Gray on Gray: Dr. Jure Simoniti and Dr. Slavoj Žižek

Series of lectures by great philosophical figures

Cankarjev dom Literature and Humanities Gray on Gray: Dr. Jure Simoniti and Dr. Slavoj Žižek

On the series’ third evening the philosopher Dr. Jure Simoniti will readdress the themes of universality and the singularity. He will seek to outline history’s arch of the construction of the space of universality from Plato to current thinkers, showing that universality is not a direct effect of the stable meaning of the universalities, but, on the contrary, its logical space is extended when the seemingly fixed universalities acknowledge the contingent blemish of their particular genesis.
Dr. Slavoj Žižek will dedicate his paper to Hegel, critically addressing the thesis of the famous Hegelian Robert Pippin from his latest book Culmination, in which this long-standing critic of Heidegger’s reconsiders him and introduces the notion of Dasein as a human community – attributing to it a more fundamental dimension of an engaged being-in-the-world that supposedly escaped Hegel's absolute idealism.
dr. Jela Krečič

It has been three decades since Alen Ožbolt took over designing the Problemi magazine and the Analecta book collection. 34 years and about 280 headlines – an imposing output and one virtually unparalleled in the publishing industry. Thirty years of book covers, designs all sharing the same starting point, but each and every one singularly unique, and nearly all alluding to the content with great subtlety. The inspiration behind the design concept was the famous quote from Hegel: “When philosophy paints its gray on gray then has a form of life grown old, and with gray on gray it cannot be rejuvenated but only known.”

The design concept is thus in sync with the concept underpinning the theory that evolved in the hundreds of volumes published in the Analecta collection and in the Problemi journal, a theory that has gained worldwide renown over the recent decades. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that the Silver Windows book cover exhibition is accompanied by events that will reflect in various ways on the underlying premises and scope of this theory, grounding their reflections in gray on gray. Organised on the initiative of Dr. Jela Krečič, the series of lectures will accompany Silver Windows, an exhibition dedicated to the Problemi magazine covers designed by Alen Ožbolt on view in Cankarjev dom’s Foyer I.