Workshop on the Tragic Emotions
Organizer: Ashley Atkins
Speakers: Jessica Berry, Matthew Shockey, Agatha Slupek, Ashley Atkins
Center for the Humanities, WMU
October 27-28, 2023
Speakers: Jessica Berry, Matthew Shockey, Agatha Slupek, Ashley Atkins
Center for the Humanities, WMU
October 27-28, 2023
October 27, 3:30-5:
"Poor mankind!—": Reexamining Nietzsche's Critique of Compassion (Jessica Berry)
October 28, 10-2:30:
Hannah Arendt and the Limits of Compassion (Ashley Atkins)
Hannah Arendt famously argues that compassion has no political significance. Arendt does not, however, deny the significance and even power of compassion in other contexts. As Arendt herself sees clearly, compassion can shine and even dazzle (it is, she thinks, a sign of divinity to feel compassion for humanity). In my talk, I look at some philosophical responses to Arendt's work that attempt to defend the political relevance of compassion. I suggest that there is something about the power of compassion in those settings that Arendt has in mind that is so dazzling, it can blind—seducing us into thinking that this power can be enlarged.
A Crack Runs Through It: Disordered Love for a Disordered World (Matthew Shockey)
Augustine was right that love of the world is inherently pathological, but it’s love we can’t live without. Living well, to the extent that it is possible, thus requires finding health in unavoidable illness. In this talk, I explore this idea by reflecting on the question of how I might better learn to live with the complicated heartbreak I experience from encountering the ecological degradation of the part of the world where I grew up. I draw on Hannah Arendt, Jonathan Lear and others to clarify what idea of 'world' is needed to make sense of this emotional complex and how the affective dimensions of carrying my lost world with me relate to things like nostalgia, sorrow, grief, mourning, and despair.
Blood, Betrayal, and Difference in Héléne Cixous' Theater Works (Agatha Slupek)
My talk turns to the works of French writer, philosopher, and political actor Hélène Cixous to theorize the minoritarian experience of political betrayal. Turning to Cixous's theater works, I excavate a minoritarian perspective on the rhetorical and political gestures that inhere in experiences and acts of betrayal. I interrogate how Cixous' positionality as an Algerian Jewish woman and her re-interpretations of Greek tragedy inform her understanding of betrayal by way of the themes of performance, blood, and difference.
"Poor mankind!—": Reexamining Nietzsche's Critique of Compassion (Jessica Berry)
October 28, 10-2:30:
Hannah Arendt and the Limits of Compassion (Ashley Atkins)
Hannah Arendt famously argues that compassion has no political significance. Arendt does not, however, deny the significance and even power of compassion in other contexts. As Arendt herself sees clearly, compassion can shine and even dazzle (it is, she thinks, a sign of divinity to feel compassion for humanity). In my talk, I look at some philosophical responses to Arendt's work that attempt to defend the political relevance of compassion. I suggest that there is something about the power of compassion in those settings that Arendt has in mind that is so dazzling, it can blind—seducing us into thinking that this power can be enlarged.
A Crack Runs Through It: Disordered Love for a Disordered World (Matthew Shockey)
Augustine was right that love of the world is inherently pathological, but it’s love we can’t live without. Living well, to the extent that it is possible, thus requires finding health in unavoidable illness. In this talk, I explore this idea by reflecting on the question of how I might better learn to live with the complicated heartbreak I experience from encountering the ecological degradation of the part of the world where I grew up. I draw on Hannah Arendt, Jonathan Lear and others to clarify what idea of 'world' is needed to make sense of this emotional complex and how the affective dimensions of carrying my lost world with me relate to things like nostalgia, sorrow, grief, mourning, and despair.
Blood, Betrayal, and Difference in Héléne Cixous' Theater Works (Agatha Slupek)
My talk turns to the works of French writer, philosopher, and political actor Hélène Cixous to theorize the minoritarian experience of political betrayal. Turning to Cixous's theater works, I excavate a minoritarian perspective on the rhetorical and political gestures that inhere in experiences and acts of betrayal. I interrogate how Cixous' positionality as an Algerian Jewish woman and her re-interpretations of Greek tragedy inform her understanding of betrayal by way of the themes of performance, blood, and difference.