CFP: International symposium: “The digital subject: memory, hypermnesia”
CALL FOR PAPERS
International symposium: “The digital subject: memory,
hypermnesia”
University of Paris 8 Vincennes Saint-Denis, November
13-15, 2012
Organizers :
Pierre Cassou-Noguès (Department of philosophy, LLCP,
SPHERE, EA 4008) Claire Larsonneur (Department of anglophone studies, Le Texte
Étranger,
EA1569)
Arnaud Regnauld (Department of anglophone studies, CRLC –
Research Center on Literature and Cognition, EA1569)
Please reply to: pierre.cassou-nogues@univ-lille3.fr
Today’s digital technologies of inscription and
preservation have enabled the creation of substantial electronic archives and
complex databases while ushering in new ways of archiving knowledge exemplified
by collaborative encyclopedias. Such technical developments have foreshadowed a
radical reconfiguration of human relations to the world and knowledge at large,
and delineate a probable mutation in our understanding of the human subject.
Hypermnesia, a recurrent motif in science fiction
narratives, was already prefigured in H. G. Wells’ (World Brain, 1937) or
Borges’ works (“Funes el memorioso,” 1944). From then on, the notion has
migrated into other literary genres, be they published in traditional print or
in a digital medium. Similarly, the possible externalization and extension of
memory is one of the cornerstones of contemporary philosophical theories (such
as that of the “extended mind”) on both sides of the border separating the
analytical and continental schools of philosophy.
Right after the Second World War, machine memory, the
thematization of subjective memory in reference to computer memory, the
potential alteration of the very nature of human memory due to the development
of machines were recurrent issues in discussions pertaining to cybernetics and
they are still vivid in the contemporary diagnosis of posthumanism.
Of particular interest is the scope and typology of works
featuring the theme of hypermnesia, from fantasies of omnipotence to rewritings
of the Babel myth, to political, cultural and economic policy blueprints. This
call for papers invites contributions from various fields and disciplines (the
history of science and technology, literature, philosophy among others) which
question the theme of hypermnesia and memory through the prism of the ambiguous
relationship between man and machine, in a historical as well as in a more
contemporary perspective.
At the crossroads of philosophy, literature and the
history of science and technology, this symposium is part of a broader
long-term project focusing on the digital subject, a subject whose status and
attributes appear to have been altered by the real or fictional development of
digital calculating machines from Babbage to Internet.
The working languages will be French and English. This
symposium has received the support of the LABEX Arts-H2H scientific committee.
Comité scientifique / Scientific committee :
Yves Abrioux (Université Paris 8)
Noelle Batt (Université Paris 8)
Maarten Bullynck (Université Paris 8)
Pierre Cassou-Noguès (Université Paris 8) Claire
Larsonneur (Université Paris 8) Hélène Machinal (Université de Brest) Arnaud
Regnauld (Université Paris 8) Mathieu Triclot (Université de Technologie de
Belfort-Montbéliard)
--
Koen Vermeir
Senior Research Fellow, CNRS
Laboratoire SPHERE (UMR 7219), 5 rue Thomas Mann - Case
7093, 75205 Paris Cedex 13, France