King's Centres to host international philosophy conference

The Centre for Advanced Research in European Philosophy and The Centre for Advanced Research in Catholic Thought will jointly present a conference: Rethinking Response to Political Crisis and Collapse: Hannah Arendt, Edith Stein, Rosa Luxemburg, and Simone Weil. The conference will take place March 6-8, 2020 in the Darryl J. King Student Life Centre.

Speakers at the conference will present on topics that include politics, sociality, theology, history and philosophy.

“We have a created a unique forum in which we bring four notable philosophers together—Hannah Arendt, Rosa Luxemburg, Simone Weil, and Edith Stein—to help us think through what a new or reformed idea of politics and sociality would look like. Ultimately, we ask: What can we learn from these thinkers and their ideas? How can they come to affect contemporary politics and life? This is a unique opportunity for King's, as we have international scholars coming to think through the various crises that face our contemporary world,” says Dr. Antonio Calcagno, Professor of Philosophy.

The conference is integrated into the King’s course, PHIL 3885G. The senior students in this course taught by Dr. Stephen Lofts, Professor and Philosophy Department Chair, and Dr. Calcagno will participate in the conference as speakers and moderators. This provides students the opportunity to network with scholars from around the globe. King’s students will present as part of the conference, helping students integrate their research and learning into higher levels of academic study.

“It is an engaged approach to experiential learning,” says Dr. Calcagno.

The conference will feature two keynote speakers.

• Anna Rowlands of Durham University will present via Skype the Opening Keynote Address on March 6, 2020 from 4:15 – 5:40 p.m. in Room KC004. Rowlands will speak on “Simone Weil as Negative Political Theologian: Destitution, Decreation and the Politics of Membership.”
• Rebecca Rozelle-Stone of the University of North Dakota will deliver the Closing Keynote Address on March 8, 2020 from 11:05 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Rozelle-Stone will speak on “Attention and Moral Fatigue in Desert-Worlds: Simone Weil and Hannah Arendt on Responding to Political Collapse.”

Members of the King’s community will speak as part of the conference, including:

• Dr. Stephen Lofts, Professor and Philosophy Department Chair, will speak on “The Crisis Challenge of our Time: The Self-Understanding of the Human” on March 7, 2020 at 10:35 – 11:55 a.m.
• Dr. Antonio Calcagno, Professor of Philosophy, will speak on “The Tension Between a priori Right and Community in Edith Stein” on March 7, 2020 at 10:35 – 11:55 a.m.
• Bianca Merucci, Fourth Year Honours  Specialization in Philosophy and Minor in Psychology will speak on “Rethinking an Inter-Esse Community in a Hyper-Individualized World” on March 7, 2020 at 1:15-2:35 p.m.
• Andrew Walker, Fourth Year Double Major in Political Science and Philosophy will speak on “An Interesse Community with a Primacy of Justice: The (In)compatability of an Arendtian Politics that Prioritizes Principles of Justice” on March 7, 2020 at 1:15-2:35 p.m.
• Karanveer Singh, Second Year Honours Specialization in Philosophy will speak on “Rethinking Society” on March 7 from 2:55-4:15 p.m.

Other speakers include:

March 7, 2020 - 9 - 10:20 a.m.

• Manuela Massa (Martin Luther University, Halle) will speak on “The Declaration of Duties Towards Humankind: Simone Weil’s Critique on the Concept of Human Rights”
• Joshua Livingston (Queen’s University) will speak on “Hannah Arendt and the Free Press”

March 7, 2020 – 10:35-11:55 a.m.

• Emily Laurent-Monaghan (Western University) will speak on “Simone Weil’s Homer: Translating Affect”
• Nick Poole (York University) will speak on “’Judging With(out) Bannisters: Exemplarity as Political’ Normativity”

March 7, 2020 – 1:15-2:35 p.m.

• Andrew Spear (Grand Valley State University) will speak on “State and Nation, Freedom, and Self-Deception: Arendt’s Analysis of the Nation-State and de Beauvor’s The Ethics and Ambiguity”
• Andrew Woods (Western University) will speak on “Intellectual Leprosy: The Brexit Crisis and Rabbit-Duck Discourse”

March 7 – 2:55-4:15 p.m.

• Pietro Pirani (Western University) will speak on “Hannah Arendt and Jean-Luc Marion on the Secular”
• Katy Fulfer (University of Waterloo) and Rita Gardiner (Western University) will speak on “Family Matters? Rethinking the Political with Arendt and Luxemburg”
• Peli Meir (University of Haifa) will speak on “Plurality, Roots, and Globalization: The Particular-Cosmopolitan Tension in the Thought of Arendt and Weil”

March 7- 4:20-5:40 p.m.

• Elvira Roncalli (Carroll College) will speak on “Words, Lies and Politics: Lessons from Simone Weil and Hannah Arendt”
• John Garner (University of West Georgia) will speak on “An Institution of Waiting: Simone Weil, Albert Camus, and the Death Penalty”
• Christian Lotz (Michigan State University) will speak on “An Arendtian Reading of Luxemburg’s Concept of Political Action and Freedom”
• Ashley Atkins (Western Michigan University) will speak on “Hannah Arendt and Democratic Sacrifice”

March 8, 2020 – 9:30-10:50 a.m.

• Maria Robaszkiewicz (Universität Paderborn) will speak on “”The Very Quintessence of the Human Condition”: Earth, Education, and Political Subjectivity”
• Diane Enns (Ryerson University) will speak on “Loneliness as Political Crisis”
• Jeremy Arnott (Western University) will speak on “Theorizing the Crises of Modernity with Arendt and Adorno”
• Sangie Zaitsoff (Western University) will speak on “Shared Reality and Civic Togetherness: Hannah Arendt and Edith Stein on the Political Relevance of Friendship”