Workshop arranged by the Academy of Finland-project Asymmetries in European Cultural Space
23-24.10.2014, Unioninkatu 38A, room A132 (thursday 14-18, friday 9-12)
The purpose of this two-day interdisciplinary workshop is to take a closer look at different forms of universalism as well as the logic of universalization in intellectual history, literature and philosophy.
Intellectual cultures differ considerably in treating local debates as either uniquely particular or as expressions of a universal discourse. From the perspective of geo-cultural asymmetry between centres and peripheries, it is often assumed that ideas from the centres have a greater chance of becoming universalized.
Are the peripheries more immune against universalistic modes of thinking by virtue of their comparative insight into discourses and developments in rivaling centres, or is universalization of ideas and concepts something that actually happens in the periphery, when ideas received from the centres are disconnected from their original context?
The seminar is free and open to all.