Conference on Michel Serres and Bruno Latour

In May, David took part in a conference at the Maison Française d’Oxford (with the support of La Fondation Michel Serres-Institut) dedicated to the work of Michel Serres and Bruno Latour.

.Eclaircissements (Conversations on Science, Culture and Time) is the original title of the volume of five dialogues between Michel Serres and Bruno Latour published in 1992. Widely translated, this book reflects a time of intense and joyous dialogue and of sharing ideas. The aim of this conference is to shed new light on their philosophical dialogue, explore how their views compare, clash, dovetail and/or are mutually enriching.  How do, for instance, Le Contrat Naturel and Politiques de la Nature, Biogée and Gaia, echo each other. This conference seeks to examine the legacy of Michel Serres in the light of his relation to Bruno Latour and identify continuities and fault lines between the two oeuvres. Beyond the question of legacy, the conference hopes to bring to the fore the ways in which both challenged modern categories to reconnect philosophy with the urgent questions concerning the Earth. The conference will also seek to explore how their respective philosophical practices, as they are breaking away from the traditional codes of academic writing, fashioned an idiosyncratic style of their own and allowed them to engage a larger readership and audience.

Organisers

• Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent
• Henriette Korthals-Altes

Participants

• Frédérique Aït-Touati (EHESS)
• Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent (Univ Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne)
• Steven Connor (Kings College, Cambridge)
• Martin Crowley (Cambridge)
• Elie During (Université Paris Nanterre)
• Henriette Korthals-Altes (Maison Française d’Oxford)
• Catherine Larrère (Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne)
• Lilian Kroth (Freiburg University)
• Simon Schaffer  (Cambridge University)
• Massimiliano Simmons (Maastricht University)
• Victor Simmonet (Université Paris 8)
• David Webb (Staffordshire University)