Reflecting on Nietzsche’s efforts to combine scientific and imaginative traditions is particularly relevant at a time when scientific knowledge continues to make inroads into areas of human culture once deemed the preserve of the humanistic disciplines. Developments in genetics, evolutionary biology, environmental science, physiology, and neuropsychology have radically increased science’s relevance to the study of topics as diverse as religious experience, empathy and emotion, language acquisition and cognition, social interaction, and cultural development. At the same time, scientists are increasingly aware of the ‘feedback loop’ between culture, body, and natural environment, such that scientific reductionism has become increasingly untenable. More than ever, the openness and plasticity of individual and cultural imagination is recognized as complementary to, rather than a refutation of, the latest developments in science and medicine. In light of science’s increasing application to the disciplines of philosophy, cultural studies, religious studies, psychology, and anthropology, this workshop will explore the relation between (and potential synthesis of) the scientific and imaginative dimensions of Nietzsche’s thought. The workshop welcomes papers that explore the relevance of Nietzsche or Nietzschean approaches to problems in social, political, and cultural life that raise issues of science and imagination. Papers that focus on Nietzsche’s work, as well as papers that apply a broadly Nietzschean approach to contemporary social and cultural issues, are welcome.

Submissions should be sent by email to Saul Tobias (stobias@fullerton.edu) and include a 500 word proposal (in the body of the email, or as an attached pdf or word document), and the author’s full contact details. For definite consideration, proposals should be submitted by Nov 30. For conference description and complete details of this workshop (Section V) see: http://issei2010.haifa.ac.il/