The following CFP is for a proposed panel on the work of Barbara Cassin, for the 2022 Australasian Society of Continental Philosophy (ASCP) Conference, to be held at the University of Melbourne, Australia, from November 28-30. 

Barbara Cassin: The Sophistic Effect and the Tongues of Philosophy

Barbara Cassin’s work traverses philosophy, philology, politics and translation studies. She is known for directing the Dictionary of Untranslatables (2014) as well as her reading of the ancient sophists, such as in the landmark text L’effet sophistique (1995), “The Sophistic Effect.” For Cassin, sophistics is an effect because it is an artifact of philosophy, philosophy’s other as constructed by philosophy. But sophistics is also an effect insofar as it continues to have an effect on philosophy, obliging philosophy to continually redefine itself as the other of their other. Cassin studies the philosophical gestures comprising this sophistic double effect, casting the sophists — from Gorgias to Jacques Lacan — as models for the critique of ontology, such that the relationship between philosophy and ontology is rethought from the perspective of equivocity and homonymy, in which Being is an effect of saying and the plurality of ways it may be said. Cassin’s work, then, may be characterised by her imperative, both philosophical and political: “We philosophize in words and not in concepts: we have to complicate the universal with languages.” 

This panel is concerned with Barbara Cassin’s work and the questions it raises regarding language, truth and translation in philosophy. Proposals for 30 minute papers are invited, pertaining to the above CFP or any other related aspect of Cassin’s work, including:

• Sophistics, Antiphilosophy and Philosophy
• Cassin’s collaborations and dialogues with Alain Badiou
• Cassin’s polemical critique of Google in Google Me: One Click Democracy (2017).
• Critical perspectives on Cassin’s work

Please direct enquiries and/or submit proposals to Lachlan Wells, at lachlanw1@student.unimelb.edu.au as follows: Title of paper, name and affiliation (if applicable), 200 word abstract. Lachlan will be in contact with those who wish to present re: organisation of the panel. Limited capacity for online presenters, potentially.