Deakin Philosophy’s Dr Cathy Legg was recently interviewed at length by Laureano Ralón for Figure/Ground, on C.S. Peirce’s pragmatism and its ongoing relevance.
This rich array of Peirces can seem like completely different philosophers. But I prefer to see them like scattered initial excavations of a ruined city, which ultimately presents a strongly integrated and brilliant plan.
The interview is available here.
Deakin student Matt King’s contribution to the December Religion, Politics and Hope seminar is discussed by speaker Christina Petterson on the Faith and Capital podcast.
A reminder that the Stoicon-X Melbourne event will be taking place in Melbourne on Sunday 26 February 2022, featuring former NSW Premier Bob Carr, tennis great Pat Cash, and our own A/Prof. Matthew Sharpe. 
The final lineup for the forthcoming Philosophy and the Rise of Fascism online event is now available. Register here, or contact A/Prof Matthew Sharpe for further details.
Deakin Philosophy’s Dr Petra Brown and A/Prof. Matthew Sharpe will be among the participants in a two-part roundtable session on the role of hope in the contemporary political and social context.
For details, please contact A/Prof Sharpe.
A/Prof. Matthew Sharpe was interviewed on the Telos Press Podcast hosted by David Pan.
In their conversation they discussed the ways Albert Camus engaged himself politically during his life; how Camus justified his aesthetic work in relation to his political activity; how he responded to critiques of his focus on contemplation rather than political engagement; and how he understood the relationship between aesthetic contemplation and philosophical contemplation.
You can listen to or download the podcast here.
Philosophy and the Rise of Fascism
A Symposium on Lukác’s Destruction of Reason
February 1st, 2nd, and 3rd 2022, 5 – 8 pm EST (via Zoom)
Join us for a three-day symposium centered around discussion of the legacy and importance of György Lukács’s 1954 work, The Destruction of Reason, one of the most important twentieth century works of philosophy, hosted by Study Groups on Psychoanalysis and Politics, Deakin University, and Verso Books
Presenters
Mariana Teixeira, Freie Universität Berlin
Vanessa Wills, George Washington University
Dirk Moses, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Adrian Johnston, University of New Mexico
Carl Sachs, Marymount University
Daniel Lopez, Jacobin Magazine
Ishay Landa, Open University of Israel
Margit Köves, Delhi University
Tijana Okić, Scuola Normale Superiore
Organizers
Daniel Tutt, Study Groups on Psychoanalysis and Politics
Matthew Sharpe, Deakin University
Please RSVP to A/Prof. Sharpe
Philosophical Perspectives on Artistic Agency: A day-long workshop
Friday, November 19th, 2021
(All sessions will be held online via zoom, all session times AEDT)
What do artists “do” when they make art? Where does the artist end and her work begin? How might accounts of the agency at work in artistic creation help us to think agency more generally? Does artistic agency have political implications? These questions and more will animate our discussions during this day-long virtual workshop, hosted by the Philosophy and History of Ideas Research Group (PHI) at Deakin University. The workshop will bring together scholars working on themes related to artistic agency for a series of short presentations and informal discussions. All are welcome.
Zoom Details
Topic: Philosophical Perspectives on Artistic Agency
Time: Nov 19, 2021 09:30 AM Australia/Melbourne
Join Zoom Meeting
https://deakin.zoom.us/j/86180097516?pwd=VnFvZkVCSVZZNUI0UEFNK3ZtQjNUdz09
Meeting ID: 861 8009 7516
Password: 09046113
Program
9.30 – 9:45am
Welcome
(Timothy Deane-Freeman and Alistair Macaulay, Deakin University)
9:45 – 10:45am
Riding the Currents of Creation, Agents and Actants in the Field of Dance
Philipa Rothfield (University of Southern Denmark, La Trobe University)
10:45 – 11:45am
Intentionality without Ends: reading Klossowski’s Nietzsche alongside Practising Theory
Antonia Pont (Deakin University)
11:45 – 12pm
Coffee Break
12 – 1pm
The Genesis of an Improvisational Space: Cleaning the Canvas and the Thread of a Tune
Alistair Macaulay (Deakin University)
1-2pm
Lunch
2 – 3pm
Artistic Agency and the Painting of Sensation: Francis Bacon’s Challenge to the Standard Theory of Action
Sean Bowden (Deakin University)
3 – 4pm
Castoriadis on the Creation of the Individual
Gavin Rae (Universidad Compultense de Madrid)
4 – 4:15pm
Coffee Break
4:15 – 5:15pm
Machinic Agents: Schizoanalysis and the Semiotics of Nature
Timothy Deane-Freeman (Deakin University)
Abstracts and author bios: https://philevents.org/event/show/93993
This event will take place primarily on unceded land belonging to the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation.
A/Prof Matthew Sharpe has published a piece via ABC Religion and Ethics on countering the appeal of the far right in contemporary politics:
If we are to combat recruitment into the ranks of the far right, even among the well-educated in our communities, we need to face the uncomfortable fact that forms of right-wing libertarianism, misogyny, ethnonationalism, neo-Nazism, and accelerationism (the desire to “speed up” the purportedly inevitable collapse of the liberal democracies) have powerful appeal among certain groups — especially in periods of distress and social, political, and economic alienation like we face in the era of the global financial crisis, debt and immigration crises in Europe, and now the global pandemic.
The article can be read in full here.
Deakin’s Prof. Jack Reynolds and Dr Marilyn Stendera are presenting at the forthcoming “Reassessing the Relationship between Explanation and Phenomenology” online workshop, October 4-7 2021:
“It is often claimed that phenomenology is not an explanatory enterprise, yet the motivations for this claim are not often spelled out explicitly. At the same time, for empirical science, explanation is a key concern, and there are a variety of suggestions currently under debate on how best to marry phenomenology with empirical science. Similarly, there are currently numerous types of explanation under discussion within analytic philosophy of science. This hybrid workshop brings together leading interdisciplinary scholars with the intention of furthering the understanding of the relationship between phenomenology and explanation in the areas of philosophy, cognitive science, and psychology.
“Our workshop is in preparation for a special issue of Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences due for release in 2022/23 being edited by Heath Williams (University of Notre Dame Australia) and Kristina Musholt (University of Leipzig). Each presenter is an invited contributor to the special issue. The workshop is hosted by the University of Leipzig philosophy department, and is in a ‘hybrid’ format. Some speakers will be present in Leipzig whereas others will present from locations across the globe such as Australia and the US.
“The focus of our workshop is on engaging in constructive dialogue with the aim of improving the quality of contributions to the special issue. Each presenter is assigned a primary ‘respondent’ who will be expected to pre-read their contribution and prepare a critical and constructive commentary. We are also making papers available for pre-reading approximately two weeks before the conference for the general public to read and comment. Presentations during the workshop are expected to be kept relatively short in order to allow for plenty of time for discussion. We are planning to record presentations as well as the Q&A session and to make recordings available via this website.
All interested scholars are invited to participate in the workshop. Registration is free, but the number of places available is limited.”
