Graduate Workshop and Symposium in Art and Otherness

The Bergen Network for Women in Philosophy (BNWP) at the University of Bergen, Norway (UiB) will host its second graduate student workshop and symposium from April 29th - May 1st, 2020. We will discuss the relationship between art and otherness, broadly construed. Please see below for sample questions. Our keynote speakers are Danièle Moyal-Sharrock (University of Hertfordshire) and Sharon Rider (Uppsala University).

The event will comprise three kinds of sessions: Workshops will involve close discussion of a pre-circulated paper in small groups. Symposium presentations will be given by keynote speakers and interested workshop participants. Finally, there will be the opportunity to participate in a panel discussion. This panel will be held in cooperation with the Master’s in Fine Arts graduate exhibition at the local art museum, Kunsthall , where interested workshop participants, fine arts students, and professors from the fine arts and art history departments will converse and take audience questions on the topic of ‘otherness.’ Symposium presentations and the panel will be open to the whole department and the general public.

We welcome submissions from women (inclusively defined) who are currently enrolled in a graduate program (masters or doctorate) or have completed a graduate degree within the past year. Submissions must be in English. There is no registration fee. Some meals will be provided.

Discussion will include, but is not limited to, the following:

-- How does art disclose what is other -- that is, strange; new; foreign -- in the familiar? How does it delimit what ‘otherness’ is?

-- How does art reveal the ways in which we, its audience, are other to what the piece depicts or to whom created it? How does it make experiences of being ‘othered’ -- racism; sexism; expatriation; etc. -- vital to its audience? How do art, and issues in the philosophy of art more broadly, deal with the topic of ‘otherness’ in politics, colonialism studies, and technology?

-- What does the creation of -- and engagement with -- art suggest about the relationship between self and other? How do artistic forms, movements, or mediums themselves become ‘other’ as practices of art and art-making technologies change?

We particularly welcome submissions in aesthetics and philosophy of art, phenomenology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of anthropology, philosophy of language, and political philosophy. 

Feel free to contact us at bnkf.info@uib.no if you have any questions!

Scientific organisers: Jasmin Trächtler, Carlota Salvador Megias, Špela Vidmar