Edited by Sa拧拧a Hrnjez and S酶ren Tinning
What does 鈥溾�渆mancipation鈥濃�� mean today? A hermeneutical approach to this question tries above all to investigate the significance of emancipation in relation to human praxis. Yet, in order to answer this question another question arises: 鈥溾�渆mancipation from what?鈥濃��. Generally speaking emancipation implies an oppressive or restraining structure, a system of unjustified constraints from which we have to free ourselves. With Enlightenment emancipation emerges on the theoretical horizon first and foremost as the idea of liberation – through Reason – from the old structures of power based on dogmatic faith. But if contemporary hermeneutics, primarily with Gadamer, wants to face critically and in the last instance detach itself from the Enlightenment tradition, what then remains from its emancipatory project? Is it to be abandoned, to be reduced, or rather to be transformed and concretised according to the new conditions set by history? If emancipatory praxis contains the utopian horizon of the overcoming or the abolition of the actual state of things, as it is the case in Marxist thinking, how can hermeneutics contribute in order to better define this utopian 鈥溾�渂eyond鈥濃�� towards which emancipation aims? Moreover, is the infinite and not conclusive process of interpretation by definition an act of emancipation? Can we say, rephrasing the evangelic message, 鈥溾�淚nterpretation will set you free鈥濃��? What would be a postmodern perspective on emancipation?
All these questions taken together are trying to outline the space of emancipation in the epoch defined sometimes as 鈥溾�減ost-emancipative鈥濃��. An important contribution to this space is found in the arts and contemporary aesthetical reflection. From Brecht鈥欌�檚 Verfremdungseffekt to Rancie虁re鈥欌�檚 鈥渆mancipated spectator鈥�, only to mention a few examples, we find a vast variety of studies and practices, which intend to open new perspectives of emancipation through different aesthetic experiences.
Since capitalist societies today prompt the rethinking of emancipatory practices, this volume sets the task to examine the topic of emancipation through a dialogue between different hermeneutical and aesthetical inquiries, while also opening for broader philosophical discussions of the main question here: 鈥溾�渨hat does it mean for us to emancipate ourselves today?鈥濃��
Submission deadline: October 31, 2014
Papers should be submitted to either Sa拧拧a Hrnjez, sasa.hrnjez@unito.it or S酶ren Tinning, sorentinning3@gmail.com
See http://troposonline.wordpress.com for full submission details