Text, Image, Sound, Space (TBLR). Norwegian Researcher Training School –
Analysis, Interpretation, and the Exchange of Theories and Ideas

The University of Agder, The University of Bergen, The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, The University of Oslo, The University of Stavanger, and The University of Tromsø
 
Call for papers
What is the contemporary?
Maison des sciences de l’homme, le Programme franco-norvégien en sciences sociales,
Paris, January 12th–15th 2016
 
The notion of the contemporary has been one of the master tropes of the aesthetic disciplines and practices since the 19th century. Whether conceptualized as moderne, zeitgemäß, fashionable, or even up-to-date, a sine qua non condition for aesthetic valorization has been the topical nature of the relation of literature, design and the arts to the present of which they are a part. Topicality, or aktualitet, to use the Scandinavian counterpart, has been an inevitable condition for the aesthetic relevance of new works of art. “Ikke-aktuell”, non-topical, has been a verdict against which no other aesthetic merits can possibly prevail. Or, in the words of poet Arthur Rimbaud’s famous imperative: Il faut être absolument moderne – One must be absolutely modern.

While the hegemony of this aesthetic tenet leaves little room for traditionalism or classicism, it has proven elastic enough to be compatible with any major avant-garde movement of 20th century. Alongside the Baudelairean concept of modernity the notion of the contemporary appears as the expression of a society that sees transformation rather than continuity as its primary characteristic. However, despite the apparent non-negotiability of the contemporaneity imperative, it was from its inception haunted by a negative double. Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen, or Untimely Meditations, the provocative title of an early work by Nietzsche, conceived only a few years after Baudelaire coined the neologism modernité, challenges and problematizes the notion of a heterogeneous time.

While contemporary and modern, or, contemporaneity and modernity, in many aspects come across as symmetrical conceptual figurations, they also differ in substantial ways. Perhaps most strikingly in that contemporary focuses a temporal relation, while modern, through the Latin radix modo (or mode), emphasizes formal relations. This significant difference has recently provided the grounds for various attempts at conceptualizing the contemporary and contemporaneity as aesthetic, historical, or even ontological, terms distinctly different from that of modernity. Hence, philosophers such as Giorgio Agamben and Peter Osborne, drawing on thinkers as variegated as Hegel, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Michel Foucault and Arthur Danto, have lately argued for a concept of the contemporary as a present comprising a heterogeneous complex of mutually entangled temporalities.

These conceptual developments will provide the backdrop for our seminar as a possible analytical framework for capturing the specificity of the aesthetic experience of the 21st century and identifying the matters of concern that mark contemporary art and literature.

Key-note speakers: Jacob Lund, Aarhus universitet; Cathrine Perret, Université de Paris IX; Judith Revel, Université de Paris I (tbc); and Bernard Stiegler, Université de Champagne Compiègne.

Participating faculty : Ina Blom, Universitetet i Oslo; Janne Stigen Drangsholt, Universitetet i Stavanger; Knut Ove Eliassen, NTNU; Randi Koppen, Universitet i Bergen; Unni Langås, Universitetet I Agder; Lars Sætre, Universitetet i Bergen; og Frederik Tygstrup, Københavns universitet.

Program: The program will consist of plenary lectures (45 minutes + 30 minutes of discussion) and group work. It will begin with a welcoming lecture in the afternoon of Tuesday the 12th of January and end with a dinner party on the evening of Friday the 15th.

PhD students from the TBLR member universities are invited to attend. In addition, the course will be open to students from Copenhagen University and Aarhus University.