Special Sessions and Other Noteworthy Events

Special Memorial Panel Discussion: Gadamer’s Hermeneutics – Saturday 25 May 3:00 – 6:00 p.m.

CSH Reception – Saturday 25 May 6:30-9:30 (Duke of York, 39 Prince Arthur St., 2^nd Floor)

University of Toronto President’s Reception – Saturday 25 May 5:00-7:00 p.m.

Our sessions will be held in Woodsworth College, 119 St. George St., Rm. 121.

The CSH/SCH Reception will be held in the Duke of York, 39 Prince Arthur Ave., 2^nd Floor, “The Conservatory.”

Program for Toronto 2002

Giorgio Baruchello University of Guelph John Beach l’Université de Montréal Alain Beaulieu l’Université de Montréal Jeff Dudiak The King’s University College Tanya DiTommaso University of Ottawa Diane Enns SUNY Binghamton Milton Friesen Catriona Hanley Loyola College, Maryland Roberta Imboden Ryerson Polytechnic University

Suzanne Jaeger University of Central Florida Zoran Jankovic Université de MontrJal         Arthur Krentz Luther College, University of Regina Norman Madarasz Montréal / Rio de Janiero               Gary Brent Madison McMaster University Jeff Mitscherling University of Guelph James Mensch St Francis Xavier University Brendan Myers National University of Ireland, Galway Graeme Nicholson Trinity College, University of Toronto Felix Ó Murchadha National University of Ireland, Galway

-------------------------------- Saturday 25 May -----------------------------------

10:00 - 11:00  =         Diane Enns (SUNY Binghamton)

                    “Between Force Relations and Fascism: Foucault, Power and Terrorism.”

Chair:  TBA

11:00 - 12:00  =          Norman Madarasz (Montréal/Rio de Janiero)

                    “Caught in a Web: Intentionality and Relations at the Service of Networks.”

Chair: TBA

12:00 - 1:00    =           Lunch

1:00 - 2:00      =          Catriona Hanley (Loyola College, Maryland)

                    “Academic Philosophy and Globalization: The Responsibility of the Hermeneutic Philosopher in a Time of                     Crisis.”

Chair:  TBA

2:00 - 3:00      =          Giorgio Baruchello (University of Guelph)

                    “The Cruelty of Liberalism: An Essay on Judith Shklar, Richard Rorty, John Kekes and Cesare Beccaria.”

Chair:  TBA

3:00 - 3:15      =          Break

3:25 - 6:00      =          Special Memorial Panel Discussion: Gadamer’s Hermeneutical Legacy

                                      Moderator/Speaker:  Jeff Mitscherling (University of Guelph): “Gadamer’s Legacy in my own work.”

                                      Speakers:       John Beach (l’Université de Montréal): “Gadamer Stories.”

                                      Gary Madison (McMaster University):

                                      Graeme Nicholson (University of Toronto):

5:00 - 7:00      =          President’s Reception - Great Hall, Hart House

6:30 - 9:30      =          CSH Reception / SCH Réception: Duke of York, 39 Prince Arthur St., 2^nd Floor

----------------------------- Sunday 26 May -------------------------------

9:00 -10:00     =          Brendan Myers (National University of Ireland, Galway)

                    “Picking Up the Pieces of Selfhood in a Time of Crisis.”

Chair:  Felix Ó Murchadha

10:00 - 11:00  =          Felix Ó Murchadha (National University of Ireland, Galway)

                    “Being as Ruination: Heidegger, Simmel and the Phenomenology of Ruins.”

Chair:  Brendan Myers

11:00 - 12:00  =          Suzanne Jaeger (University of South Florida)

                    “Performance Theory and the Philosophical Problem of Presence.”

Chair:  TBA

1:00  - 2:00     =          lunch

2:00  - 3:00     =          General Business Meeting

3:00  - 4:00     =          Jeff Dudiak (King’s University College, Edmonton)

                    “Tout autre n’est pas tout autre: Levinas on Kierkegaardian religion.”

Chair:  TBA

4:00 - 5:00      =          Alain Beaulieu (Université de Montréal)

                    “Y a-t-il quelque chose à comprendre? Sur l’opposition entre la philosophie herméneutique et les philosophies                      de l’événement.”

