Call for Proposals
EVENT and its Mediation. Philosophical, Philological, Religious Studies, Literary and Cultural Theoretical Perspectives

International Conference
Website: https://eventandmediation.uni-miskolc.hu/EN
Dates: 1–4 September, 2025.

Conference Venues: Palace of Music (University of Miskolc)
Address: Bartók Béla Square 1, 3530 Miskolc, Hungary

Headquarters of the Miskolc Academic Committee
Address: Erzsébet Square 3, 3530 Miskolc, Hungary

Keynote Speaker:
Claude Romano (Université Paris-Sorbonne / Australian Catholic University)

Plenary Speakers:

Gaetano Chiurazzi (University of Turin / Collège International de Philosophie, Paris)
Gert-Jan van der Heiden (Radboud University Nijmegen)
François Raffoul (Louisiana State University)
Daniela Vallega-Neu (University of Oregon)

Organizing Committee:

Chair:
Miklós Nyírő (University of Miskolc)

Members:
Gaetano Chiurazzi (University of Turin; Collège International de Philosophie, Paris)
Csongor Lőrincz (Humboldt University, Berlin)
Zsuzsanna Lurcza (University of Miskolc)
Péter Makai (University of Miskolc)
Miklós Márton (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest)
Daniel Neumann (University of Paderborn)
Wojciech Sowa (Jagiellonian University, Krakow)
Tamás Ullmann (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest)
Miklós Koppány Vassányi (Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary, Budapest)

Managerial Support:
Katalin Nagy (University of Miskolc)

Topic Description

The conference focuses on the aspects and significance of the concept of “event” and the various ways in which events are mediated, covering a vast field of phenomena and the pertaining disciplines. For a detailed topic description, please visit the conference website: https://eventandmediation.uni-miskolc.hu/EN

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

Continental event-philosophy
– Reconstructions of and critical engagements with past continental approaches to the concept of event (Bergson, Whitehead, Heidegger, Gadamer, Blanchot, Badiou, Merleau-Ponty, Deleuze, Derrida, Marion, Nancy, Richir, Malabou, Romano, Tengelyi, etc.).
– Contributions to a conceptual history / typology of the different event concepts.
– Analysis of the metaphysical, ontological, phenomenological, and socio-critical dimensions of the event.
– The phenomenality, temporality, and the space-binding aspects of the event.
– The subjective aspect of the experience of the event (linking the concept of event with the subjective processes of genetic phenomenology, the problems of language, the unconscious, and the existential).
– Study of various instances of “medial agency” (as a full-fleged agent being sub-jected to events) and “medial dispositions”.
– Consequences of event-philosophies for our understanding of the modes of human responsibility, personhood, and moral identity.

Analytic event-philosophy
– Reconstructions of and critical engagements with past analytic approaches to the concept of event (Davidson, Quine, Kim, etc.).
– The basic metaphysical structure of events (concrete particulars, abstract entities, hybrid nature, ontologically simple); the metaphysical constituents of events; the role of participants, time, and properties in defining an event.
– The individuating criteria of events (over time, across different contexts, different possible worlds); the role causation and spatiotemporal regions, respectively, play in individuating events; issues of negative causes and negative events; issues of overlapping or nested events.
– How do events fit into broader ontological categories, or do they constitute a sui generis one; are events fundamentally different from objects, states of affairs, or facts; do all events involve changes of some sort, or there are static events?
– Related topics from other analytic fields: action-theory (e. g., human actions as events, different from mere happenings and bodily movements); philosophy of mind (e. g., distinct mental events’ relation to physical events in the outer world and in the brain); philosophy of language (e. g., the role of linguistic elements – verbs, tenses, adverbs, etc. – in event semantics, and the way they alter the conceptualization of events).

Philology
– Philologically demonstrable instances that support the hypothesis of the “medial” nature of the ancient worldview, or its decline.
– The semantics of middle voice, and the ways humans perceived it in cognitive terms.
– The Greek perception in grammatical literature (so in ancient science) affecting the Latin and medieval thought.
– Aspects of change of the verbal systems over the ages of the language and cultural developments.
– The relation of middle voice to the passive in different languages.
– Comparison of the middle voice and the so-called ergative structure (in Basque, Georgian, Mayan, Tibetan, etc.)

Religious Studies
– What is an “event” in religion; what are the foundational events of a religion and why?
– How, by what events, is the history of God interconnected with the history of the world?
– What is the (transcendental) significance of ritual events?
– What are the tokens of a mystical event in the several religions of mankind?
– The relation between “medial disposition” and religiosity: is there a sense in which a religious believer is neither active nor passive in a religious event; is the acceptance of the operation of divine grace a “medial” event; is the religious experience of mystics a medial experience?
– Traces of the “medial worldview” in diverse aspects of Christian medieval, and any other cultures.
– The religious significance of the Greek middle voice (mesotes) in the Bible.

