Dear colleagues,
we are kindly inviting you to intercontinental scientific symposium
Iconization of suffering and its meaning in verbal, artistic, and cultural frame (intersemiotic, interdisciplinary and intercultural examination)
A. Aims and focus of the symposium1
The main aim of the event is to contribute to a conceptual cognition of how various cultures understand the existential meaning of human suffering within basic scientific research of intercontinentally representative material of culture-forming texts.
It is related to the key characteristics of human presence (Heidegger’s Dasein). Reflection of suffering and its meaning is fundamentally contributing to the formulation of all significant civilization-cultural paradigms (Taoism, Vedism, Brahmanism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Upanishad and Christian gnosis, Chan, Zen, basic philosophical concepts from Platon through Marx and Heidegger to Lyotard etc.). The representation of this or that mode of suffering and definition of its (even implicit) meaning presents the basis for almost all great stories2. Iconization of suffering is, at the same time, one of the most significant representation of the existential problematic situation as a general topic of (sujet) art3.
As far as the publication output is concerned, the basic aim of the event is to publish a reviewed scientific volume of an intercontinental team of authors entitled Iconization of suffering and its meaning in verbal, artistic, and cultural frame which should (1) render archetypally-schematic and intercontinentally representative variety of images (interpretations, concepts) of suffering as an inseparable part of human life, (2) as well as existential strategies or normatives of its most meaningful management and (3) at least partly clarify, on terminological level, this essential existence (term by M. Heidegger) in artistic, cultural, and civilizationally constituent statements.
B. Clarification of basic terms / concepts
Iconization – term/concept derived from the term of icon in the classic meaning of S. Ch. Pierce = portrayal, representation, semiotic model of the world in a text4.
Culture-forming text = artistic, cultural, and civilizationally constituent statement = archnarrative = a text with a constitutive, fundamental meaning and outreach on the shape of culture of particular ethnicity, episteme, style, direction, stream, ideology etc. or a text which is standardly representing this paradigm.
Suffering – an explicit or implicit synonym of the terms of “affliction”, “ordeal”, “misery”, “calvary”, “torture” etc.
C. Thematic and conceptual-methodological conditions of the acceptance of submissions
The publication will consist of submissions accepted by the scientific committee of the symposium and the reviewers. In order to meet the focus of the event and to maintain certain compatibility of its output, the committee will observe certain thematic and conceptual-methodological imperatives and principles. These shall ensure that the symposium and mainly its publication output will not represent a miscellaneous conglomerate of submissions about anything related to suffering but will create a compatible set of submissions of basic scientific research.
Thus, we would like you to understand that within the symposium and especially the intended publication only those submissions will be accepted which correspond with the following frame requirements:
- Thematic and conceptual-methodological accord of the submitted papers of basic research with the aims and meaning of the symposium as previously mentioned in points A and B.
- Elementary semiotic qualification: the subject matter of the submissions presented at the symposium and consequently published in the collective scientific monograph is not suffering itself (as in case of, say, its physiological, neurological researches or psychotherapeutic procedures), but rather its iconization, representation, portrayal and interpretation as well as its meaning in culture-forming texts (see also point A and B).
- We will appreciate if the contributors (with the exception of qualified experts on cultures of different nations such as, for example, scholars of American, German or Romance studies, Egyptologists, Orientalists, Cultural Anthropologists etc.) will primarily focus on their domestic culture. Only in this case will the intercontinental representativeness of the participants of the symposium project also into the proclaimed intercontinental representativeness of the abovementioned scientific publication.
We thank you in advance for accepting the aforementioned requests and conditions which, according to our belief, will guarantee the scientific uniqueness and at the same time the pragmatic meaningfulness of the upcoming symposium and its publication output.
Mgr. Mariana Čechová, PhD. (member of the scientific committee)
Prof. PhDr. Ľubomír Plesník, DrSc. (member of the scientific committee)
1 The symposium will be held as part of the research project VEGA 1/0426/17.
2 concept rehabilitated against the postmodern irony within the New Sincerity movement
3 A term of Czech philosopher, aesthetician, and literary scholar Zdeněk Mathauser
4 the concept of the founder of internationally established so-called Nitra school of interpretation, František Miko the iconization (a primary focus of the statement on mediation of image or model of the world) stands for one of two fundamental functions of the text. Its counterpart is operability (a primary focus of the statement on the relation between an author and a recipient). Neither understanding, nor acceptance of Miko’s concept is not relevant to the participants of the symposium.