Body: Hypnos, death and resurrection
A conversation in the context of the Hypnos Project
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Entrance to all the events in the “Talks and Thoughts” Cycle is free and on a first come, first served basis.
The distribution of entrance tickets begins one (1) hour before each event.
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Simultaneous translation is provided in the case of speakers using a language other than Greek.
Introduction
How do we understand the body in time, and how do we experience its decay and end?
As it has been observed from early on and repeatedly thematized by the arts, sleep is a death rehearsal, dream rehearses dealing with the metaphysical, and awakening is the everyday allegory of resurrection.
Titled ‘Body: Hypnos, Death and Resurrection’, this discussion is part of the talks cycle on the Body, as well as of Hypnos Project. It focuses on current conditions of political, religious, technological, and biotechnological governmentality of life and death.
Our aim is to bring together two of the most contemporary arguments on this issue. On the one hand, there is the sociological and theoretical approach to biopolitics and thanatopolitics; that is, how contemporary power protects and organizes the lives of some, while governing the death of others. On the other hand, there is biotechnology’s discussion about ‘creating life’. These strands of thought will be tied together with the broader topic of belief in life after death, of memorializing the dead, mourning, the image of ghosts, as well as of the way memory (of the dead) is linked to the recording of history and to the arts.
On stage at the Onassis Stegi, speakers will have different starting points, from sociology and the arts to research on the humanities and natural sciences. As always, audience participation is crucial to the discussion.
Photo: Pavlos Fysakis
The body has never ceased to be a point of attention, at the core of human existence, communication, artistic expression, philosophical thinking, scientific explorations, and pedagogical practice. It has been an area of control and a goal of self-determination, a nexus of limits and a means of transgressing them, under the constant peril of decay, though always able to develop new potential. In a multicultural world with a multitude of perspectives and means of communication, where everything is changing at great speed, the body is the one thing that seems to remain stable and unchanging. But is this really the case? In recent years a dynamic interdisciplinary discourse on the body has emerged internationally. It shows how our relation to the body has also changed, and that the questions continuously posed demand new concepts, approaches and ideas.
