Ereignis Conference

The term “ethics” can refer to morality or to an unconditional hospitality of the Other. This later view, proposed by Emmanuel Levinas, positions the ethical act as a response to the destitute call of the Other.

This year’s Ereignis conference aims to explore the relationship between ethics and aesthetics in both of these conceptions of the ethical. Key questions are:

• What is the role of art in environmental ethics and in a confrontation with unethical aspects of hyper-capitalism?
• Can art and should art propose ethical models of behaviour for the well-being of society?
• What does ethics as hospitality mean, and can art function as a site for such hospitality?

The 5th interdisciplinary Ereignis conference will take place on August 9 (and 10, contingent on sufficient attendance), 2025 at Hotel Nadmorski in Gdynia, Poland, with a hybrid option for those unable to attend in person. Registration will be required.

Image: Miletus Torso, c. 480–470 BCE. Louvre Museum. © Daniel Lebée and Carine Déambrosis. Used by permission.

In his acceptance speech for the Nobel prize in literature Jon Fosse only half jokingly referred to himself as the master of silence: how else, he asked, can we bring the unsayable out in language than through “long pause, short pause, or, simply, pause.”

This year’s Ereignis conference seeks to bring the relation between speech and silence into further focus. Our key questions are:

• What kind of speech, or speech event, enables the silent to come forward?
• How can that which cannot be said be alluded or referred to in speech?
• How is the relation between speech and silence challenged by the an increasing awareness of non-human speech?
• What are the socio-political ramifications of these relations?

The 4th interdisciplinary Ereignis conference will take place on August 10 and 11, 2024 at Hotel Nadmorski in Gdynia, Poland, with a hybrid option for those unable to attend in person. Registration will be required.

Image by Holger Feulner. Used by permission.

A divergence in Western philosophy occurs in early Greek philosophy (6th century B.C.) as Heraclitus asserts that things are in flux whereas Parmenides advances the argument that the universe is static. The latter argument seems to be confirmed by quantum physics: 20th century research in the field of physics establishes that the cosmos is static. Eastern epistemology affirms what to the Western mind appears to be a paradox: Phenomena in the external world exist in a state of flux, yet everything is one, and there is no difference between inside and outside. With attempts being made to transcend dualist though in Christian theology and other religious tradition the third interdisciplinary Ereignis conference (June 10-11, 2023) seeks to investigate how science and religion have questioned the status of dualist thought, and how they have influenced the development of each other.

How can we enlist the literary image to move readers to act in the world, and how may a philosophical life serve as a theatre in which ideas are enacted? These are key questions for our second Ereignis conference, to be held on-site in Gdynia, Poland, and online on Saturday, June 11, and online-only on June 12, 2022. Hosted by Ereignis Center for Philosophy and the Arts, and headlined by internationally acclaimed speakers on literary and political philosophy, this conference seeks to show a wide array of philosophical, literary, and social junctures where Kierkegaard’s philosophy meet with contemporary concerns.

How does the event puncture the smooth flow of becoming? And what is it like, the event in which we become ourselves? These are among our key questions in this first, inaugural Ereignis conference, to be held online Friday, June 11, 2021. Hosted by Ereignis Center for Philosophy and the Arts, and headlined by internationally acclaimed speakers on appropriation and becoming, this conference seeks to merge profound and innovative thought with practical approaches to becoming. How do we arrive into our own?