The Human Condition Series

ABOUT THE HUMAN CONDITION SERIES

Recognizing the call for critical reflection and multidisciplinary research into the human condition, a group of inspired faculty members representing sociology, psychology, women’s studies, political science, literature and film studies, has founded The Human Condition Series (a title inspired by Hannah Arendt’s classic, The Human Condition)”. A constitution was drafted and signed by the founding members on June 1st, 2007.

THE SERIES’ OBJECTIVES

The series is a practical, research-based response to the human condition, which investigates both its oppressive circumstances and its exceptional capabilities. The express purpose of the series is to examine fundamental problems and contradictions in human actions such as the life-negating consequences of unprecedented economic prosperity; namely war, natural degradation, insecurity and terror. These objectives are therefore defined by themes that are deeply embedded in the current unfolding realities of our contemporary world. For example, in 2007 we held critical presentations on the question of new forms of Empire. In 2008 we will expand the presentations and examine the complex phenomenon of Terror.

THE INTERNATIONAL, MULTIDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE FORMAT

The organizers seek to ensure utmost academic integrity in designing a conference with a broad scope and a program which will accomplish multidisciplinary examination  of the annual theme in three ways. Firstly, the program plans a series of individual talks and interviews with three internationally renowned keynote scholars whose acknowledged expertise reside in diverse disciplines and research. In the program these scholars are also scheduled to come together in a roundtable discussion on questions of the conference theme that require critical interchanges between different disciplines and experiences. All talks, interviews and roundtables will be filmed and transcribed for both educational (libraries) and publishing purposes.

            The second way we intend to enhance multidisciplinarity in relation to the theme is by ensuring that the sub-themes that designate the concurrent sessions bring together panels and presenters of different scholarly and artistic backgrounds. Sessions under the organizing sub-themes will therefore have presenters of diverse perspectives exchanging different forms of research on similar topics.

    The third way in which the conference will foster linkages between appropriate disciplines or fields is by emphasizing themes. The sessions of presenters and panels are not divided by discipline and/or field but by themes so as to ensure that a variety of scholars and researchers engage in an exchange of scholarship from different disciplines and fields. As well, the conference’s results (keynote lectures, transcribed interviews and roundtables, and selected articles of presenters) will give us a collection of publishable research materials produced by the interchange between presenters of different disciplines and fields.

THE CHOICE OF TERROR AS THE 2008 THEME:

It seems right to say that since 9/11 all western societies have been forced to accept the significance of international and non-nation-state forms of terrorism. As these forms of terrorism have only spread and worsened globally, a conference on Terror would be very timely. But if 9/11 changed anything with respect to this timelines, it was not in forcing the sudden realization that there is a terrorist threat against which we must mobilize. It was in awakening us to the critical realization that the significance of the threat can reside in other spaces and forms. Today, in witnessing the intense tactics of social mobilization throughout the Western world, it becomes clear that the truly significant phenomena are those diverse forms of terror used in these very tactics of mobilization. One witnesses governed uses of fear, insecurity, states of emergency and pathologies. One experiences them in our communities, schools, public institutions, consumption patterns and societal relations. These tactics and forms have precise histories that have been extended beyond the Western world and long pre-date 9/11. Herein lay the timeliness of these significant forms of terror which are never reducible to the forms of terrorism. The former reveal an historical and social backdrop intimate with terrorized and terrorizing activities, for which the new international terrorism is only a recent and partial player (though clearly a pressing one). In our view it is highly appropriate to stage a conference on Terror if one multiplies the fields of critical research beyond the priority that is too often accorded, quite uncritically at times, the new forms of international terrorism (especially by the mainstream Western media).

THE SERIES IN NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT

This conference will contribute to research in Canada by bringing together different scholars and researchers from across the country who can engage in critical and creative exchanges of their on-going work. It will also contribute by bringing Canadian scholars and students in direct contact with the work of some of the most internationally renowned experts in the fields of the annual theme. These contacts and exchanges between Canadian and international scholars will in turn contribute to the ways the theme is treated in international debates and research projects.