Chair:  TBA

----------------------------- Monday 27 May -----------------------------------

9:00 - 10:00    =          Zoran Jankovic (Université de Montréal)

“La rhétorique de frontières: La critique derridienne de la conception heideggerien de la mort comme prolégomènes au concept déconstructiviste de politique.”

Chair:  TBA

10:00 - 11:00  =          James Mensch (St. Francis Xavier University)

“Benito Cerino: Freud and the Breakdown of Politics.”

 Chair:  TBA

11:00 - 12:00  =          Roberta Imboden (Ryerson Polytechnic University)

“September 11, New York: A Derridean Elegy.”

Chair:  TBA

12:00 - 1:00    =          Lunch

1:00  - 2:00     =          Tanya DiTommaso (University of Ottawa)

“Aesthetics of Frankensteinian Proportions.”

Chair:  TBA

2:00 - 3:00      =          Milton Friesen

“Play, Rhetoric and Method in Gadamer’s Hermeneutics and Derrida’s Deconstruction.”

Chair:  TBA

3:00 - 4:00      =          Arthur Krentz (Luther College, University of Regina)

“Nietzsche: On Priests, Philosophers, Noble and Base Forms of the Ascetic Ideal.”

Chair:  TBA

Abstracts

Papers (alphabetically, by author):

Giorgio Baruchello

“The Cruelty of Liberalism: An Essay on Judith Shklar, Richard Rorty, John Kekes and Cesare Beccaria.”

I shall begin this paper by outlining the main features of Judith Shklar's and Richard Rorty's "liberalism of fear." Both of them believe liberalism to be characterized by a fundamental opposition to cruelty, which they regard as the least liberal of the features that may distinguish any given human community. There has been little disagreement on  this ethical characterization of liberalism, or on the “democratic capitalism” that it presupposes. An exception is the contemporary conservative thinker John Kekes, whose critique of “liberalism of fear” and, more broadly, of liberalism as such, is going to be the starting point of my counterargument to the Shklar-Rorty thesis. Subsequently, as a second and more poignant moment of my counterargument, I shall refer to the 18th-century Italian philosopher Cesare Beccaria. Specifically, I shall make use of a few passages contained in his most famous work (On Crimes and Punishment) which is widely recognised as a central text in the history of the liberal transformation of Western penal justice. From such passages I shall determine how Beccaria conceived "cruelty" to be pertaining to the liberal organisation of society. Moreover, I shall highlight how this was the case not only at the juridical level, but also and above all at the economic level. Finally, on the basis of Kekes’ and Beccaria’s points, I shall conclude by condemning Shklar’s and Rorty’s “liberalism of fear” as conceptually weak and historically short-sighted.

                                                                John Beach

                                                          “Gadamer Stories”

                                                             Alain Beaulieu

“Y a-t-il quelque chose à comprendre? Sur l’opposition entre la philosophie herméneutique et

                                               les philosophies de l’événement.”

Depuis les années soixante-dix, la philosophie dite post-structuraliste et l'herméneutique sont à compter parmi les positions les plus dominantes de la pensée continentale. Le plus souvent aussi, ces positions demeurent associées à des aires géographiques facilement identifiables qui ont pour ligne de partage la frontière franco-allemande. C'est ainsi que les philosophies dites post-structuralistes, bien qu'en grande partie fondées sur la phénoménologie husserlienne, n'ont que très peu d'affinité avec le tournant herméneutique de la phénoménologie initié par Heidegger et radicalisé par Gadamer. Nous tenterons de dégager les motifs de cette incompatibilité entre le post-structuralisme et l'herméneutique en mettant en valeur la notion d'événement.

                                                             Jeffrey Dudiak

                  “Tout autre n’est pas tout autre: Levinas on Kierkegaardian religion.”

