Symposium: 150 Years of Tragedy

Nietzsche, Art, Philosophy

150 years after the publication of Nietzsche’s first book The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music, the provocative philosopher’s work continues to fulfil his own prediction that he would only be born posthumously “with a voice that spans millennia.” Tracing the development of art and culture back to a conflictual drama-turgy between the two primal forces of Apollo and Dionysus, Nietzsche’s debut work celebrated the Greek classicists and modern romantics alike for having the strength to affirm and even delight in their aesthetic depictions of the immense suffering that nature and the gods invariably wreak upon humankind.

Nietzsche’s impact on both art and philosophy has been nothing short of seismic, from Norman Lindsay’s The Antichrist of Nietzsche, to Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis, to Aby Warburg’s iconography, to Paul Taylor’s Art & Text.

This symposium, convened by Paris Lettau and Vincent Le with INDEX-JOURNAL, presents papers from a broad range of scholars newly examining Nietzsche’s own writing and his later influence at the intersection of art and philosophy, both ancient and modern, in Australia and abroad.

When: 9:30am-4:30pm Thursday, 24 November 2022
Where: Old Warden’s Lodge, Trinity College Enter through Gate C on Royal Parade, University of Melbourne

Programme

INTRODUCTION – 9:30am
Paris Lettau and Vincent Le

First session 10am

THE FORCED CHOICE OF PHILOSOPHY: On Alenka Zupančič’s The Shortest Shadow
Rex Butler

THE UNTIMELY SPECTATOR: From Provincialism to Postmodernism: Friedrich Nietzsche in Paul Taylor’s Art & Text
Ursula Cornelia de Leeuw

Break 11:30am

Second Session 12 noon

NIETZSCHE vs THE CUT-UP ARTIST
Caitlyn Lesiuk

DIVERSITIES: Reading The Birth of Tragedy Today
Vanessa Lemm

Lunch 1:30pm

Third Session 2:30pm

NIETZSCHE CONTRA NIETZSCHE: Dionysos comes to the Antipodes
Ian McLean

“HE THAT HATH EARS TO HEAR, LET HIM HEAR”: Nietzsche’s Ear Rings
Justin Clemens

ROUNDTABLE 4pm