“A Century with Levinas: Visage et Infini”

Phenomenological analyses and Jewish sources in Emmanuel Levinas

Rome, May 24 and 27
Faculty of Philosophy
University of Rome “La Sapienza”
Via Carlo Fea 2

Rome, May 25 and 26
“Centro di Studi Italo-Francese”
Piazza Campitelli 3

Organizing Committee:
Emilio Baccarini (University of Roma “Tor Vergata”)
Francesca Brezzi (University of Rome III)
Irene Kajon (University of Rome “La Sapienza”)
Joelle Hansel (The Hebrew University, Jerusalem)

Sponsored by:
University of Rome “La Sapienza”,
University of Rome “Tor Vergata”,
“Scuola Insegnamento a Distanza” (IaD) of the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”
University of Rome III,
Centro di Studi Italo-Francese”, Rome,
“Bureau de Coopération linguistique et artistique (BCLA) de l’Ambassade de France en Italie”,
“Centro Judaica Goren Goldstein”, Milan,
The Hebrew University, Jerusalem,
Raissa and Emmanuel Levinas Center”, Jerusalem,
Association pour la Célébration du Centenaire d’Emmanuel Levinas” (ACCEL), Paris,
“Hanadiv Charitable Foundation”, London,
Leopold-Zunz-Zentrum”, Halle (Germany)

Emmanuel Levinas has linked phenomenological analyses and references to Jewish sources, sometimes clearly expressed, sometimes implicit, in his most important writings. However, this connection raises many questions:

  • How does God whose Jewish religious tradition forbids to make images, enter into social and political phenomena?
  • Why does Levinas introduce the Jewish idea of God to make possible ethics in philosophical thought?
  • Which is Levinas' relation with Husserl and the phenomenological movement?
  • Which is the relation between a pure phenomenological ethics, or a philosophical ethics inspired by Christianity, and a philosophical ethics inspired by Judaism?
  • Is an ethic inspired both by phenomenology and Judaism really necessary - as Levinas thought - to our Western society in order to save the humanistic tradition which some important philosophers of the twentieth century (Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre) criticize?
  • How could philosophy and Christianity receive a new approach from Levinas' ideas in order to think again their own traditions?

To discuss Levinas' legacy, after hundred years from his birth and at the beginning of the twenty-first century, means to ponder both our human condition - man's freedom, loving kindness and intelligence, but also man's weakness, frailty and cruelty - and the future of our civilization. The aim of the Conference is to offer possible answers to such problems, and analyses or suggestions about these different themes.

Lecturers and Participants:

  • Michele Abrusci (Università di Roma Tre)
  • Emilio Baccarini (Università di Roma “Tor Vergata”)
  • David Banon (Université de Genève)
  • Gérard Bensussan (Université de Strasbourg)
  • Angelo Bolaffi (Università di Roma “La Sapienza”)
  • Francesca Brezzi (Università di Roma Tre)
  • Mauro Buffolo (Université Dominicaine, Toulouse)
  • Roger Burggraeve (Faculté de Théologie, Louvain)
  • Francesco Camera (Università di Genova)
  • Bernhard Casper (Freiburg Universität)
  • Francesco Paolo Ciglia (Università di Chieti)
  • Richard Cohen (University of North Carolina, Charlotte NC)
  • Marta Cristiani (Università di Roma “Tor Vergata”)
  • Marcella D’Abbiero (Università di Roma “La Sapienza”)
  • Donatella Di Cesare (Università di Roma “La Sapienza”)
  • Chiara Di Marco (Università di Roma Tre)
  • Riccardo Di Segni (Collegio Rabbinico Italiano, Roma)
  • Claudia Dovolich (Università di Roma Tre)
  • Pablo Dreizik (Museo del Holocausto, Buenos Aires)
  • Silvano Facioni (Università della Calabria, Cosenza)
  • Giovanni Ferretti (Università di Macerata)
  • Didier Franck (Université de Nanterre)
  • Miguel García Baró (Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Madrid)
  • Roland Goetschel (La Sorbonne, Paris)
  • Zeev Harvey (Università Ebraica di Gerusalemme)
  • Irene Kajon (Università di Roma “La Sapienza”)
  • Wolfgang Krewani (Universität Essen)
  • Marie-Anne Lescourret (Université de Strasbourg)
  • Giuseppe Lissa (Università di Napoli “Federico II”)
  • Giovanni Maddalena (Università di Campobasso)
  • Elio Matassi (Università di Roma Tre)
  • Ephraim Meir (Bar Ilan University)
  • Francesco Miano (Università di Roma “Tor Vergata”)
  • Marco Morselli (Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia)
  • Gaspare Mura (Pontificia Università Urbaniana, Roma)
  • Enzo Neppi (Université de Grenoble)
  • Marco M. Olivetti (Università di Roma “La Sapienza”)
  • Orietta Ombrosi (Università di Bologna)
  • Adriaan Peperzak (Loyola University, Chicago)
  • Silvano Petrosino (Università Cattolica di Milano)
  • Augusto Ponzio (Università di Bari)
  • Enrico I. Rambaldi (Centro Judaica Goren Goldstein, Milano)
  • Shalom Rosenberg (Università Ebraica di Gerusalemme)
  • Giovanni Salmeri (Università di Roma “Tor Vergata”)
  • Joseph Sievers (Pontificia Università Gregoriana, Roma)
  • Julia Urabayen (Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona)
  • Giuseppe Veltri (Universität Halle-Wittenberg)
  • Marco Vozza (Università di Torino)
  • Ludwig Wenzler (Freiburg Universität)
  • Shmuel Wygoda (Yaakov Herzog College, Gerusalemme)

