Category : philosophy of art

(Our very own!) CFP: LUC Graduate Conference: “Philosophy, Virtue, and Personhood”

CALL FOR PAPERS

Philosophy, Virtue, and Personhood

A Graduate Student Philosophy Conference at Loyola University Chicago April 11-12, 2014

Submission Deadline: December 15, 2013 Keynote Speakers:

 Gabriel Richardson Lear (University of Chicago) ␣ Hanne Jacobs (Loyola University Chicago)

Ancient to contemporary thinkers have struggled with questions about the transformation of the self and what it means to live well. Are multiple conceptions of the good life compatible with more univocal doctrines of goodness and wellbeing? We want to explore what role, if any, philosophy can play in helping us to constitute ourselves as persons, become better selves, or live better lives. The philosophy department at Loyola University Chicago invites papers from a broad range of philosophical perspectives, operating in both continental and analytic traditions, on topics pertaining to the role of philosophy in shaping the self and in living a good life.

All submissions should be submitted for blind review by December 15, 2013. Full papers (up to 3,000 words), with 100 word abstracts, should be sent to loyolaphilosophy2014@gmail.com in .DOC or .PDF format.


Lecture: Dr. Monica Cyrino, “Magic, Music, Race: Screening “Black Enchantment” After Black Orpheus (1959)” (Classical Studies Dept.)


CFA WMU Bioethics/Medical Humanities Conference, Sept. 26-27

FWD: from AGSP listserv

[To whom it may concern,]

I just wanted to send word along to your department (especially graduate students) regarding a bioethics/medical humanities conference nearby at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. It’s only 2-2.5 hours drive from Chicago. The conference takes place September 26-27, and they’re accepting abstracts through July 15.

The primary focus “will be on emergent technologies in health care and humanities, and how these affect patient care, the patient experience, and the effectiveness of the practice of health care, though proposals in any area of medical humanities are welcome.” I’ve attached the full CFA.

 

Cheers,

Alex B. Neitzke

Department of Philosophy

Michigan State University


Conference: Art, Social Justice, and Critical Theory, Kalamazoo, May 16-18

ART, SOCIAL JUSTICE, AND CRITICAL THEORY

Olmsted Room, Kalamazoo College

May 16th – 18th, 2013

 

Thursday Evening 8:00 PM:

  • Keynote Address: “Active Passivity: On the Aesthetic Variant of Freedom.”  Martin Seel, Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main.
  • Wine Reception: Humphrey House Lounge:

Friday Morning: Theories of Art and Aesthetics: Focus Seel and Zuidervaart:

  • 8:30 – 10:30
    • Paul Guyer, “The Moving Appearance of Truth” (Philosophy, Brown University)
    • Richard Eldridge: “Modernity, Art, and Expressive Freedom” (Philosophy, Swarthmore College)
    • Comments:
      • Martin Seel (Philosophy, Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität)
      • Lambert Zuidervaart (Philosophy, ICS and University of Toronto).

Coffee Break:

  • 11:00 – 1:00
    • Michael Kelly: “Just True Art” (Philosophy, University of North Carolina, Charlotte)
    • Elizabeth Millán: : “Aesthetic Opportunities and the Spanish American Landscape: A Look at Alexander von Humboldt’s Aesthetic of Nature through the Lens of Seel’s Aesthetic of Appearing.”  (Philosophy, DePaul University, Chicago)
    • Comments
      • Martin Seel (Philosophy, Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität)
      • Lambert Zuidervaart (Philosophy, ICS and University of Toronto)

Lunch: 1:00 – 2:00: Banquet Room

Friday Afternoon: The Theory and Practice of Activating Art:

  • 2:00 – 3:45
    • Sandra Shapshay (Philosophy, Indiana University): “”Schopenhauer on the Symbiotic Relationship between Artistic and Philosophical Truth, a Reconstruction and Defense”
    • Veronique Fóti:“Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty” (Philosophy, Pennsylvania State University)
    • Comments:
      • Martin Seel (Philosophy, Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität)
      • Lambert Zuidervaart (Philosophy, ICS and University of Toronto)

Refreshments:

  • 4:15 – 6:00 Panel Discussion: Mural as Public Art: Artist Dialogue:
    • Christine Hahn [Moderator] (Art History, Kalamazoo College)
    • Conor McGrady (Independent Artist, Belfast, Northern Ireland)
    • Dan Wang (Artist, Madison, Wisconsin)
    • Sonia Baez-Hernandez (Artist in Residence, Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, Kalamazoo College)

6:00 – 8:00 Dinner, Stone Room

8:00 – 9:15 Keynote Address: “Theses on Pictures and Films.” Martin Seel, Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main.

