Philosophy of Self-Cultivation Programme
June 22nd - 23rd 2023, University of London
Royal Holloway College Hallway & Room 1, 1st Floor, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU
To register for free participation, fill in the form here and send it to manhua.li@rhul.ac.uk
Thursday June 22nd
9:00 – 9:30 Registration & Breakfast
9:30 – 10:30 Keynote Lecture
Karyn Lai: Two Kinds of Cultivation in the Zhuangzi
10:30 – 10:50 Coffee Break
10:50 – 11:55 Panel 1. Philosophy as a Way of Life: Beyond Spiritual Exercise
John Sellars: Why ‘Spiritual Exercises’ are not Spiritual
John Marenbon: Medieval Philosophy and Philosophy as a Way of Life
11:55 – 12:55 Lunch
12:55 – 14:00 Panel 2. Religiosity of Self-Cultivation: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives
Nicholas Sihlé: Self-Cultivation and Lived Religion: Anthropological Notes on the Case of the Tibetan Buddhist Tantrists
Feixuan Xu: Cultivating for Self-Cultivation?: Comparing Ancient Agrarian and Contemporary Artistic Practices on Raising Silkworms
14:00 – 14:20 Coffee Break
14:20 – 15:25 Panel 3. Cultivation as a Practice of the Self and Others
Andrea Rehberg: Schopenhauer and Nietzsche on Self and Other
Jozef Majerník: Ascetic Practices in Book IV of Nietzsche’s Gay Science
15:25 – 15:45 Coffee Break
15:45 – 17:15 Panel 4. Nourishing Life: Reconnecting Humans and Nature
David Chai: Ji Kang on Nourishing Life
Julia Ng: Completion as Self-Cultivation: Benjamin, Bloch, Zhuangzi
Manhua Li: Nietzsche and Ji Kang on Self-Cultivation
17:15 – 19:00 Art Exhibition & Drinks Reception
19:00 Dinner
Friday June 23rd
9:00 – 9:30 Breakfast
9:30 – 10:30 Keynote Lecture
Michaela Ott: Dividuation – a New Mode of Thinking the Human Condition
10:30 – 10:50 Coffee Break
10:50 – 11:55 Panel 5. The Politics of Self-Cultivation
Mario Wenning: Cultivating Soft Resistance: Vattimo and Daoism on Weakening Strategies
Gauri Wagle: Worldmaking and the Borders of the Self: Cultivation and Nationhood in Fanon
11:55 – 12:55 Lunch
12:55 – 14:25 Panel 6. Reconsidering Sagehood: Cultivating the Moral Persons
Tzuli Chang: On Moral Error: The Debate and Mencian Comment
Jingyi Zhao: Learning from the Cradle: Children and Moral Self-cultivation in Ancient Greece and Early China
Guillaume Dutournier: Inferring the Intention of the Saints. Canon, Self-Cultivation and Controversy in Neo-Confucian Thought
14:25 – 14:45 Coffee Break
14:45 – 15:50 Panel 7. Self-Cultivation and Modern Ethos: Sex, Gender, and Identity
Deborah Goldgaber: Sex and self-transformation: Foucault, Bersani and the ‘End of Sex’
Becca Bashford: What’s in a name? The Refusal of Recognition and Its Effect on the Cultivation of the Self
15:50 – 16:10 Coffee Break
16:10 – 17:40 Panel 8. Which Self is at Stake? Towards a Diverse Ethics of Self-Cultivation
Oliver Spinney: Wittgenstein on Confession, and Working on Oneself
David Collins: Authenticity and Self-Cultivation in Beauvoir’s Ambiguous Ethics
Emma Syea: The Limits of Self-Cultivation
17:40 – 18:00 Coffee Break
18:00 – 19:00 Keynote Lecture
Graham Parkes: Self-Cultivation through Others: People, Things, and Internet
19:00 – 19:30 Closing Remark
Laura Sjoberg