Scientific conferences

Morality and its discontents have taken some surprising twists and turns in recent debates. On the one hand, past decades have borne witness to an increasing interest in Nietzsche’s debunking genealogies of morality and his deconstruction of the essentialist seductions of language in critical and emancipatory circles. On the other, such renewed interest in Nietzsche has run counter to the rise of what could be described as the “new morality” oriented to a particular vision of “social justice”. Namely, Post-Nietzschean French theory has presented itself as sceptical of moralist meta-discourse with a view to liberate and “center” minoritarian forms of life. After several decades of Nietzsche-inspired deconstruction of moral institutions in the influential work of Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, Butler and Guattari, and their post-structural and post-modern followers, the emergence of such a morality articulates renewed, ever-more stringent limits on what is and what is not sayable, often with explicit reference to supposed lived experiences and claims of particular “identity” groups.

In light of post-Nietzschean politics, such developments are deeply ambivalent. Hegemonic struggles classically include the establishment of new forms of morality that attempt to constitute and institutionalize novel orders, also through a new type of (moral) discourse. This, however, also cuts against the agonistic spirit of (post-) Nietzschean politics, since it seems to conflate struggles between particular interests, with universalizing judgments and claims that, putatively, rise above them; its implicit assumption is the harmony of consensus rather than the dissonance of dissensus.

In conclusion of a series of Weimarer Controversies on “Language in the State of Emergency” the Kolleg Friedrich Nietzsche in Weimar hosts this conference in cooperation with the Simon Frazer University in Vancouver and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. The conference approaches current forms of identity-politics, wokeism, political correctness, and the related struggles for the right words in a genealogical way. Does a path lead from Nietzsche's genealogical deconstruction and moral critique current left and “woke” debates? Can Nietzsche be the source of a plurality of critical perspectives on the origins, value and possible over-comings of such a new morality? Is wokeism a new form of moralism? Is it emancipatory? Does it distract from economic or other conflicts? And what is the role or legacy of Nietzsche in these current debates?

Conference Program

Friday, Oct. 28th, 2022
9:15-9:30: Opening and Introduction
Chair: Corinna Schubert (Weimar)
9:30-10:45: Samir Gandesha (Vancouver): The New Moralism: From Agonism
to Antagonism
11.00-12:15: Johan Hartle (Vienna): The double dialectics of Antinormativism.
Post-Nietzschean Wokeness
Chair: Johann Szews (Hildesheim)
14:00-15:15: Willow Verkerk (Vancouver): Thinking for 'Oneself'? Nietzsche
and the Genealogy of the Sovereign Individual
15:30-16:45: Christian Emden (Houston): Against Moral Communities: Nietzsche, Recognition, and the Ontology of Identity Politics
17:00-19:00: Visit to the historical Nietzsche-Archive

Saturday, Oct. 29th, 2022
Chair: Thomas Land (Erfurt/Berlin)
9:30-10:45: Roberto Nigro (Lüneburg): The Nietzschean Legacy and Its Discontents in the Italian Operaism
11.00-12:15: Sulgi Lie (Berlin): Frenzy and Revenge. On Quentin Tarantino’s Dionysism
Chair: Karsten Schubert (Freiburg)
14:00-15:15: Helmut Heit (Weimar): Nietzsche, Butler and the Body of Emancipation
15:30-16:45: Vanessa Lemm (Melbourne): Nietzsche und Gender Politics
16:45-17:30: Conclusions and further considerations

Conference venue:
Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv | Lecture-Hall
Jenaer Straße 1 | 99425 Weimar

The conference is open to the public. Admission is free

---

Wissenschaftlicher Ansprechpartner:
Prof. Dr. Helmut Heit

Leiter des Stabsreferats Forschung
Helmut.Heit@klassik-stiftung.de
Tel: 03643 545 630 / +49 15114853645