Medial philosophy of culture and technology
– The cultural transition from homo ludens to homo laborans and its implications on cultural identity, alienation, and reification.
– Study of the concept of play and its role in the formation of culture (Huizinga, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Fink, Gadamer, Derrida, Winnicott, Dewey, etc.).
– Play in the contemporary digital world: risks and opportunities.
– The “medial” role of tools and techniques in the formation of the cultural environment.
– The symbolic character of technical objects: the origin of symbolization, technique and the process of hominisation (Leroi-Gourhan, Stiegler, Simondon, etc.), meaning and loss of meaning in the technological world.

Literary and Cultural Theory
– Medial cultural techniques that make visible, even generate events through a – symbolic or analogue, more recently digital – recording (cf. Kittler) or through representation.
– Mediality creating the event, and the event “using” mediality, displacing its conventional or pre-coded forms of being.
– Language as a performative medium or a medium for performativity.
– The limits of language arrived at in or from the event, and the finitude of event manifested from language.
– Biopoetics of the event as manifested in literary texts.
– Natural history (Naturgeschichte) as a category of event in literature.
– The linguistic event between singularity and iterability, performativity and virtual embodiment.
– The corporeal, embodiment modes of the event with anthropological implications (Agamben, etc.).
– The event inscribed in public structures (because of its mediality) and its latency.

Abstracts/Proposals

The organizing committee invites proposals for papers (lasting no longer than 20 minutes), thematic panels, and book panels addressing the conference themes outlined above. Scholars are only allowed to present one paper in the conference. An exception may be made if a scholar is also providing commentary at a book panel. PhD students, postdoctoral fellows, and independent scholars are also invited to submit proposals. The working language of the conference will be English. The conference will be a four-day, in-person event.

Interested speakers should submit a 400-500 word Abstract and a max. 150 word Biographical Note. On the Abstract, please indicate the preferred area of expertise for abstract evaluation (Continental Philosophy / Analytic Philosophy / Philology / Religious Studies / Literary and Cultural Studies).

Submit your Abstract and Biographical Note to eventandmediation2025abstract@uni-miskolc.hu

Deadline for submission: 31 March, 2025.

A confirmation will be sent to your email address within two days. If you do not receive it within two days after completing the submission, first please check your spam folder, and contact the organizing committee (at eventandmediation2025@uni-miskolc.hu ) only if you do not find the confirmation.

Selected submissions will be confirmed by 15 April, 2025.

Conference proceedings
The conference proceedings comprising of selected papers will be published as an open access electronic publication.
Deadline for submission of written articles: 30 September, 2025.

Registration
Registration fee for lecturers: 65 Euro (early bird: by 30 June, 2025);
85 Euro (full fee, by 31 July, 2025).
PhD students, postdoctoral fellows, and independent scholars must also register, but their registration is free.
Registration opens 15 April, 2025.
Registration is online, through the registration page on the conference website (https://eventandmediation.uni-miskolc.hu/EN). Payment will be possible through online credit card payment.
Proposals whose authors do not register by 31 July 2025, will be removed from the program.

Accommodation

For conference participants, affordable accommodations are available in a limited number at the Uni Miskolc – Bolyai Dormitory located on the University of Miskolc campus (15 min. from the conference venues in the city centre by bus). Prices – for two persons sharing a room: appr. 17 Euro/person/night; for one person in a room: appr. 30 Euro/person/night (https://www.uni-miskolc.hu/en/student-life/life-at-the-campus/housing/ ). If interested, please contact Zsuzsanna Lurcza or Péter Makai via the following email: eventandmediation2025@uni-miskolc.hu

For further information on accommodation, please visit the conference website (https://eventandmediation.uni-miskolc.hu/EN ).

Important dates: 31 March, 2025 – Deadline for proposal submissions
15 April, 2025 – Decision on proposals, registration opens
30 June, 2025 – Deadline for early registration (early bird fee)
31 July, 2025 – Deadline for late registration (full fee)
31 August, 2025 – Arrival
1-4 September, 2025 – CONFERENCE
30 September, 2025 – Deadline for submission of written articles

Contact
For further inquiries, please contact Zsuzsanna Lurcza or Péter Makai via the following email: eventandmediation2025@uni-miskolc.hu

Funders
This conference is supported by the Ministry of Culture and Innovation of Hungary from the National Research, Development and Innovation Office. The conference is sponsored by MTA Bicentenary of Hungarian Academy of Sciences.