Conference

IPH and LUCAS Symposium Mimesis

Susanna Lindberg

Date: Thursday 20 November 2025 - Friday 21 November 2025
Location: Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden
Room: Thursday in 2.03 and Friday in 0.03

Mimesis - Philosophy -Art

Thursday 20 November 14:00 – 17:00
Friday 21 November 09:00 – 16:00

Since the Ancients, mimesis has been considered the rival of logos: Mimesis is the law of art and literature, whereas logos is the law of philosophy. While philosophy has traditionally claimed to tell the truth (logos) of art, artists relied on mimesis to generate affect (pathos) instead. And yet, from German Romanticism to deconstruction and beyond, a countermovement has developed in which art turned out to display the truth of philosophy, and mimesis turned out to be the truth of logos or “logomimesis”. Similarly, the field of mimetic theory goes beyond ancient quarrels that simply oppose the logos of mimesis to the pathos of art to consider their dynamic or patho-logical interplay.

In this symposium we might wonder: can the relation between art and philosophy still be ruled on the basis of an opposition between rational logos and mimetic pathos? And if a dynamic interplay does indeed exist between the pathos of mimesis and the logos of philosophy, what forms, or perhaps scenes, does this encounter take today? In order to address these and other questions, we invite contributors who made the concept of mimesis understood in its protean manifestations--imitation and representation but also impersonation, identification, performativity, affective contagion, among other masks—a locus of productive encounter between philosophy and the arts, the arts and philosophy.

Speakers

Prof. Esa Kirkkopelto (Professor of theatre, theatre director, philosopher, Univ. Tampere), tba, (On his book Logomimesis, A Treatise on the Performing Body. Routledge 2024)
Prof. Nidesh Lawtoo (Modern and Contemporary European Literature and Culture, Univ. Leiden) (tba, On Nietzsche and Oscar Wilde)
Prof. Susanna Lindberg (Continental philosophy, Univ. Leiden): Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe’s struggle with the opera – From opus metaphysicum to the space of difference
Dr. Martta Heikkilä (Esthetics, Univ. Helsinki): En abyme: Mimesis of Difference
Dr. Aukje van Rooden (Philosophy, Univ. Amsterdam): Jean-Luc Nancy’s Comma: The Relation Between Philosophy and Literature Understood as a Matter of Interpunction
Prof. Anke Haarmann & Flavia Pinheiro (Practice and Theory of Research in the Visual Arts, Univ. Leiden), Anverwandlung' as a Method of Insight: Philosophical and Artistic Reflections on Mimesis as a Research Method.
Prof. Marita Tatari (philosophy or art and cultural theory Univ. of Art and Design Burg Giebichenstein, Halle): The turn of Mimesis
Dr. Frans van Peperstraten (Tilburg School of Humanities), Mimesis in Lacoue-Labarthe. Is the difference to be made?
Dr. Mathijs Peters (LU Center for Arts in Society, Univ. Leiden), Drawing as Thinking – On Mimesis and the Middle Voice

Program

Thursday 20 November

13:15 – 13:30 Susanna Lindberg and Nidesh Lawtoo: Welcome
13:30 – 14:30 Nidesh Lawtoo: Rebels in the Name of Mimesis: Mimetic Studies from Nietzsche to Wilde
14:30 - 15:30 Esa Kirkkopelto: Logic of the corporeal supplement. Or what acting teaches us about deconstruction

Pause

16:00-17:00 Anke Haarmann with Flavia Pinheiro: ‚Anverwandlung' as a Method of Insight:
Philosophical and Artistic Reflections on Mimesis as a Research Method

Friday 21 November

9:30 – 10:30 Marita Tatari: The Turn of Mimesis
10:30 – 11:30 Mathijs Peters: Drawing as Thinking – On Mimesis and the Middle Voice

11:30- 12:30 Lunch

12:30-13:30 Aukje van Rooden: Jean-Luc Nancy’s Comma: The Relation Between Philosophy and Literature Understood as a Matter of Interpunction
13:30 - 14:30 Martta Heikkilä: En abyme: Mimesis of Difference

Pause

15:00 – 16:00 Frans van Peperstraten: Mimesis in Lacoue-Labarthe. Is the difference to be made?
16:00-17:00. Susanna Lindberg: Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe’s Struggle with Opera – from opus metaphysicum to space of difference

The symposium is free of charge, but please register by c.w.sombroek@phil.leidenuniv.nl