where ghosts live

Department of English, University College Cork, Ireland

4-6 September 2009

Registration for the conference is now open at http://conferencing.ucc.ie/conference/

Programme     Information for Delegates    Abstracts   Poster

Confirmed speakers:

Prof. Martin McQuillan, University of Leeds

Prof. John W. P. Phillips, National University of Singapore

Prof. Nicholas Royle, University of Sussex

Dr Roy Sellars, University of Southern Denmark

Dr Sarah Wood, University of Kent

Following the spectres of Marx, do we now see everywhere Derrida’s ghosts? Or can it be said that the contemporary theorist has always been haunted by the ghost (“which is neither present or absent, neither alive nor dead” [Derrida]) of Derrida (“the philosopher renowned for his problematic relation to presence” [McQuillan])?

“The ghost of Derrida” might here refer to his work on the crypt, the coffin, on the spectre, the revenant, the phantom, spirit, on hauntology, on mourning, but is this all that we subscribe to if we believe in Derrida’s ghost? In the same way, the theoretical and critical currency that the figure of the ghost possesses is understandable, given the ghost’s presentation of absence, its (non-)presence everywhere, its untimeliness, its relation to repetition and the uncanny, to memory and writing, to the dead, but is this theoretical resonance all that the ghost consists of? Do ghosts, the dead living, not teach us something significant about theory, living and not living, and living after theory, and especially about those things which are intangibly present in our lives: love, friendship, hospitality, justice, knowledge, forgiveness, responsibility?

The conference where ghosts live presents theoretically-conscious papers which explore the nature of ghosts and what we divine from them, including:

Theoretical representations of ghosts; Ghosts in theory, criticism, and literature; The language of ghosts; Interpreting ghosts and ghost writing; Ghosts and artistic practice; Methods of haunting; The appearance of ghosts; The gender of ghosts; Loving ghosts, ironic ghosts, and the anger of ghosts; Learning from ghosts; Conversing and dialoguing with ghosts; Remembering and witnessing ghosts; Psychoanalysing ghosts; Ghostly repetitions; Ghosts, uncertainty, and the incalculable; Locating ghosts, in space and time; The materiality and corporeality of ghosts; Immateriality, insubstantiality, and weightiness; Ghosts, the godly, religion, and the law; How ghosts live; The employment, occupation, and recreation of ghosts; The survival of ghosts; Becoming ghosts of the future.

To register for the conference please go to http://conferencing.ucc.ie/conference/. For information on travel and accommodation please see http://conferencing.ucc.ie/conference/ For further information please use the conference email address whereghostslive@ucc.ie the conference organisers:  

Graham Allen, Department of English, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland .

David Coughlan, Department of Languages and Cultural Studies, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland .

We would like to acknowledge the support of the following:

College  of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences, University College  Cork .

Faculty of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences,  University of Limerick .

Fáilte  Ireland , www.irelandinspires.com

Jurys Cork Hotel

IRCHSS Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Our thanks to Yukinori Yamada for his permission to use the above image of Come and Go, 2006, installation (dust from vacant houses, sieved on plywood), Echigo-tsumari Triennial. Photo by H. Kuratani.

Programme

Abstracts

Information for Delegates

Poster

 

 

 

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