Conference cycle organized by Gabriella Crocco and Fausto Fraisopi
Inter-disciplines is a seminar proposed by Imera to reflect on the theoretical consequences of interdisciplinary dialogue. Internationally renowned figures who have actively worked at the intersection of two (or three) disciplines will present, in a major conference, an assessment of the theoretical or methodological changes that this interdisciplinary dialogue has prompted, as well as the dynamics it has triggered within each discipline.
The underlying questions of this work are as follows:
How do disciplinary identities change (or have they changed) through interdisciplinary dialogue? What difficulties have been encountered and how have they been resolved (if at all)? What are the key concepts that have made the dialogue possible, and what are the irreparable specificities of each discipline?
The two (or three) disciplines in question can be traditionally “close” (such as mathematics and physics) or relatively distant (such as literature and mathematics). We ask the speakers to present their past achievements in light of the perspective we propose.
The seminar is open to all colleagues from the laboratories and institutes of Aix-Marseille and is offered as doctoral training on ADUM. The major conference of invited colleagues will be prepared, with the participation of doctoral students, master’s students, postdocs, and anyone else who wishes to participate, through the reading and discussion of preparatory texts proposed by the speakers. These texts consist of articles or chapters written by the conference speakers themselves or excerpts from works they consider decisive in their intellectual journey.
The reading workshop, aimed at preparing the major conference in advance with doctoral students and master’s students, will be led by Gabriella Crocco and Fausto Fraisopi, possibly in collaboration with specifically requested AMU colleagues based on the topics addressed.
September 21-22, 2022
Giuseppe Longo
(Professor Emeritus, ENS Paris)
September 22, 2022, at Iméra, 4-6 PM
Relevant disciplines: Computer Science, Mathematics, Biology, Philosophy, Cognitive Science
Abstract
Mathematics is abstract, symbolic, rigorous… Formalist philosophies have reduced these three different and challenging notions to a single one: the formal. Mathematics would then be a calculation on meaningless signs. This reduction has had remarkable consequences. On the one hand, the abstraction and rigor of formalism have allowed the invention of a logical computing machine (the Turing machine), which has contributed to revolutionizing the world. On the other hand, the superimposition of mathematical intelligibility onto mechanization has contributed to a scientistic view of the world devoid of meaning and even rigor. It has notably shaped a mechanistic view of life, which contributes to the disruption of the ecosystem and the deviations of dominant molecular biology with false or vague principles and heavy consequences. At the intersection of mathematics, logic, computer science, and biology, this conference will present a conception of mathematics that seeks to reaffirm the importance of meaning in its practice.
Biography
Mathematician Giuseppe Longo has devoted a significant part of his work to studying the relationships between mathematics, computer science, physics, and the development of theoretical concepts applicable to biology. He has supervised 22 theses in computer science, logic, and at the interface between physics and biology. More recently, through numerous collaborations, Longo has compared physical randomness (dynamics and quantum) to algorithmic randomness, enriched and applied the theory of criticality, and modeled biological rhythms and protensive time in two-dimensional varieties. The analysis of non-computability in logic and physics has made it possible to discuss unpredictability in biology as well as the theoretical structure of evolution. His current project develops an epistemology, historically documented, exploring new interfaces between disciplines and seeking alternatives to the new alliance between computational formalism and the governance of humans and nature through algorithms and allegedly objective “optimality” methods.
Reading workshop, facilitated by Gabriella Crocco, Head of the interdisciplinary explorations program at IMéRA, and Fausto Fraisopi, Senior Fellow at Iméra.
The workshop will take place on September 21 from 3 PM to 6 PM.