In this paper I offer a reading of Levinas’s brief but crucial interventions on the thought of Kierkegaard, focussing on Levinas’s criticisms of Kierkegaard’s interpretation of religion and its relationship to ethics.  Following Levinas in locating the ethical, not in universality à la Kierkegaard, but in a relationship with the absolutely other, I will attempt to avoid the dual temptations of, on the one hand, reading Levinas’s “ethics” as another version of Kierkegaard’s “religion” (which is also a relationship to the absolutely other), and, on the other hand, of following Derrida who – across the shibboleth he applies to both of these thinkers: tout autre est tout autre – troubles the distinction between religion and ethics, and thus the distinction between Kierkegaard and Levinas itself, at least on this point.  I will argue instead that the different readings of alterity, of the tout autre, offered by Kierkegaard and Levinas offer us two very different versions of religion – respectively, religion as faith with the pure heart, and a mundanized religion with an impure heart – and that this difference makes all the difference in (or out of) the world.

                                                          Tanya DiTommaso

                                      “Aesthetics of Frankensteinian Proportions.”

Since the early 1970's, the television has been incorporated into the art world by artists such as Nam June Paik and members of the Fluxus group.  It is now commonplace within the art world to place a television in an art gallery and call it ‘art’.  But while the television has attained this prestigious place within the art world, interestingly, it hitherto has remained an outsider to contemporary circles of philosophical inquiry. Until now. Gathering our inspiration from Nam June Paik’s “Egg Grows,” it is indeed possible to form a hermeneutic description of the television as having an aesthetic value of Frankensteinian proportions.

                                                                Diane Enns

                “Between Force Relations and Fascism: Foucault, Power and Terrorism.”

Despite the familiarity with Michel Foucault's notion of power as a multiplicity of force relations, very few have focussed on his less frequent references to the repressive power he repudiates. At times he appears to admit in practice what he cannot allow in theory: a view of power as dominating, repressive, and totalizing - in a word, as fascism. In this paper I will argue that Foucault stops short of extending his genealogical analysis of force relations to what he calls meta-power or domination, revealing an ambivalence towards power that calls into question his analysis of the multiplicity of force relations.  With an analysis of power that mediates disciplinary relations and totalizing fascism, I will draw out the implications for contemporary concerns with terrorism and the attempt to secure a nation against it.  There is no doubt that totalizing power occupies a highly disturbing place in Foucault's texts. One of the most explicit of these can be found in the preface to Anti-Oedipus. Couched in the terminology of warfare, Foucault rails against the enemies of Deleuze and Guattari's text, which he defines as "sad militants," "terrorists of theory" and above all, as the strategic adversary, fascism: not only the historical fascism of Hitler and Stalin, but "the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us" (p.xiii).  Foucault asks how we are to keep from being fascist, even when we believe ourselves to be revolutionary militants? How do we rid our speech and our acts, our hearts and our pleasures, of fascism? How do we ferret out the fascism that is ingrained in our behaviour? With these questions, Foucault admits, with surprising lack of self-reflexion, a comparison between Deleuze's and Guattari's pursuit of the "slightest traces of fascism in the body" to the Christian moralists who sought out the traces of the flesh lodged within the soul (p. xiii).  It seems evident that fascism is the link between power as the multiplicity of force relations that constitutes the subject, and Power, the crystallization of these relations into state or legal bodies. In all the daily events of our lives one may locate the tiny elements of fascism to the enormous ones, on a graduating scale from petty to crushing. How is one to resist then? The assumption appears to be that a constant vigilance against dogma, against totalizing theories is the war in which we must all participate. Foucault reflects on this in one of his last interviews, clarifying his earlier position: we must distinguish between power relations understood as strategic games among those who are free, in which some try to control the conduct of others, and the states of domination that people ordinarily call "power" (Michel Foucault: Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth, 299). Between these two poles are what he calls "technologies of government."  There are three levels of power then: strategic relations, techniques of government and states of domination. But without distinguishing between any of these, Foucault insists that power itself is not evil, only a game of strategy. Problems arise only when power is abused. It appears that Foucault has simply rendered fascism into the evil that he declares power is not. A host of questions could be raised here regarding the act of terrorism. Immediately after the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001, the frenetic drive to pin the responsibility on the head of a terrorist organization frequently caused commentators to protest that terrorism "has no head," only a body, referring to the relative independence with which the trained terrorists work. It was remarked that the search for a supreme leader such as Osama Bin Laden is rendered ineffective in preventing further acts of terror, if "cutting off the king's head" only results in a massive increase of men willing to die for the cause. This would attest to the micro-power Foucault insists is ubiquitous in social relations. Today's media would have us believe that terrorism is the ultimate evil. Perhaps then, the fascism Foucault hated has been replaced by terrorism in the public imagination. Yet, there is only a thin line between the terrorist and the freedom-fighter struggling against the oppressive nature of imperialist practices; against, therefore, the power Foucault calls domination. Osama Bin Laden and his followers who fought against the communist regime of the former Soviet Union, backed by the United States, for example, were at the time considered freedom-fighters. Now they are terrorists, "evil-doers," hoping to win a holy war against American capitalism.  My question is whether this thin line between power and resistance, fascism and force relations, terrorism and struggle can be accounted for in Foucault's discussion of power, or whether we need to rethink the very nature and exercise of power in light of the contemporary world scene.

