Ethics and Aesthetics of Encountering the Other: New Frameworks for Living with Difference

This research network is set in the context in which the “first reflex” of mistrust of the Other is gaining increasing currency as a legitimate way of being in the world. Yet, the inclination to guard against difference is in sharp contrast to what linguists, philosophers and artists have invariably identified as key to living with difference: a “disturbing encounter” (Morrison, 2017), which disrupts one’s certitude about Self and opens a gateway into an open and active relationship with the Other (Lloyd, 2012). This network brings an interdisciplinary effort into conversation with the aim to generate new theoretical and practical frameworks for researching and living in civil society. It is built around two shared theoretical and methodological commitments: an ethical stance towards recognising and preserving difference and an aesthetic engagement with the particularity of lived life. It proposes three seminars to examine the contribution of aesthetic experience to knowledge and to growing human capacity to receive the Other (Biesta, 2015). The network seeks to make connections between linguistic, oral, visual and performative modes of inquiry and cultural expression that are typically isolated from one another in research.

Project website https://ether.leeds.ac.uk/