The texts proposed for reading are as follows:
- G. Longo. “Des hommes et des machines: comment reconnaitre une caricature?” in the Proceedings of the Colloquium “Le travail au XXIème siècle: Droit, techniques, écoumène” (Work in the 21st Century: Law, Techniques, Ecoumène), Collège de France, Paris, February 26-27, 2019: (ReconnaitreCaricature.pdf)
- G. Longo. “Corrélations artificielles vs intelligence des causes” (Artificial Correlations vs. Intelligence of Causes) in the White Paper Volume 2 “Contribution of Digital Tools to the Transformation of Health Organizations,” Commission on Social Affairs, National Assembly, Paris, 2019: (CorrelCauses.pdf)
- G. Longo. “Letter to Alan Turing” (Letter to Alan Turing), invited contribution in Theory, Culture and Society, Posthumanities Special Issue, 2018: (Letter-to-Turing.pdf) (French version, extensively revised in collaboration with Jean Lassègue for Intellectica, 2020: Longo-Lassegue-Turing.pdf; original in Italian: Lettera
9- 10 November 2022
Pier Luigi Gentili: Professor of Physical Chemistry, Complex Systems, University of Perugia
Department of Chemistry, Biology, and Biotechnology, Università degli Studi di Perugia, Perugia, Italy. Email: pierluigi.gentili@unipg.it
INTERDISCIPLINARY INVESTIGATION INTO COMPLEX SYSTEMS
Résumé
After more than two thousand years of philosophical inquiry and three hundred years of the rigorous and systematic use of the experiments, the knowledge of the natural laws has significantly grown, as proved by the astonishing technological achievements. Nevertheless, we still experience substantial limitations in our attempts to exhaustively describe systems such as the climate, the living beings, the human brain, the human immune system, the ecosystems on earth. These are examples of Complex Systems. Seemingly, they are pretty diverse. They are traditionally investigated by well-distinct disciplines. In the last forty years or so, an interdisciplinary investigation focused on Complex Systems has begun. New scientific knowledge is emerging, which can be named Complexity Science. Such new science is pointing out the features shared by Complex Systems, i.e., their ontology. But, at the same time, it is analyzing them from an epistemological point of view because it is trying to determine and overcome at least some of the hurdles that impede the description and prediction of the Complex Systems’ behaviour.
A more in-depth analysis of Complex Systems is undoubtedly required to give new hints and tools to humanity urged to tackle global challenges.
References
1. Gentili, P. L. “Untangling Complex Systems: A Grand Challenge for Science”, CRC Press,
Taylor & Francis Group, Boca Raton (FL, USA), 2018.
2. Krakauer, D. C., ed. “Worlds Hidden in Plain Sight: The Evolving Idea of Complexity at the
Santa Fe Institute”, 1984-2019. Santa Fe, NM: SFI Press, 2019.
3. Gentili, P.L. “Why is Complexity Science valuable for reaching the goals of the UN 2030
Agenda?.” Rend. Fis. Acc. Lincei 32, 117–134 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12210-020-
00972-0
Biosketch
Pier Luigi Gentili is a Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Perugia (Italy). He
received his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Perugia in 2004. His research and teaching activities are focused on Complex Systems. He is the author of the book titled “Untangling Complex Systems: A Grand Challenge for Science” (CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 2018), an interdisciplinary investigation into Complex Systems. He trusts in the Natural Computing research line to face Complexity from an ontological and epistemological point of view. Being aware that inanimate matter is driven by force fields, whereas the interactions between biological systems are also information-based, Gentili is driven by questions like the following ones. “When does a chemical system become intelligent?” Is it possible to develop a “Chemical Artificial Intelligence?” For the development of Chemical Artificial Intelligence, Pier Luigi Gentili is tracing a new path in Neuromorphic Engineering by using non-linear chemical systems and encoding information mainly through UV-visible signals. Furthermore, he proposes methods to process Fuzzy logic by molecular, supramolecular, and systems chemistry. He is the editor of the book titled “The Fuzziness in Molecular, Supramolecular, and Systems Chemistry” published by MDPI in 2020.
He has several collaborations and work experience in many laboratories: for instance, the “Photochemistry and Photophysics Group” of the University of Perugia (Italy); the “Nonlinear Dynamics Group” of the Brandeis University (USA); the “European Laboratory of Nonlinear Spectroscopy” in Florence (Italy); the “Center for Photochemical Sciences” of the Bowling Green State University (USA); the “Laboratory of Computational Chemistry and Photochemistry” of University of Siena (Italy). He has been Visiting Professor at the University College of London (UK) twice (in 2013 and 2014) and at the Université Paul Sabatier-Toulouse III (France) five times (from 2015 to 2019) through Erasmus Teaching Programs. He has promoted an Erasmus agreement with the Bielefeld University (Germany).
More Information
• Website: http://www.dcbb.unipg.it/pierluigi
• YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHqn3EsuAKBA3vVT3Z5XSOA
• Twitter: @Pier_Complexity
• ResearcherID: F-3958-2012
• ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1092-9190
• Scopus Author ID: 7006236658
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pierluigi.gentili.984
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pier-luigi-gentili-51385737/
January 25th and 26th, 2023
Holder of the Chair of the University Agency of the Francophonie (AUF), Nancy Rose Hunt will be the keynote speaker at the 3rd meeting of the Inter-disciplines cycle.