Information: irene.kajon@uniroma1.it

PROGRAMME

Wednesday, May 24
Faculty of Philosophy University “La Sapienza” Via Carlo Fea 2, Rome
Chairman: Irene Kajon (Rome)

16:00 – 16:30
Greetings of the Representatives of the main organizing institutions (Universities of Rome “La Sapienza”, “Tor Vergata”, “Roma Tre”, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

16:30 – 17:15
Shalom Rosenberg (Jerusalem): I, You, He/She/It and the Other: Cohen, Buber, Levinas

17:15 – 17:30
Coffee break

17:30 – 18:15
Silvano Petrosino (Milan), La topologia di Levinas

18:15 –19:00
Marie-Anne Lescourret (Strasburg), Un air de visage

Thursday, May 25
“Centro di Studi Italo-Francese”, Piazza Campitelli 3, Rome

Chairman: Francesca Brezzi (Rome)

9:15 – 9:30
Greetings of the Representatives of the Ambassade of France in Italy, and the “Centro di Studi Italo-Francese”

9:30 – 10:15
Giovanni Ferretti (Macerata), Dal sacro al santo: la trascendenza teologica non violenta in E. Levinas

10:15 – 11:00
Roland Goetschel (Paris-Jerusalem), E. Levinas: Du Mythe à la Sainteté

11:00 – 11:15
Coffee break

11:15 – 12:00
Zeev Harvey (Jerusalem), Levinas and the Vocation of Jewish Philosophy

12:00 – 12:45
Ephraim Meir (Bar Ilan), Shem and Japhet in Difficult Freedom

Chairman: Emilio Baccarini (Rome)

15:00 – 15:45
Wolfgang N. Krewani (Duisburg), A propos de la notion de justification dans la philosophie de Levinas

15:45 – 16:30
Joelle Hansel (Jerusalem), “Autrement qu’être” et “Etre autrement”

16:30 – 16:45
Coffee break

16:45 – 17:30
Giuseppe Lissa (Neaples), E. Levinas: dal primato della politica al primato dell’etica

17:30 – 18:15
Gérard Bensussan (Strasburg), Justice et proximité: du philosophique au politique?

18:15 – 19:00
Richard Cohen (Charlotte, NC, USA), Religious Secularization: Spinoza, Nietzsche and Levinas

Friday, May 26
“Centro di Studi Italo-Francese”, Piazza Campitelli 3, Rome

Chairman: Riccardo Di Segni (Rome)

9:15 – 10:00
Enzo Neppi (Grenoble), L’uso delle fonti ebraiche in Levinas e Primo Levi

10:00 – 10:45
Giuseppe Veltri (Halle), Fonti rabbiniche come oggetto d’indagine filosofica: le letture talmudiche di Levinas

10:45 – 11:00
Coffee break

11:00 – 11:45
Shmuel Wygoda (Jerusalem), Kenosis in the Talmud? On the Argument between God and the moon: an hidden Talmudic Reading

11:45 – 12:30
David Banon (Geneva), Levinas: penseur juif ou juif qui pense?

Chairman: Joelle Hansel (Jerusalem)

15:00 – 15:45
Roger Burggraeve (Leuven), Affected by the Face of the Other: the Levinasian Movement from the Exteriority to the Interiority of the Infinite

15:45 – 16:30
Pablo Dreizik (Buenos Aires), The Phenomenology of Violence in Levinas: A Reappraisal

16:30 – 16:45
Coffee break

Chairman: Didier Franck (Paris)

16:45 – 17:30 Francesco Paolo Ciglia (Chieti), Levinas e il “Nuovo pensiero”

17:30 – 18:15
Miguel García Baró (Madrid), De la émotion

Saturday, May 27
Faculty of Philosophy, University “La Sapienza”, Via Carlo Fea 2, Rome

Chairman: Joseph Sievers (Rome)

9:30 – 10:15
Adriaan Peperzak (Chicago), Humanism and Transfiguration

10:15 – 11:00
Ludwig Wenzler (Freiburg i. B.), Hoheit und Verletzlichkeit des Anderen: eine universal-menschliche Erfahrung? Das Denken von E. Levinas und die Religionen der Welt

11:00 – 11:15
Coffee break

11:15 – 12:00
Bernhard Casper (Freiburg i. B.), “Autrement que” Husserl et “au-delà de” Heidegger: Zur Bedeutung von Levinas für eine künftige Geschichte des Denkens