                                                             Milton Friesen

    “Play, Rhetoric and Method in Gadamer’s Hermeneutics and Derrida’s Deconstruction.”

The dialogue between Jacques Derrida and Hans-Georg Gadamer is a well known encounter in the annals of academic discourse.  This essay analyses their individual contributions to the themes of play, rhetoric and method, particularly as they are represented in Derrida’s earlier works – primarily Speech and Phenomena and Of Grammatology, and Gadamer’s magnum opus, Truth and Method.  Both scholars have a deep interest in play as non-determined movement (whether in linguistic exchange or aesthetic experience), in rhetoric as the living moment of our encounter with others through language and in method as a structure that -- paradoxically -- makes thinking possible while at the same time serving to confine thought.  Derrida and Gadamer often disagree.  However, by comparing their thoughts on play, rhetoric and method, each of their respective thoughts becomes clearer and the relative merit of their positions for future discussion of these themes are then more easily discerned.

                                                            Catriona Hanley

“Academic Philosophy and Globalization: The Responsibility of the Hermeneutic Philosopher in a Time of Crisis.”

Those of us who teach in the humanities in contemporary universities are subject to mainstream  attempts from both within and outside the academy to diminish the importance of  the humanities and its canon of great books. The current trend is to concentrate university resources on disciplines that are more profitable and to restrict funding and faculty hires in– even to abolish completely-- non-profitable disciplines. “Profit” is measured by numbers of students enrolled in a given discipline, or the amount of outside funding mustered by faculty, or the potential dollars alumni will make upon graduating and be capable of rechannelling as contributions to their alma mater.  Disciplines like classics and philosophy, which have difficulty attracting large numbers of students in our current world climate, which have virtually no possibility of or interest in attracting corporate dollars, and which do not result in high paying jobs are in danger if the only acceptable justification for their existences is numerical.   Welcome to the corporate university, the manifestation in higher education of neo-liberal globalization. What can hermeneutic philosophy do to counter this  trend of globalization as it affects what is fast becoming the corporate university? More specifically, the primary question in my paper today will be: what is the responsibility of the philosopher in these times?  My principal response will be: moral neutrality is not possible. The philosopher’s prime objective should be to serve the health of the local and world community, which means resisting globalization and its apologists.

                                                           Roberta Imboden

                                    “September 11, New York: A Derridean Elegy”

We stand at the edge of the abyss where the World Trade Center was until Sept. 11.   The nothingness that faces us seems to be a powerful challenge to our ability to imagine what we feel must be imagined if this abyss, like those in Derrida’s texts, can eventually bring to us a creative moment, rather than to the destructive one that caused this horrific tragedy. Now we are afflicted by memory, the memory of the falling towers that immediately preceded this devastation and fear that we will be overcome by this image.  This memory produces a kind of mourning that does not just belong to us, but rather, to most of the entire world.  Will this memory cause an endless night to descend upon us?  Will a form of blindness sweep over us so that we will not be able to see the sun?   This blindness, the result of the apocalypse that occurred on that beautiful morning in September: will it remain with us, as Saul must have wondered on the road to Damascus.  Or - can it bring a new sight, a restoration of sight that will help us to use the nothingness within this abyss as the catalyst for creative acts.  It seems that we have no other choice than to continue this journey toward Damascus. 

 

                                                              Suzanne Jaeger

                     “Performance Theory and the Philosophical Problem of Presence.”

