Research Projects

Mimesis, Ethics and Style
International Conference on Literary Representation
University of Helsinki
25.–27.8.2010

The Finnish Academy Research Project Styles of Mimesis is organising an international conference entitled “Mimesis, Ethics and Style” at Tieteiden Talo (Kirkkokatu 6, Helsinki), from the 25th to the 27th August, 2010.

This interdisciplinary conference brings together scholars of literature, philosophy, language and culture from all around the world. It focuses on issues of representation, on how literature negotiates its relationship to the world of everyday experience, as well as to various views about ethics, ideologies, and fields of knowledge. The conference papers also explore how a literary work communicates ethical values and different forms of cognition.

The plenary speakers for the conference are Robet Doran (University of Rochester), Stephen Halliwell (University of St Andrews), Jonathan Hart (University of Alberta) and Patricia Waugh (University of Durham). The plenary lectures are open to all, or you can take part in the entire conference by paying the registration fee. We wish you warmly welcome to the conference!

Timetable for the plenary lectures (Tieteiden Talo, Kirkkokatu 6, Helsinki) (Open to all):

Wednesday, 25th August (3:15–4:15 p.m.)
Stephen Halliwell: “Aristotelian Mimesis between Theory and Practice” (Hall 104)

Thursday, 26th August (10:00 a.m. –12:00 noon)
Robert Doran: “Mimesis and Aesthetic Redemption” (Hall 104)
Patricia Waugh: “World-building in Fiction: Solid Geometries of the Word” (Hall 104)

Friday, 27th August (3:30–4:30 p.m.)
Jonathan Hart: “Aristotle, Recognition and Cultural Encounters” (Hall 104)

In order to take part in the conference beyond the plenary lectures, please fill in the registration form by 16th August at: https://elomake.helsinki.fi/lomakkeet/22030/lomake.html.

Conference fee is 30 euros (undergraduate students 15 euros).Fully registered participants are also welcome to participate in the welcoming reception, the Rector’s reception and the conference dinner at Restaurant Kappeli, as well as in a tour of the Suomenlinna fortress on Saturday the 28th of August.

“Mimesis, Ethics and Style” is hosted by the Department of Finnish, Finno-Ugrian, and Scandinavian Studies, in cooperation with The Finnish Graduate School of Literary Studies, Finnish Literary Research Society, and The Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies.

Organising committee:

Professor Pirjo Lyytikäinen
Dr Riikka Rossi (Chair)
Dr Minna Maijala (Graduate School Coordinator)
Dr Saija Isomaa
Assistant Professor Sari Kivistö
Dr Sanna Nyqvist
Dr Merja Polvinen
Suna Önder (Conference Secretary)

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Robert Doran is Assistant Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Rochester, and the author of a number of recent articles on Auerbach, mimesis and literary history. He is currently working towards a volume titled The Sublime: Cultural Aesthetics from Longinus to Nietzsche. He is also the editor of Mimesis and Theory: Essays on Literature and Criticism, 1953-2005 (2008), a collection which brings together twenty of René Girard's uncollected essays on literature and literary theory.

Stephen Halliwell is Professor of Greek at the University of St Andrews. His research interests cover a wide area of the history and criticism of ancient Greek literature and the Classical Tradition, including attitudes to laughter, the theory of tragedy and Greek theatre practice. In 2002 he published The Aesthetics of Mimesis: Ancient Texts and Modern Problems, and his current project is a book entitled Between Ecstasy and Truth: Values and Problems in Greek Conceptions of Poetry.

Professor Jonathan Hart is the Director of the Comparative Literature Program at the University of Alberta. His research interests include cultural history and comparative Canadian and American studies, as well as the visual representations of the New World. Professor Hart is the editor of The Canadian Review of Comparative Literature, and his most recent publications are Interpreting Cultures: Literature, Religion and the Human Sciences (2006) and Comparing Empires: European Colonialism from Portuguese Expansion to the Spanish-American War (2008).

Professor Patricia Waugh from the Department of English Studies at the University of Durham has published widely on the relationship between literature, philosophy and science, and is the co-organiser of the 2008-2009 Institute of Advanced Study workshop series on ‘Thinking with Feeling’ on literature, philosophy and the cognitive sciences. The third edition of her seminal Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction will be published by Routledge in 2009, and her new volume The Two Cultures: Literature, Science and the Good Society is forthcoming in 2010.