Disbelief: From the Renaissance to Romanticism
Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
25-7 May, 2017
Keynote speakers: Péter Dávidházi (Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary),Nicholas Halmi (The University of Oxford, UK), Ágnes Péter (Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary), Tzachi Zamir (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel).
We call for papers that address the issue of disbelief between “the Renaissance” (the Early Modern English period) and the end of “Romanticism”, both terms taken in the broadest possible sense. By choosing the negative, rather than the positive attitude as the pivotal notion of our conference, we would like to direct attention to the inner tensions and struggles that have so often characterised processes in which human beings are able to accept that somebody or something is true or real and to have faith in somebody or something. We encourage participants to track down the historical, political, religious, ethical, metaphysical, and aesthetic implications of disbelief as they filter through literary and cultural production in the above period. What are the consequences of disbelief for the real, the imaginary, the fictional, the ordinary, the extraordinary, the uncanny – for what it means to be human?
Conference presentations should take 30 minutes, followed by a 10 minute-long slot for discussions. The language of the conference is English and abstracts sent in through the application menu of the conference website should not exceed 200 words.
After double-blind peer review, a selection of the papers will be published.
More information on registration will be coming soon.
Application Deadline: 20 February, 2017
