EXPERIMENTS IN IMAGINATIVE KNOWING: September 21–22 at the Institute of Cultural Research

What does literature know, and how does it know it? This lecture series explores literary practices as a distinctive form of experimentation – a mode of deliberate imagining that pushes the “what if” beyond the limits of ordinary experience and factual description. Rather than treating literature as a mere illustration of ideas developed elsewhere, we ask how literary texts actively generate, test, and transform knowledge: experimenting with form, with time and causality, with imaginary scenarios in ways that expand our cognitive capacities and modes of meaning making.

Bringing together scholars from literary studies and philosophy, the series investigates the epistemological stakes of what we might call the experimental mind – and the distinctive ways in which it helps us navigate a world marked by deep uncertainty.

The workshop is funded by the Estonian Research Council (PRG3235, Experimental Cultures of the 1990s-2020s: Narratives, Models, and Epistemic Objects).

Organizers: Jaak Tomberg, Indrek Ojam, Juhan Hellerma, Marina Grishakova.

Students may receive 1 EAP for the attendance of the lectures, participation in the round table, and a separate discussion on the seminar topics. Please register via this form to let us know you’ll be joining us.

HERE you'll find the abstracts and bionotes.

PROGRAMME

All lectures take place at Ülikooli 16-216

Coffee breaks take place at Ülikooli 16-103

Monday 21.09

13.45-14.15 Welcome and introduction of the project (prof. Marina Grishakova and the research group)

14.15-15.30 Prof. Benjamin Gittel (Trier Center for Digital Humanities). Knowledge from Literature and Hermeneutical Scenarios

15.30-16.00 coffee break

16.00-17.15 Prof. Mads Rosendahl Thomsen (Aarhus University). What Literature Knows: Paradox, Validation and the Challenge of AI

17.15-17.30 coffee break

17.30-18.45 Prof. Catherine Z. Elgin (Harvard University). Imaginative Inquiry (Online)

Tuesday 22.09

10.00-11.15 Prof. Karin Krauthausen (Humboldt-Universität). A Different Kind of Fieldwork: Hubert Fichte's Literary Botany in Explosion. Roman der Ethnologie

11.15-11.45 coffee break

11.45-13.00 Dr. Alexander Waszynski (University of Greifswald). Approaches to Biofactual Poetry

13.00 – 14.00 break

14.00-15.15 roundtable (moderated by Assoc. Prof. Jaak Tomberg)