Olin Center, Olin Conference. The Writer In The Contemporary World. August 1984

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The John M. Olin Center for Inquiry into the Theory and Practice of Democracy

The Writer In The Contemporary World.

Marlboro, Vermont
August 20-24, 1984

Introduction

The intention is to bring together a small group of distinguished writers, critics and political philosophers for a serious discussion of the relation of the arts to contemporary political regimes. The themes include the responsibility of writers in liberal democracy, totalitarian regimes and Third World nations, the effect of those regimes on the arts, the subjects and forms as well as the audiences characteristic of recent literature, the dangers of politicization and of depoliticization, to what extent the peculiar horrors of twentieth century events have enhanced or diminished the role of the artist, and the relation of the aesthetic and the moral.

Participants from the United States will include Saul Bellow, Czeslaw Milosz, Allan Bloom, Werner Dannhauser, A. K. Ramanujan, and Ruth Prawer Jabvahla. From other parts of the world we have invited Leszek Kolakowski, Andrei Sinyavsky, A.B. Yehoshua, and Allain Besançon. There will also be the fourteen student fellows of the Olin Center.

The five sessions will examine the following themes:

Day 1

Lettre à d'Alembert sur les spectacles

Day 2, Andrei Sinyavsky: Writers in the world of totalitarianism - a discussion not only of persecution and the resistance to persecution, but also of writers' involvement with such regimes and especially of the forms art adopts under them. Does art seek only to preserve itself, or does it try to make changes, and what are the effects upon art of either choice?

Day 3, Saul Bellow and A.B. Yehoshua: The writer in democratic regimes - Is it possible for the writer to be serious - serious as compared to his East European fellows - in soft, easygoing commercial societies? Is he inevitably self-indulgent or does his freedom from killing pressures give him special opportunities for development?

Day 4, Czeslaw Milosz and Ruth Prawer Jabvalha: Political Themes - To what extent are political themes necessary to literature? Has the disappearance of the great political figure as the central actor diminished the scope of literature?

Day 5, Werner Dannhauser and Allain Besançon: The distinction between the Aesthetic and the Moral - Is such a distinction real? Is it, as Nietzsche claims, a sign of decadence? What is the relation of an artist's moral commitment to his art?

Conference Schedule

Monday

2:00 - 4:30pm

Rousseau and the Arts in Modernity

Allan Bloom

Discussant: Leszek Kolakowski

Tuesday

10:00am - 12:30pm

Art in a Totalitarian World

Andrei Sinyavsky

Wednesday

10:00am - 12:30pm

paper from

Saul Bellow

Discussant: A.B. Yehoshua

Thursday

2:00pm - 4:30pm

On Politics and Literature

Czeslaw Milosz

Discussant: Ruth Prawer Jabvahla

Friday

10:00am - 12:30pm

The Aesthetic Versus the Moral

Werner Dannhauser

Discussant: Alain Besançon

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©1999, 2000 The John M. Olin Center for Inquiry into the Theory and Practice of Democracy, University of Chicago
Revised: January 2nd, 2000
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