STANLEY CAVELL & LITERARY STUDIES: CONSEQUENCES OF SKEPTICISM

OCTOBER 15-16, 2010

Full conference info at: http://tinyurl.com/cavell-conference

Thompson Room
The Humanities Center, Barker Center
Harvard University
12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA

Schedule of Sessions:

• Friday, Oct. 15, 8:30am. Opening remarks

• 8:45-9:10. RICHARD ELDRIDGE (Philosophy, Swarthmore College) and BERNARD RHIE

(English, Williams College), "Introduction: Cavell, Literary Studies, and the Human Subject"
• 9:10-9:35. ANTHONY CASCARDI (Comparative Literature, Rhetoric, Spanish, U.C. Berkeley),
"Cavell, Kant, and the Work of Literary Criticism"
• 9:35-10:00. CHARLES ALTIERI (English, U.C. Berkeley), "A Morality for
Misanthropes: How Cavell’s Language for Morality Sets Off Wittgenstein’s Silence"
o 10:00-10:45. Response and Discussion: RICHARD MORAN (Philosophy, Harvard
University)

• 10:45-11:05. Break (tea and coffee will be available)

• 11:05-11:30. NAOMI SCHEMAN (Philosophy and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies,
University of Minnesota), "A Storied World: On Meeting and Being Met"
• 11:30-11:55. TORIL MOI (Literature, English, and Theater Studies, Duke University),
"Beauvoir and Cavell on the Other"
o 11:55-12:40. Response and Discussion: MICHAEL FISCHER (English, Trinity
University)

• 12:40-2:00. Lunch (no scheduled conference lunch; individuals should make their own plans:
for suggestions of places to eat, visit: http://tinyurl.com/cavell-dining)

• 2:00-2:25. SARAH BECKWITH (English and Theater Studies, Duke University), "Shakepeare's
Private Linguists"
• 2:25-2:50. LAWRENCE RHU (English, University of South Carolina), "On Cavell on
Shakespeare: Losing Mamillius, Finding Perdita"
o 2:50-3:35. Response and Discussion: WILLIAM FLESCH (English, Brandeis
University)

• 3:35-4:00. Break (tea and coffee will be available)

• 4:00-4:25. ANDREW MILLER (English, Indiana University), "On Not Being Someone Else"
• 4:25-4:50. JOSHUA WILNER (English and Comparative Literature, City College and The
Graduate Center - CUNY), “'Communicating with Objects': Romanticism, Skepticism and the
Specter of Animism"
o 4:50-6:00. Response and Discussion: LAURA QUINNEY (English, Brandeis
University)

• 7:00. Conference dinner at The Inn at Harvard (by invitation, for conference participants)
• Saturday, Oct. 16, 8:30am. Tea and coffee will be available

• 9:00-9:25am. PAUL GRIMSTAD (English, Yale University), "Emerson Discomposed"

• 9:25-9:50. ELISA NEW (English, Harvard University), "Neighboring, Near and Next-to in
Cavell, Thoreau and William Carlos Williams"
o 9:50-10:35. Response and Discussion: WILLIAM DAY (Philosophy, Le Moyne
College)

• 10:35-11:00. Break (tea and coffee will be available)

• 11:00-11:25. R.M. BERRY (English, Florida State University), "Cultural Politics and the
Universality of Aesthetic Judgment, or What's so Scary about Conventions?"
• 11:25-11:50. GARRETT STEWART (English, University of Iowa), "The Word Viewed:
Literary Skepticism Degree Zero"
o 11:50-12:35. Response and Discussion: D.N. RODOWICK (Visual and Environmental
Studies, Film and Visual Studies, Harvard University)

• 12:35-2:00. Lunch (no scheduled conference lunch; individuals should make their own plans:
for suggestions of places to eat, visit: http://tinyurl.com/cavell-dining)

• 2:00-2:25. JOHN GIBSON (Philosophy, University of Louisville) and SIMONA BERTACCO

(English, University of Milan and University of Louisville), "Skepticism and the Idea of
Radical Otherness: Reflections on Postcolonial Subjects and Cavellian Humans"
• 2:25-2:50. ROBERT CHODAT (English, Boston University), "Empiricism, Exhaustion, and
Meaning What We Say: Cavell and Contemporary Fiction"
o 2:50-3:35. Response and Discussion: JAY CANTOR (English, Tufts University)

• 3:35-4:00. Break (tea and coffee will be available)

• 4:00-6:00. Concluding roundtable discussion -- intended to offer an opportunity for all who
have attended the conference to reflect on its content and implications — to be kicked off by
remarks from:
o RITA FELSKI (English, University of Virginia; editor of the journal New Literary
History)
o GARRY HAGBERG (Philosophy, Bard College and University of East Anglia; coeditor
of the journal Philosophy and Literature)
o WALTER JOST (English, University of Virginia; coeditor of Ordinary Language
Criticism and author of Rhetorical Investigations: Studies in Ordinary Language
Criticism)
o WILLIAM ROTHMAN (Motion Pictures and Film Studies, University of Miami;
coeditor of Cambridge University Press' "Studies in Film" series)

• 7:00. Conference dinner at Sandrine's Bistro (by invitation, for conference participants)

The conference is free and open to the public. No registration is necessary. This
conference is being made possible by the generous financial support of a number of
bodies: Harvard’s Humanities Center; The Office of the Provost at Harvard University;
Harvard’s Departments of Philosophy and English; The Center for Philosophy, Arts,
and Literature at Duke University; Continuum Publishers; The Dean of the Faculty’s
Office at Williams College; and The Provost’s Office at Swarthmore College. To all of
them, our deep thanks.