September 27, 2016

Purdue, French philosophers will focus on art at conference

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University will host philosophers and scholars for a two-day international conference Friday and Saturday (Sept. 30-Oct.1) as a part of a three-year joint project with the University of Paris Quest Nanterre La Defénse.

The "Art, Aesthetics and Philosophy" conference focuses on key issues driving analytic and European philosophy, especially how such practices impact education, research and culture.

The conference will be held in the Yue-Kong Pao Hall of Visual and Performing Arts building, Room 1197. The conference is free and open to the public and is is organized by Purdue's Philosophy and Literature Interdisciplinary Program.

The keynote speaker will be Graham Harman, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Southern California Institute of Architecture, with guest artist Anita Fricek, a painter from Vienna, Austria. Harman, currently on leave from American University of Cairo, was named by Art Review Magazine to the top 100 most influential figures in international art. His research covers the metaphysics of objects and occasionalism.

Fricek's exhibit "From Flowers to Gardens" will be on display through Oct. 5 in the Patti and Rusty Rueff Galleries. Fricek's exhibition explores the garden as a place of social cooperation and aesthetic production, and is part of a project examining the effects of different educational models through painting and drawing.

Other speakers include Purdue faculty Sandor Goodhart, professor of English; Arkady Plotnitsky, distinguished professor of English; and Daniel Smith, professor of philosophy; Matthew Kroll, a graduate student in the Philosophy and Literature Program; Lisa Banu, from West Lafayette; five philosophers from the University of Paris and a speaker from Vienna, Austria. More speaker details and times are available online.

The event is made possible from support of the Partner University Fund, a collaboration between the French government and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support academic partnerships between French and American institutions of higher education. 

Writer: Howard W. Hewitt, 765-494-9541, hhewitt@purdue.edu 

Source: Daniel W. Smith, smith132@purdue.edu,      

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