The impact of Nietzsche’s Dionysian/Apollonian distinction upon contemporary philosophy is indisputable. Questioning, however, the very premises of such distinction from a theoretical and historical perspective can help to widen the conceptual horizon of today’s continental philosophy against the backdrop of current discussions on nihilism, earthboundness, worlding, and dwelling. Such has been the purpose of this online seminar we organized in the first week of June of 2023 on the occasion of the publication of our co-authored book, Dionysus & Apollo after Nihilism: Rethinking the Earth–World Divide.
These are the links to the video-recordings of the two main panel sessions of the seminar:
“Dionysus, Apollo & the Unthought”
“Dionysus, Apollo & the Earth”
In the first one (“Dionysus, Apollo & the Unthought”) Carlos discusses with Phil Lynes (Durham University), Patrice Maniglier (Paris-Nanterre University), Richard Polt (Xavier University), and Jarrad Reddekop (Camosun College) on how recovering Dionysus and Apollo as intertwining conceptual personae may contribute to widen the conceptual limits of contemporary philosophy in dialogue with French structuralism and post-structuralism, comparative anthropology, and Heidegger’s late philosophy. In turn, in the second one (“Dionysus, Apollo & the Earth”) we both discuss with Susanne Claxton (Southern New Hampshire University) and Bronislaw Szerszynski (Lancaster University) on how recovering the two gods as intertwining conceptual personae may also help us to imagine afresh our earthbound condition as well as the creative interplay of life’s primordial forces against the backdrop of contemporary philosophy, butō dance, Anthropocene studies, and an ethics of hospitality and care.
In addition to these two panel sessions, R. Drew Griffith (Queen’s University), Miguel Herrero de Jáuregui (Complutense University of Madrid), and Carlos talked about Dionysus and Apollo’s roles in Ancient Greek culture and Nietzsche’s misrepresentation of these.
See further the section Minor Essays of this blog for two of the artefacts that we presented at the seminar: Sofya’s text “Meaning and Dancing,” and Carlos’s diagram “Dionysus, Apollo & the Unthought.”