The paper addresses recent discussions of  presence in performance theory. In the first section, I consider problems pertaining to the ontology of presence.  In the second section, I discuss connections between the ontology of presence and social-linguistic explanations of subjectivity and embodiment.  I argue that reductions of meaning in human experience to functions of either social practices or discourse misconstrue the possibility of openness that stems from our embodied condition. In the third and final section I turn to the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty to reconcile some of the difficulties in the ontology of presence.  This understanding of presence both avoids essentializing the body and accommodates a social-construction theory of subjectivity without making embodiment merely a productive effect of language, discourse or values inherent in social practices.

                                                            Zoran Jankovic

“La rhétorique de frontières: La critique derridienne de la conception heideggerien de la mort comme  prolégomènes au concept déconstructiviste de politique.”

La problématique des frontières et des limites ainsi que celle du « passage des frontières » n’a cessé d’occuper Derrida pendant ces dernières années. En effet, Derrida aborde cette problématique de différentes façons, sous différents angles, toutefois c’est bien l’aspect éthico-politique qui, à chaque fois, l’intéresse avant tout. C’est donc dans ce contexte qu’il faut aussi comprendre Apories. Ainsi, le discours sur la mort, nous dit Derrida, comporte toujours « une rhétorique de frontières ». De toute évidence, cette « rhétorique », ainsi que la thématique du « passage des frontières », représentent l’enjeu le plus important de l’analyse heideggérienne de la mort. Il en est ainsi car par cette critique de Heidegger Derrida tente de frayer le chemin à un concept de politique spécifiquement déconstructiviste.

                                                              Arthur Krentz

          “Nietzsche: on Priests, Philosophers, Noble and Base Forms of the Ascetic Ideal.”

In this paper I examine Nietzsche’s criticism and evaluation of the “Ascetic Ideal” as manifested in 19^th century institutional Christianity and the philosophical establishment of his day.  In Part II of The Genealogy of Morals and Thus Spake Zarathustra there is an implied distinction between “noble” and “base” asceticism which raises the issue regarding what, if anything, Nietzsche can affirm in religious and philosophical asceticism—self-denial, self-sacrifice and a this-world transcendence which seeks to create something beyond oneself, versus the ascetic tendency to deny the validity and value of this-world in favor of a religious Transcendent (God) and/or a philosophically ideal, transcendent world which leads to the denigration of this-worldly, finite existence.

                                                          Norman Madarasz

              “Caught in a Web: Intentionality and Relations at the Service of Networks.”

As an overarching model, the network dominates research landscapes like no other since Man, the Absolute and God. From mind to the global economy, networks subsume and overbear. Which is why networks confront philosophical thought to some tough questions, the first of which regards its own dominance and how to receive it. Deleuze and Guattari, through the rhizome model, initially conceived of networks as embodying critical progress and social revolution. Yet in an astonishingly short period of time, networks in their subsumptive dynamic seem to modelize ever-new forms of naturalism and realism, often toward interpretive staticism. Bruno Latour’s work hubristically refuses to accept such dead-ended fatalism in the network model. And the means by which he lends movement to his theory is by activating performative network models in various sciences by descriptive techniques not unfamiliar to phenomenologists. Within this framework, we nonetheless ponder whether the category of relation still maintains a formal independence factor while caught in the web of networks. Phenomenologically, perhaps this would not be a problem were intentionality itself not subsumed—or reduced—to a manifold model of relations. Still, the problem remains as how to keep such a manifold operative when networks reduce with few exceptions the piecemeal character of a relation, i.e. what is thinkable of it as singular, to interactive systems. What we plan to examine is a specifically critical reading of network models and their all-encompassing capture of relations, contrasted with models of intentionality upheld as if to counter the severely deterministic implications that may be inferred from networks. To that end, Bruno Latour’s recent work on attachment and actants will be considered here alongside the growing intuition that the network model is by no means an objective, disinterested term—either philosophically or economically. Indeed, networks show the ideological nature of any number of scientific conclusions to be alive and well.

                                                         Gary Brent Madison

                                                      Reflections on Gadamer

                                                                              James Mensch

                                              “Benito Cerino: Freud and the Breakdown of Politics.”

