CFP: "The Solitary Being" – Symposium in the Botanical Garden

Please circulate widely!

CALL FOR PAPERS

Fifth Anniversary International Symposium "The Solitary Being"

Organized by: Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS)

Location: Orangery of the Botanical Garden of the University of Bern, Switzerland

Date: 26-27 May 2011

The "solitary man" is a staple of popular culture as much as philosophy. From medieval religious hermits to people medically diagnosed with autism or antisocial personality disorder, from the lone wolf of American frontier romanticism to the loner running amok in a university, from Ibn Bajjah/Avempace's "The Governance of the Solitary" to Nietzsche's "Übermensch", from the reclusive artist to Japan's tens of thousands of "hikikomori" voluntarily choosing to withdraw from society, examples are not limited to the arguably individualistic modern West, but rather seem to range across all societies, cultures, and times. There always have been those who do not fit the stereotype of man as a social being. Nevertheless, people who keep to themselves and do not engage in collaborative social action tend to be overlooked by social and political researchers and are therefore understudied.

The solitary human being (male or female) has been one of the interests of the Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS) since its foundation in 2006. To celebrate our fifth anniversary in 2011, we will be organizing a rare symposium on "The Solitary Being" in the unique settings of a Botanical Garden. Previous SCIS symposia drew participants from the world over. Our anniversary symposium is set to be equally international and interdisciplinary in scope. We invite affiliated academics, independent scholars, and doctoral students and candidates from a wide range of disciplines, such as Anthropology, Sociology, Philosophy, Political Theory, Political Science, Cultural Studies, Literature, Theology, Religious Studies, Psychology, Cognitive Science, Law, History, Education, and so on. Papers may cover any and all aspects of "the solitary being" and/or his or her interaction with the (social) world. Papers may be theoretical and/or empirical in nature. Work in progress is welcome too.

We expect that 15-20 participants will be attending this workshop-style symposium. Over the course of two full days, each presenter will have 45-60 minutes (depending on the number of participants) to present his or her paper and discuss it with all others. The symposium starts early on Thursday and ends Friday late in the afternoon. Due to the small size of the symposium, all participants are expected to attend both days (unless an exception has been agreed in advance, i.e. for religious observance on Friday).

As with all SCIS events, no fees will be charged from participants, and no funding is available to cover participants' travel and accommodation expenses. We will be glad to issue letters of acceptance on request to assist participants in securing funding from their usual sources. The city of Bern – Switzerland's capital –, is connected to both the Zurich and Geneva international airports by direct train (approx. one hour from Zurich, two hours from Geneva) and offers a choice of accommodation. The historic town centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Botanical Garden of the University of Bern is arranged in descending terraces on the slopes of the river Aar, a tributary of the Rhine. On more than two hectares, it showcases vegetation from various ecological zones, in greenhouses and outdoors, such as alpine plants from Europe, Asia, and North America, tropical and subtropical plants (including orchids, palms, ferns, and cacti), Mediterranean, cold steppe, and semi-desert plants, woodland, water, medical, and fibre plants. Around six thousand plant species will make our anniversary symposium a feast of the senses, forms, fragrances, and colours. Further information will be provided to confirmed participants.

Please send your proposal to: e.kofmel@sussexcentre.org

Extended deadline: 30 April 2011

Later submissions may still be accepted, but early submission is strongly advised and proposals may be accepted as they come in.

Cordially,

Erich Kofmel
Managing Director / Research Professor of Political Theory
Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS)
www.sussexcentre.org
E-mail: e.kofmel@sussexcentre.org

Postal address:
Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society
1200 Geneva
Switzerland

SCIS is an international association under Swiss law.
Founded 2006 at the University of Sussex.

Book: Sovereignty at the Edge: Macau and the Question of Chineseness

Just published: Cathryn H. Clayton, "Sovereignty at the Edge: Macau and the Question of Chineseness" (Harvard University Press, March 2010):

www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/CLASOV.html

Publisher's description: "How have conceptions and practices of sovereignty shaped how Chineseness is imagined? This ethnography addresses this question through the example of Macau, a southern Chinese city that was a Portuguese colony from the 1550s until 1999. As the Portuguese administration prepared to transfer Macau to Chinese control, it mounted a campaign to convince the city's residents, 95 percent of whom identified as Chinese, that they possessed a 'unique cultural identity' that made them different from other Chinese, and that resulted from the existence of a Portuguese state on Chinese soil. This attempt sparked reflections on the meaning of Portuguese governance that challenged not only conventional definitions of sovereignty but also conventional notions of Chineseness as a subjectivity common to all Chinese people around the world. Various stories about sovereignty and Chineseness and their interrelationship were told in Macau in the 1990s. This book is about those stories and how they informed the lives of Macau residents in ways that allowed different relationships among sovereignty, subjectivity, and culture to become thinkable, while also providing a sense of why, at times, it may not be desirable to think them."

Excerpt: "By most standards, Macau is tiny. As of 1998, it covered a land area of just under 24 square kilometers (about nine square miles), but most of its population lived on the 3.5-square-mile peninsula, whose length and breadth it was possible to cover in the space of an afternoon walk. With a total population of approximately 450,000, Macau had the highest population density in the world. [...] In the eyes of Beijing and the world, it seemed, Macau was little more than an afterthought to its larger, more prosperous, and betterknown neighbor Hong Kong, which had preceded Macau in 'returning' to Chinese rule on July 1, 1997."

Review: "Cathryn H. Clayton [...] presents Macau as an alternative to the modern state, which she blames for the 20th century's instability and violence. [...] She suggests Macau's overlapping sovereignty limited power, creating a system where 'no state, indeed no single institution, could assert authority over all aspects of public (or, for that matter, private) life.' She believes this allowed freedoms to flourish. Finally, Ms. Clayton asserts that Macau's confusion and contradiction really represent peaceful coexistence. In that, she sees 'sparks of utopian potential.'" (Jillian Melchior, "Wall Street Journal")

Cathryn H. Clayton is Assistant Professor of Asian Studies at the University of Hawaii.