Doctoral College Training
Wednesday, January 25th, 3pm-6pm
📍 Iméra, Maison neuve, 1st floor
Priority Audience: PhD students, Master’s students, Researchers-Teachers
Objectives
How to write the history of the Congo, from the spectacular colonial violence to decolonization? The objective of this training is to present the concepts and methods that Rose Hunt’s historical and anthropological work has developed, in constant dialogue with major figures of French epistemology and anthropology (Frantz Fanon, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem, and Michel Foucault). In contemporary and neoliberal Africa, new forms of psycho-humanitarianism have emerged alongside war, rape, and genocide. Global mental health logics tend to overlook vernacular and subjective forms of “madness.” People who wander boldly in the streets of African cities – “the mad” – require a new ethnographic approach that takes psychiatry into account while keeping it distant and minor, so that everyday lines of thought, action, and derision – sometimes with daydreams – are not stifled or lost.
Possible prerequisites
Reading Nancy Hunt’s articles:
- “Espace, temporalité, et reverie: Écrire l’histoire des futurs au Congo belge” (Space, Temporality, and Reverie: Writing the History of the Future in Belgian Congo), in the special issue “Politiques de la nostalgie” (Politics of Nostalgia), eds. Guillaume Lachenal and Assitou Mbodj, Politique Africaine, no. 135 (October 2014): 115-36. (https://www.cairn.info/revue-politique-africaine-2014-3-page-115.htm)
- “Afterlives: A Trajectory and the Curatorial Turn,” the Afterlives Thematic Thread in Allegra Lab: Anthropology for Radical Optimism, May 26, 2020: https://allegralaboratory.net/afterlives-a-trajectory-and-the-curatorial…
Bibliography:
- “Interview with Nancy Rose Hunt” on “Affect, Embodiment and Sense Perception,” a Cultural Anthropology curated collection of interviews with authors (Hunt, Thomas Csordas, Joseph Alter, Lochlann Jain, and Eva Hayward), http://production.culanth.org/curated_collections/16-affect-embodiment-a…, launched on March 15, 2013.
- “An Acoustic Register, Tenacious Images, and Congolese Scenes of Rape and Ruination,” in “Scarred Landscapes and Imperial Debris” Special Issue, edited by Ann Laura Stoler, Cultural Anthropology 23 (2008): 220-53.
Team or Speaker
Nancy Rose Hunt, Professor of History, University of Florida, and Emeritus Professor of History, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor – Holder of the AUF Iméra Chair.
In collaboration with:
Sinzo Aanza, Congolese writer, playwright, and visual artist, author of “Généalogie d’une banalité” (2015), “Projet d’attentat contre l’image ?” (2017), and “Plaidoirie pour vendre le Congo” (2020), among others.
Aude Franklin, ATER at CEMS (Center for the Study of Social Movements), anthropologist of violence and situations of exile.
Gabriella Crocco, Philosopher, Professor at AMU, Director of the Iméra Program for Interdisciplinary Explorations.
Why Madness? Towards New Histories of Africans, Racism, Suffering, and “Vivacity”
Keynote lecture by Nancy Rose Hunt
Thursday, January 26th, 4pm-6pm
📍 Iméra, Maison des Astronomes
“On Thursday, January 26th, I will speak about the vast theme of madness – not mental illness, but madness in the stories of race, Africa, and Africans. I will present the concepts I have used to introduce several new African stories of madness (Psychiatric Contours, forthcoming in 2023). The psychiatric issues in A nervous states (Hunt 2016) will also be discussed. Such concepts and issues find their way into how I teach the history of race and madness in North America, across the panorama of the 16th century and with many archival sources mined and exploited by students. Frantz Fanon is there among other figures, opening intimate and insurgent angles over a long duration suggesting the emergence of categories germane to psychiatry, labor, and care. That I ask students to select sources might be surprising. Yet historical meaning always has individual dimensions, and I do not want to dictate how disturbance, trauma, and subjection might resonate subjectively. In contemporary and neoliberal Africa, new forms of psycho-humanitarianism have emerged alongside war, rape, and genocide. Global mental health logics tend to overlook vernacular and subjective forms of madness. People who wander boldly in the streets of African cities – ‘the mad’ – represent and enable ‘vivacity.’ And vivacity, a Foucauldian word, is part of my ethnographic approach, an approach that takes psychiatry into account while keeping it distant and minor, so that everyday lines of thought, action, and derision – sometimes with daydreams and afterlives – are not stifled or lost.” – Nancy Rose Hunt.
