Events
Table of contents
Conference "Mixed Feelings"
Date and venue
- 6-8 June 2023
- Klemperersaal, Sächsische Landes- und Universitätsbibliothek (SLUB)
Workshop "Contempt, Ancient and Modern: China, Greece, India, Rome"
In conjunction with CRC 1285
Though it is possible (at least in contemporary English) to distinguish between contemptible actions and contemptible persons, there is a fundamental sense in which contempt responds to persons more than to actions, denying them the recognition, the respect, that persons ordinarily deserve. It puts others, whether individuals or groups, on a lower social and moral level. Which raises the question of whether contempt is ever justified. Aristotle thought it could be, when a person who genuinely is morally good despises her moral inferiors. Many contemporary thinkers disagree. But whether we justify it in certain circumstances or condemn it in all, contempt remains ubiquitous in our contemporary societies, from everyday social interaction to the relations between ruling classes and the citizens they presume to rule. Was it ever thus? And if it was, what light might the classical thought of China, Greece, India, and Rome be able to shed on the conceptualization, theorization, and accommodation of this powerful emotional, social, and political phenomenon? These are the questions that this workshop seeks to explore.
Further information on the event
Programmme
24.03.2022
| Douglas Cairns (Edinburgh) | Introduction |
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India – Chair: Douglas Cairns |
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| Maria Heim (Amherst) | Contempt as Social Fact in Classical Indian Sources |
| Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad (Lancaster) | Between Anger and Contempt: Draupadi in the Sanskrit Mahabharata |
Keynote: Stephen Darwall (Yale) – The Wages of Contempt
25.03.2022
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China – Chair: Fritz-Heiner Mutschler |
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| Karyn Lai (New South Wales) | Overcoming the Language of Uselessness and Disability: Some Insights from the Zhuangzi |
| Curie Virág (Edinburgh) | Contempt without toxicity? Virtuous contempt and the ritual community in Xunzi |
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Greece – Chair: Mirko Canevaro |
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| Kleanthis Mantzouranis (Edinburgh) | What Does Aristotle’s Moral Exemplar Feel Contempt for? |
| Linda Rocchi (Edinburgh) | From (Apt) contempt to (Legal) Dishonour – Two Kinds of Contempt and the Penalty of Atimia |
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Rome – Chair: Dennis Pausch |
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| Verena Schulz (Eichstätt) | Expressing contempt in Rome – language, rhetoric, and critique (virtual lecture) |
| Antje Junghanß (Dresden) | Contumelia a contemptu dicta est (Sen. dial. 2,11,2): Reflections on Contempt in Seneca |
Conference "Hybris, ancient and modern: ancient Greek lessons in life and leadership"
Description
"While [Theresa] May’s tireless efforts may have been aimed at protecting the Conservative party, they have produced a relentless two-and-a-half-year-long carnival of hubris." (The Guardian, 31 March 2019)
Hubris (or hybris) is, it seems, still on everyone’s lips, used of everything from political recklessness to corporate excess, nearly three millennia since the word first appeared in ancient Greek literature. But what is hybris? Why does the concept appeal so readily to the modern mind? And what can we learn about human behaviour from ancient Greek approaches to this and related concepts that might be of use in modern psychology, politics, and business?
Date
- 07.06.2019, from 09:30 to 18 pm
- in the Sternensaal of the Lingnerschloss
- Speakers: Nick Bouras, Douglas Cairns, Mirko Canevaro, Moritz Hinsch, Owen Kelly, Kleanthis Mantzouranis, Eugene Sadler-Smith, Constantine Sedikides, Tim Wray
- updated information can be found here
Material
In agreement with the speakers some of the presentations and handouts are published. They can be found as a ZIP archive here.
