In this interview for the Leuven Philosophy Newsletter, HOM team member Niki Hadikoesoemo asks Nidesh Lawtoo to sketch the main outlines of the Homo Mimeticus project and to discuss the relevance of mimesis for contemporary philosophy, politics, education, the unconscious, as well as for forging interdisciplinary connections within and beyond the humanities. You can read the full interview here.
We’re pleased to announce that Nidesh Lawtoo’s book Conrad’s Shadow: Catastrophe, Mimesis, Theory (MSU P, 2016) wins the Adam Gillon Award in Conrad Studies for best book of 2015-2017 (co-winner), a prize delivered by the Joseph Conrad Society of America. You can read the introduction here.
Nidesh Lawtoo publishes new essay on Oscar Wilde’s fascination for theatrical forms of mimesis (lies, identification, impersonation, performance) in Symploke 26.1-2 (2018): 307-328. Read full article here
In this guest lecture/workshop on “The History and the Mimetic Foundation of Social Life” (Feb. 22, 2019), Prof. Wulf joins forces with participants in the HOM Seminar at KU Leuven to argue that mimesis is not only a debased copy; it is also, and above all, an anthropological human condition essential for learning, the transmission of culture, and the emergence of innovation–via creative forms of cultural imitation.
The HOM Seminar at KU Leuven in collaboration with the Lies and Imagination Seminar is pleased to announce a workshop on “mimesis & lies” in the age of “fake news” with Jean-Michel Rabate on February 6, 2019 (Institute of Philsophy, Salons, 2-4pm).
The HOM Project is pleased to announce a series of video interviews on the contemporary relevance of mimesis. In ep. 1, PI Nidesh Lawtoo meets political theorist William E. Connolly to talk about the dangers of mimetic contagion in the age of Aspirational Fascism. Check out the trailer:
The HOM project, in collaboration with the Faculty of Arts (English Literature; MDRN), is happy to announce a Lecture by Jean Luc Nancy titled, “Bonheur du jour” on Thursday, December 6, at 6 pm ( New Location: SI 00.28, Mgr. Sencie Instituut. Erasmusplein, 2, 3000 Leuven; the address on the poster below is no longer valid!!). For more details & registration see: https://www.arts.kuleuven.be/english-literature/events/lecture-bonheur-du-jour-by-jean-luc-nancy
The HOM Project is happy to announce a workshop with Jean-Luc Nancy on December 7, 2018. The goal of the workshop is to revisit an untimely essay, titled Le mythe nazi (1981; written with Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe), in light of the recent return of neo-fascist leaders–both in Europe and in the US–who are currently turning the political into a fiction. Registration: https://hiw.kuleuven.be/hua/events/agenda/homworkshop-nancy
Mimesis is one of the most influential concepts in Western thought. Originally invoked to define humans as the “most imitative” creatures in classical antiquity, mimēsis (imitation) has recently been at the center of theoretical debates in the humanities, social sciences, and the neurosciences concerning the role of “mimicry,” “identification,” “contagion,” and “mirror neurons” in the formation of subjectivity. And yet, despite the growing confirmations that imitation is constitutive of human behavior, mimesis still tends to be confined to the sphere of realistic representation.
The ERC Starting Grant HOM project, hosted by the Institute of Philosophy at KU Leuven, combines approaches that are usually split in different areas of disciplinary specialization to provide a correction to this tendency. In the process its aim is to contribute to bringing discourses on imitation up-to-date with the fast-changing transformations of Homo mimeticus in the twenty-first century.
This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement n°716181.