Bibliography
- “Afterlives: A Trajectory and the Curatorial Turn,” the Afterlives Thematic Thread in Allegra Lab: Anthropology for Radical Optimism, May 26, 2020: https://allegralaboratory.net/afterlives-a-trajectory-and-the-curatorial-turn/
- “Espace, temporalité, et reverie: Écrire l’histoire des futurs au Congo belge” (Space, Temporality, and Reverie: Writing the History of the Future in Belgian Congo), in the special issue “Politiques de la nostalgie” (Politics of Nostalgia), eds. Guillaume Lachenal and Assitou Mbodj, Politique Africaine, no. 135 (October 2014): 115-36.
- “Interview with Nancy Rose Hunt” on “Affect, Embodiment and Sense Perception,” a Cultural Anthropology curated collection of interviews with authors (Hunt, Thomas Csordas, Joseph Alter, Lochlann Jain, and Eva Hayward),
http://production.culanth.org/curated_collections/16-affect-embodiment-and-sense-perception, launched on March 15, 2013.
- “An Acoustic Register, Tenacious Images, and Congolese Scenes of Rape and Ruination,” in “Scarred Landscapes and Imperial Debris” Special Issue, edited by Ann Laura Stoler, Cultural Anthropology 23 (2008): 220-53.
Shankar Raman – How to Write the Relations between Mathematics and Literature in Their History?
The holder of the FIAS 2022-23 fellowship, Shankar Raman, will be the keynote speaker at the 4th conference of the Inter-disciplines cycle.
Objective
The aim of this training is to present the concepts and methods that Shankar Raman has developed to uncover the role of these unlikely allies (mathematics and literature) in shaping the mindset of modernity and to reveal a kinship that the humanities and exact sciences could renew in a productive way today.
Tuesday, May 16th, from 3pm to 6pm – Doctoral Training: Mathematical Constructions and Poetic Construction in the Early Modern Period: Descartes and Philip Sidney
Address: Iméra, Maison des Astronomes, 2 place Le Verrier, 13004 Marseille
Target audience: PhD students, Master’s students, Researchers-Teachers
- This doctoral conference will explore the close links between the first science of forms, geometry, and the first art of forms, poetry, in early modern Europe.
- The author seeks to identify correlations in the 16th century that testify to a broad and shared cultural reaction to an inherited Greek tradition in which the relationship between “matter” and “manner” played a fundamental role.
- The author will present René Descartes and Sidney as two key figures whose contributions, respectively, to the theory and practice of mathematics and poetry, vividly reveal the nature of this reaction and its implications for the subject of early modernity and the world they sought to create.
Thursday, May 17th, from 4pm to 6pm: Shankar Raman’s Public Keynote Lecture: “Specifying the Unknown Thing in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice”
Address: Iméra, Maison des Astronomes, 2 place Le Verrier, 13004 Marseille
Open to the public
- This public lecture will focus on Shakespeare’s play “The Merchant of Venice.”
- Shankar Raman will explore how algebra can help understand the stakes of this play.
- He will also present his research on the relationship between literature and mathematics in early modern Europe.
Keynote Speaker
Shankar Raman is a Professor of Literature. His research focuses on the literature and culture of the late Middle Ages and the early modern period. He received his Ph.D. in English Literature (with a minor in German) from Stanford University in 1995, changing fields and careers after obtaining a Master’s degree (U.C. Berkeley) and a Bachelor’s degree (MIT) in electrical engineering.
His first book, “Framing ‘India’: The Colonial Imaginary in Early Modern Culture” (Stanford 2002), examines the relationship between colonialism and literature in 16th and 17th-century Europe. He compares Portuguese, English, and Dutch colonial activities to examine the role of India as a figure through which these various European powers imagine and define themselves. A second book, “Renaissance Literature and Postcolonial Studies,” was recently published by Edinburgh University Press (2011). He is also the co-editor, with Lowell Gallagher, of “Knowing Shakespeare: Senses, Embodiment, Cognition” (Palgrave Macmillan 2010). He is currently working on a monograph on the relationship between literature and mathematics in early modern Europe, titled “Before the Two Cultures.” From 2005 to 2010, he participated in the project “Making Publics: Media, Markets and Associations in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1700 [MaPs],” a major interdisciplinary research initiative funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (CRSH) of Canada. Professor Raman held a F
IAS fellowship at IMéRA, Aix-Marseille University, in the fall of 2022 and is currently at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Strasbourg.
In collaboration with
- Gabriella Crocco, Epistemologist, AMU, Director of the Iméra Program for Interdisciplinary Explorations
- Fausto Fraisopi, Philosopher, University of Freiburg, Multiannual Fellow at Iméra
- Philippe Abgrall, Historian of Mathematics, CNRS AMU
- Marie Anglade, Historian of Mathematics, AMU
- Jean Yves Briend, Mathematician, AMU
- Mathieu Brunet, Literary Historian, AMU