In a world shaken by terrorists’ assaults, it can seem as if no one is in control. Political leaders cast about for opponents, for those on whom they can exert their political will.  The terrorists, however, need not identify themselves.  In the absence of any clear statements, can we know what someone who mails anthrax has in mind?  Can we tell what would satisfy those who use passenger planes as missiles to kill themselves and thousands of others?  The terrorism that does not speak, that leaves no message about its goals, represents, not politics, but its breakdown.  Some have tried to characterize it as a method. Yet even the word, “method,” says too much since it implies a way to achieve a political goal.  As a sign of the breakdown of politics, the terrorism that cannot speak is, rather, a symptom.  It was Freud who first introduced the notion of “symptoms” and “breakdown” to describe the loss of control.  In my paper, I will apply his insights to Melville’s tale of revolt on a slave ship.  His short story, “Benito Cerino,” describes its captain’s catastrophic loss of control.  The point of my account is, however, not literary.  Neither is it psychological in the narrow Freudian sense.  It is rather political.  It is to use Freud and Melville to raise the question of political control in troubled times.

                                                             Brendan Myers

                              “Picking up the Pieces of Selfhood in a Time of Crisis.”

Two notions of the self are under consideration here: one is the self as inseparable from the world and inextricably a part of it.  The other is the self as a narrative identity as articulated by Paul Ricoeur.  I ask the question, “what happens to the self during times of crisis?” using both of these principles of selfhood as the basis for an answer.  The narrative identity of persons is merged with the narrative identity of place; and a person’s selfhood is reduced or damaged commensurate with the reduction or damage done to the world by a crisis.  Further, I argue that the world has a narrative of its own which I have called the historic narrative; and that there is a third narrative called the hero’s journey which mediates between the narrative identity of persons and the historic narrative, and which is invoked in times of crisis to aid in the process of rebuilding the sense of self that was damaged or reduced by a disaster.

                                                          Graeme Nicholson

                                                      Reflections on Gadamer

                                                          Felix Ó Murchadha

              “Being as Ruination: Heidegger, Simmel and the Phenomenology of Ruins.”

This paper proposes a phenomenological account of ruins. While acknowledging the insights gained through an aesthetic of ruins (Simmel), it attempts with reference to Heidegger's account of dwelling, to go beyond such a view. It also attempts to avoid understanding ruins through reconstruction (Ricoeur). Rather, ruins indicate the loss of world, the withdrawal of a world. This withdrawal comes to appearance in the ruin. If such withdrawal is essential to the historical world, if epoché lies at the basis of any epoch, then ruins are truly historical objects indicating the destiny of all such objects: decay, ruination.

                                CSH/SCH GENERAL BUSINESS MEETING

                                                         TORONTO, 2002

                                       2:00-3:00 P.M., Sunday 26 May 2002

AGENDA

1. Approval of the Minutes of the Laval 2001 General Business Meeting.

2. Treasurer’s Reports.

(a) For the year ending December 2001.

(b) For the period 1 January 2002 – 26 May 2002.

3. President’s Report on Membership and Dues.

(a) Discussion of 2002 Database Summary.

4. Report on Symposium.

(a) Paul Fairfield has been serving as Editor for the past year.

6. Database Corrections.

7. Next Year’s Congress in Halifax.

8. Update on Continental Thought in Canada Series

9. Other Business.

                                    Minutes of the General Business Meeting

                  Canadian Society for Hermeneutics and Postmodern Thought

                                                       Laval, Quebec 2001

Minutes of the General Business Meeting

Canadian Society for Hermeneutics and Postmodern Thought

Quebec City, 24 May 2001

Members present: Bruce Baugh, Daniel So, Donald Ipperciel (Secretary), Felix O’Murchadha, Gary Madison, Geraldine Finn, Giorgio Baruchello, James Mensch, Jeffrey Dudiak, John King, Karen Houle, Marty Fairbairn, Roberta Imboden, Sonia Sikka.

(1) Approval of the minutes of the Edmonton 2000 General Business Meeting

(2) Treasurer’s Report

Since the treasurer John Bruin was not present, Jeff Mitscherling presented the report.

John King suggested the new editor of Symposium, Paul Fairfield, explore the possibility of using a new technique in printing which would significantly reduce the producing costs of the journal. He will send an e-mail to Paul.

