Liturgy-Icon-Idol-Number: A Byzantine passage from Art to Arithmetic

<strong>Centre of German Studies School of Language, Literature &amp; Culture Studies</strong> <strong>JNU Philosophy Colloquium</strong> a lecture by <strong>Soumyabrata Choudhury</strong> School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU, New Delhi on <strong>Liturgy-Icon-Idol-Number: A Byzantine passage from Art to Arithmetic</strong> Based on Marie-Jose Mondzain's path breaking work on a Byzantine controversy on iconophilia, iconoclasm and idolatry from the 8th Century A. D, the paper will argue that while the two features of an icon, countability and repeatability, correspond to the idea of number, it is the function of the void that makes the encounter between icon and number really interesting. The paper will compare and differentiate the Pauline notion of kenosis (emptying out) and Frege's concept of number with specific reference to the zero. The investigation will extend to the set-theoretic role of the empty set in defining number. Given these attempts, the paper will examine some aesthetic and political consequences in our times around representation and the anxiety around being counted-as-one, i.e., around identity. The argument will be oriented to displacing this anxiety towards intensity more difficult to name around the emergence of a subject woven from a void-material. Chair : <strong>Saitya Brata Das </strong> Centre for English Studies, JNU, New Delhi Date :<strong> 4th February 2014</strong>