen.no. We are particularly interested in projects that somehow connect to our particular approach.

The seminar is presented by Ereignis Center for Philosophy and the Arts. Discussion is moderated by Dr. Torgeir Fjeld.

More information: https://seminar.ereignis.no/.

It is necessary to think, under the name of the void, the outside-place [utopos] on the basis of which any place—any situation—maintains itself with respect to its being. That the without-place (Άτοπον) signifies the absurd causes one to forget that the point, precisely in not being a place, can mitigate the aporias of the void. Alain Badiou

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