Call for Papers: The Uses and Abuses of Kierkegaard

In 2013 we will be celebrating the 200th birthday of Søren Kierkegaard at a conference arranged by MPP and the Søren Kierkegaard research centre, from October 14-18, 2013. 

In the history of the reception, Kierkegaard’s thought has been used in the service of a wide range of intellectual programs in a number of fields such as philosophy, theology, religious studies, psychology and political science. In addition, we see today social scientists who, reflecting on and designing professional practices in management, business administration, organizational studies and leadership, refer to Kierkegaard. For example, his emphasis on human freedom, choice and responsibility has led to him being co-opted by the existentialists who hailed him as one of the forerunners of their movement. Similarly, his use of irony, pseudonyms and different literary voices has been seen as an early form of the postmodernist dogmas of the death of the author or the deferment of meaning. Likewise his views about the individual and society have been an inspiration for thinkers with very different views from both ends of the political spectrum. In recent years these various "uses" of Kierkegaard have been called into question as "abuses" by scholars who, trying to restore Kierkegaard to his original context, have pointed out important distortions of his thinking that have been made by those wishing to appropriate him for their own set purposes. Yet the study of Kierkegaard cannot be limited to a chapter in the history of thought. How then can Kierkegaard inspire new thinking in contemporary fields; what are the truly fruitful uses of his thought? This conference will This conference will attempt to answer these questions by examining different "abuses" of Kierkegaard’s thought in the different areas mentioned above..

Proposals should be sent in the form of a brief one-page abstract and a one-page cv to Camilla Sløk [cs.lpf@cbs.dk] or Jon Stewart [js@sk.ku.dk]. The deadline for submissions is

October 1, 2012.

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