“A Century with Levinas – Levinas’ Metaphysics : Right of the Other”

Organizing Committee:

  • Prof. Maria Dimitrova, Ph.D.
  • Prof. Plamen Makariev, Ph. D.
  • Prof. Ivan Kolev

The goal of this Conference is to discuss the opportunities open by Levinas’ Metaphysics. After centuries of modern reflective philosophy concentrated on the Self regarded as a subject and its relation to the world, objects, society, etc., Levinas’ call to rethink this philosophy of subject’ power and to take into consideration right of the Other, forms the great challenge of Postmodernity. According to Levinas, first philosophy is ethics rather than ontology, epistemology, logic, etc. Program

October 27

9:30
Official Opening

10:00 – 10:30
Prof. Jeffrey Andrew Barash, Université de Picardie, France, Emmanuel Levinas and Ernst Cassirer: a hidden affinity

10:30 – 11:00
Prof. Ivanka Rainova, University of Vienna and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Philosophy, Sofia, Bulgaria, Figures of the Other: Emmanuel Levinas and Paul Ricoeur

11:00 – 11:30
Prof. Maria Dimitrova, Department of Philosophy, Sofia University, Bulgaria, Intersubjectivity and Intertemporality

11:30 – 12:30
Discussion

12:30 – 14:00
Lunch break

14:00 – 14:30
Prof. Andrey Rozhdestvensky, University of Mining Engineering, Sofia, Bulgaria, Levinas and the Stranger Lady

14:30 – 15:00
Prof. Graham Harman, American University of Egypt., Bread, Tobacco, and Silk: Levinas on Individual Substance

15:00 – 15:30
Prof. Sylvia Mineva, Sofia University, Bulgaria, Identity, Otherness and Their Postmodern Ethical Discourse

15:30 – 16:30
Discussion

16:30 – 17:00
Coffee Break

17:00 – 17:30
Prof. Robert Manning, Philosophy and Religious Studies, Quincy University, Quincy, IL, USA. Getting Right to the Point of Levinas’s Politics.

17:30 – 18:00
Prof. Nadia Nedjalkova, French Language School and Cultural Studies Department, Sofia University, Jewish Apocalyptic and the Principle of the Otherness according to Levinas.

18:00 – 18:30
Prof. Raicho Pozharliev, Department of Philosophy, Sofia University. Phenomenology of the Nourishment.

18:30 – 18:45
Discussion

Round Table

19:00 – 19:15
Suzanne Metselaar, M. A., Dept. of Philosophy, Vrije University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The Neglected Side of Logos. Levinas’ Revaluation of Descartes

19:15 – 19:30
Ákos Krassóy, Researcher, Catholic University, Leuven ; Doctoral Student at ELTE Budapest. Levinas, Representation, and Art

19:30 – 19:45
Ivelina Ivanova, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Philosophy, Sofia, Bulgaria and Todor Christov, Sofia University, Bulgaria. Naked Life of the Otherness

19:45
Discussion

October 28

10:00 – 10:30
Prof. Denise Egéa-Kuehne, College of Education, Louisiana State University, USA. Levinas's "Idea of a Possibility”

10:30 – 11:00
Prof. Ivan Kolev, Department of Philosophy, Sofia University, Bulgaria. About Possibility of Existential Metaphysics

11:00 – 11:30
Prof. Lyubomir Christov, University of Plovdiv and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. The Face as a Reference Topos

11:30 – 12:30
Discussion

12:30 – 14:00
Lunch break

14:00 – 14:30
Dr. Vasiliki Tsakiri, Postdoctoral fellow at University of Patras, Greece. The Persecuted Other: Levinas Perception of Kierkegaard

14:30 – 15:00
Prof. Krasimir Delchev, Sofia University, Sofia, Bulgaria. Some Questions to Levinas

15:00 – 15:30
Prof. Angelos Mouzakitis, University of Crete and Hellenic Open University. Beyond the Realm of Death: From Dasein to Infinity

15:30 – 16:30
Discussion

16:30 – 17:00
Coffee Break

Round Table

17:00 – 17:15
Prof. Ivailo Lazarov, Varna Open University, Bulgaria. Is the Hyperbola of Exteriority Acceptable from the Point of View of Phenomenology?

17:15 – 17:30
Dr. Sarah Allen, Institute of Philosophy, Catholic University, Leuven. Being or Otherwise than Being? Heidegger, Levinas, and the God of Metaphysics

17:30 – 17:45
Dr. Philip Lindholm, University of Oxford, UK. At Wits End: Levinas on Incarnation and Embodiment

17:45 – 18:00
Dr. Ernst Wolff, Department of Philosophy, University of Pretoria. The Quest for Justice versus the Rights of the Other?

18:00 – 19:00
Discussion

19:15 – 19:45
Closing lecture: Prof. Luc Anckaert, Chair of Jewish Philosophy, Higher Institute of Philosophy, Catholic University of Louvain. The Problem of the “Nichts”(Rozenzweig) and of the “Il y a”(Levinas) as Condition of Ethical Freedom.

20:00
Closing dinner for the participants: Celebration of Levinas’ Centennial