Living Language
Body and the Soul in the Western Tradition: And Why These Narratives Matter
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Rafael Narvaez
This paper traces important shifts in theories and ideologies about body and soul; and the extent to which these shifts have affected Western intellectual history, focusing particularly on philosophy and the human sciences. I also consider the ways in which these changing theories and ideologies also affected intimate and enduring aspects of everyday life in the West, for better and for worse. In the concluding section, I argue that, historically, social struggles for the control of meanings related to body and soul have been important, precisely because these struggles have not been about mere meanings detached from life, but about aspects of life itself. Understanding the profound effects that these kinds of ideas and beliefs have historically had is critical in an age such as ours, which is witnessing the rise of various forms of religious fundamentalism and the return of religious war. This project is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (# AQ-234985).
A Medieval Conception of Language in Human Terms: Al-Farabi
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mostafa ------------------------------- Younesie
I consider and examine the approach of Al-Farabi as a medieval thinker in introducing a new outlook to “language” in difference with the other views. Thereby I explore his challenges in the frame of “philosophical humanism” as a term given by Arkoun and Kraemer to the humanism of the Islamic philosophers and their circles, mainly in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Al-Farabi’s conception of philosophical humanism in which philosophy is thick and religion thin, creates agony with the other versions of humanism and also orthodox Islam. It means that his work to introduce a humanistic understanding of language should be placed in a multi-level contested environment. According to Al-Farabi, language as a universal category has relation with reason that logic should function as its proper instrument. As a result, there is no specific privileged predetermined by language but the position of any language is shaped by its relation with human reason and formal logic that is something human made. And such a conception means language in human terms.
The Last Correspondence: Henry Miller and Ueno Kenichi
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Wayne Arnold
On January 26, 1965, a yet unknown Japanese writer sent his first letter to the famed American author, Henry Miller. This day marked the beginning of what would evolve into the Miller-Ueno correspondence: an undiscovered glimpse into the mind of the aged Miller, reveling in his ideals of the Orient. Over the course of the next 15 years, Ueno Kenichi and Miller would exchange more than a combined 500 letters, in total. Miller was Ueno’s master, while Ueno became Miller’s eye-of-Japan, providing Miller with glimpses of everyday life in a country he longed to visit but ultimately a country that would remain in the eye of his imagination. In this presentation, I reveal a side of Henry Miller that has yet to be explored by his biographers as the Miller-Ueno correspondence has hitherto been unknown. Utilizing nearly 200 previously undiscovered, privately-held letters from Miller, I will demonstrate that Japan—and Miller’s popularity in Japan—preoccupied much of the old author’s interest and affection. I refer to the 15-year exchange of letters as the “last correspondence” since this was Miller’s final in-depth correspondence in which he exchanged some of his most profound ideas on life and philosophy with a male companion. Ueno served as a unofficial representative for Miller in Japan while also seeking wisdom from his master, Henry Miller.
