CFP: Franco-American Arendt (3/29/02; MLA 12/27-30/02)
Papers are invited for a proposed session on the intersection of French and
American texts and contexts in the work of Hannah Arendt, and her historical
reception. Though the session title is most likely to suggest an attention
to Arendt’s account of the French and American revolutions (_On
Revolution_), applicants are encouraged to regard the rubric as broadly as
possible.
Papers might consider Arendt’s engagement with figures like Rousseau,
perhaps with respect to the way a reader of Rousseau like Judith Shklar, in
turn, engages Arendt? Or, they might discuss the way a Cold War context
informed the initial presentation of her work in post-war France, especially
the publication of _The Human Condition_ in a series edited by Raymond Aron.
This topic might lead to a further, or related, examination of why her
reception in France during the 1950s and 60s, the height of her reputation
in the United States, was so limited. An essay like “What is Existenz
Philosophy?” (1946) could provide an occasion for contrasting her work in
the US with that of her French contemporaries who also enjoyed an influence
here, especially Sartre. If recreating a dialogue between Arendt and
existentialism in the US makes more apparent the degree to which her
influence was muted in France during the early years of the Cold War, it
might make even more striking the unexpected privilege her work has enjoyed
in the more recent texts of prominent theorists in France, like Lefort
(1986), Taminiaux (1991) and Kristeva (1999). Obviously, this list isn’t
comprehensive, and papers need not champion Arendt’s work as a model for new
universalisms or the classical conduct of political life. It would be all
the more interesting to include contrary interpretations along the lines of
Zizek’s complaint that the current sacralization of Arendt sees us
forgetting that leftists once regarded her notion of totalitarianism as “the
key weapon of the West in the Cold War ideological struggle.” For all else
that might be said for or against Arendt, from the right, left, or
elsewhere, a session defined by genuine disagreement, prudent deliberation,
and charitable reading will be in keeping with all that she claims for
politics.
Participants must be members of the Modern Language Association by April 1.
The panel proposal is due to MLA by April 7, and must include a brief
description of each panelist’s scholarship as it relates to the session
topic. The deadline of March 29 for individual abstracts is later than is
customary for MLA submissions, I realize. If you will be away from your
email on March 30-31, please consider providing me with a number where you
can be reached. I will try to provide those selected with at least five
days to respond to the invitation and to communicate to me the information
MLA requires for special session proposals.
Please send submissions to jzeigler@uci.edu <mailto:jzeigler@uci.edu> .
Thanks for your attention.
James Zeigler
Department of English and Comparative Literature
University of California, Irvine
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