Jeff pointed out that the money we received from HSSFC was money first paid by CSH members, which was given back to the CSH.

Moved: Marty Fairbairn  Seconded: James Mensch

(3) President’s Report on Membership and Dues

Not all dues were paid. Jeff promises he will “hassle” people to get the money.

(4) Report on Symposium

Paul Fairfield, who has been serving has Co-editor of Symposium on the last issue, is appointed the new editor.

(5) Revision of the Constitution

It has been agreed that no modifications to the constitution was necessary regarding Paul Fairfield’s appointment, which is considered compatible with the Constitution.

The Constitution was changed on another aspect: All references to the Advisory Board, which is no longer relevant, has been eliminated.

Moved: Bruce Baugh  Seconded: Marty Fairbairn

(6) Database Corrections

The database of members was incomplete, explaining some problems in disseminating the information. It has been completed.

(7) Next Year’s Congress in Toronto

Next  Year’s Congress in Toronto should be held on May 25 to May 27.

For further information, one should talk to Pam Gravestock.

(8) Update on Continental Thought in Canada Series: Basically, nothing is happening on this front.

Different publishing houses were contacted, such as Broadview, Hartcourt, which have either refused the project or declined to respond.

The Canadian Foundation for Innovation refused.

Jeff says he will further explore the possibility to get funds from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation.

John King suggests we try again with Broadview. Jeff agrees.

(9) Other Business

Jeff Mitscherling puts forward the following theses:

(a) The HSSFC controls the press, which amounts to a non-sinister form of censorship.

(b) A disproportionate amount of power is given to the Francophone’s in Quebec.

Jeff presents quantitative data to support his theses.

For Jeff, this inequity is a reason for the CSH to withdraw from the HSSFC.

The withdrawal from HSSFC is set as a condition for him to remain President of the CSH. Jeff notes that this is not to be understood as an ultimatum.

The figures are contested by Donald Ipperciel, who sees no favoritism towards Quebec. He contends that Ontario gets the lion’s share of the subsidies.

For Marty Fairbairn, it is  a question of fairness. He proposes the following motion, seconded by Karen Houle:

“That we nominate a committee to investigate further with the view to bringing a report that would come up with a decision to resign form the HSSFC at a press conference”

The motion was considered preempting the findings of the committee. So it was amended as follows:

“That we nominate a committee to investigate further the question of fair procedure of publication”

Karen Houle opposes the idea of an investigation. She suggests we spell out what we consider fair representation in the first place, and that we further discuss the problem, which, as a problem, is nebulous.

The motion is rejected by the members.

As a consequence, Jeff Mitscherling resigns.

Donald Ipperciel has now the chair.

He asks if anyone present would be willing to step in as the new president. No one is ready to take the position.

For lack of time, Donald suggests the matter be pursued through e-mail.

Donald Ipperciel steps down as secretary for reasons unrelated to the above.

John King proposes a motion to thank Jeff Mitscherling for his invovlment as  President of the CSH.

The meeting is adjourned. 

CONSTITUTION

of

    The Canadian Society for Hermeneutics and Postmodern Thought/

La Société canadienne pour l’Herméneutique et la Pensée postmoderne

(As ratified at the CSH/SCH General Business Meeting of 24 May 1990 and amended at the CSH/SCH General Business Meetings of: 28 May 1998, 25 May 2000.)

Article I.

The name of this society shall be the Canadian Society for Hermeneutics and Postmodern Thought / La Société canadienne pour l’Herméneutique et la Pensée postmoderne.

Article II.

The purpose of this society shall be to further the study of hermeneutics and contemporary continental and postmodern thought, in Canada and abroad. To this end, the Society will (i) hold at least one regular annual conference, (ii) publish on a regular basis a journal, and (iii) maintain a society website. The Society shall strive for gender equity. The official languages of the Society shall be English and French.

Article III.

Membership shall be open to anyone with a scholarly interest in hermeneutics, continental thought, or postmodern thought.

Article IV.

The elected officers of this organisation shall be a President, a Vice President, a Treasurer, and a Secretary, each of whom shall be elected at the general business meeting. The terms of these offices shall be two years. These officers shall comprise the Executive Committee. Other officers may be appointed by the Executive Committee in consultation with the Advisory Board.

Article V.