Wine Reception: Humphrey House Lounge:

Saturday Morning:

  • 9:00 – 10:30 Panel Discussion: The Aesthetics and Politics of Food:
    • Amelia Katanski (English, Kalamazoo College)
    • Alison Geist (Director, Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Institute for Service-Learning, Kalamazoo College)
    • David Strauss (History, Kalamazoo College)

Coffee Break

  • 11:00 – 12:30 Panel Discussion: Museums and Curatorship:
    • Lambert Zuidervaart [Moderator] (Philosophy, ICS and University of Toronto)
    • Christine Hahn (Art History, Kalamazoo College)
    • Paul Wittenbraker (Art, Grand Valley University)
    • Alexandra Gravely (Art, K’13)
    • Eeva Sharp (Art, K’13)

12:30 – 2:00: Lunch: Stone Room:

Saturday Afternoon:

  • 2:00 – 3:30: Panel Discussion: Performance Art:
    • Adriana Garriga-Lopez (Anthropology/Sociology, Kalamazoo College)
    • Shanna Salinas (English, Kalamazoo College)

Coffee Break:

  • 4:00 – 5:30: Round Table Discussion & Closing Comments:

5:30 Reception, Stone Room

6:30 – 9:00 Dinner, Stone Room

 


CFP: “Exploring Awe and Wonder”

Call for papers

Interdisciplinary conference
Exploring awe and wonder

6-8 September 2013
Institute for Simulation and Training
University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida
Sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation’s
Research Grant: Space, Science and Spirituality
http://www.chdr.cah.ucf.edu/spaceandspirituality/

 

The concepts of awe and wonder occupy an important place in the history of ideas, often associated with the beginnings of philosophy and with religious experience.  In contemporary times, however, they are under-studied and rarely discussed.  It is not clear that such experiences are more rare in our time.  One might argue that given our ability to explore more and more corners of the physical and intellectual universe using technology and advanced science, and our capacity for representing the results of such explorations in art, film and various mass media, we should expect that experiences of awe and wonder are more common.

The interdisciplinary conference, Exploring Awe and Wonder, will bring together researchers in psychology, emotion theory, neuroscience, philosophy, art history, religious studies, and other relevant fields to explore the science and phenomenology of awe and wonder.  Proposals for presentations in these areas are welcome.  A special session on Space, Science and Spirituality is being organized to present current research on the experience of awe and wonder during space flight.

Keynote speakers
Jesse Prinz (Philosophy, CUNY Graduate)
Michelle Shiota (Psychology, Arizona State University)

Invited speakers
Jonathan Cole (Neuroscience, Bournemouth University)
Joerg Trempler (Art History, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität and the Yale Center for British Art)
Jeff Williams (NASA, Astronaut)

Send abstracts and session proposals by June 15, 2013 to

Bruce Janz
Department of Philosophy
Center for Humanities and Digital Research
University of Central Florida

Bruce.Janz@ucf.edu


CFP: Faith, Film and Philosophy conference, “Of Fairy-stories, Fantasy and Myth”

Call for Papers:

“Of Fairy-stories, Fantasy and Myth”

October 11th & 12th, 2013

Gonzaga University’s Faith and Reason Institute and Whitworth
University’s Weyerhaeuser Center for Faith and Learning are pleased to
announce their Seventh Annual Seminar on Faith, Film and Philosophy,
entitled “Of Fairy-stories, Fantasy and Myth.” The past decade has
seen film adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, as
well as three of C.S. Lewis’s “Chronicles of Narnia,” and, most
recently, Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Although the immediate inspiration for
our seminar is the release of the first part of Peter Jackson’s
cinematic treatment of The Hobbit, our interest is neither solely nor
primarily in Jackson’s films. Instead, we wish to explore a variety of
cinematic treatments of myth, fairy-story, and fantasy, and to explore
philosophical and religious questions raised by such films. The Star
Wars saga, the various incarnations of the world of Star Trek, the
imaginative world of Pan’s Labyrinth, the Narnia films, Snow White and
the Huntsman, Prometheus, Wrath of the Titans, How to Train Your
Dragon, Arrietty, Ponyo, Hugo, Shrek, Knowing, The Road, After
Earth….These are but some of the films that fall within the purview of
our seminar. Even apart from the content of these films, the genres
touched upon in our title raise very general questions about art,
reality, meaning, and truth. For example, is film an appropriate art
form for mythopoesis? What is the nature of the reality portrayed in
these films? What truth, if any, can films of this sort explore or
convey?

Possible topics for seminar papers include the following, although
proposals on other topics or questions of relevance are certainly
welcome and encouraged.

•       What constitutes a literary fantasy?
•       What motivates literary fantasies? Is there a psychological payoff?
If so, what is it?
•        What is the underlying neurological basis for fantasy?  Why do we
fantasize in the first place and what evolutionary value might this
have?
•       Gender identity in fantasy and science fiction.
•       Social functions of fantasy literature, including political
functions.
•       Cinematic treatments of sexual fantasies.
•       Revenge fantasies.
•       Heroic figures and our fantasies of being like them. (What do Iron
Man and I have in common?)
•       Fantasies of the end of the world, their characteristics and
functions.
•       Fantasies and reality: since most fantasies are never realized in
actuality, why do we keep having them?
•       What’s the difference between a fantasy, whether literary and filmic
and outright hallucination or delusion?
•       Criticisms of the work of Peter Jackson.
•       Epistemological issues: what can be known by means of a fantasy that
might not be known otherwise?
•       The Life of Pi as fantasy.
•       Fantasy and possible worlds.

We are particularly interested in popular films from the last 20
years, although the program committee will certainly consider
exceptions to the 20-year rule.

Seminar sessions will take place on Friday (October 11th) and Saturday
(October 12th). Public lectures and other events associated with the
seminar will take place in the days leading up to the seminar. One of
the public lectures will be on the evening of October 11th, when one
of our invited speakers will give a keynote address. The invited
speakers include Michael Foley (Baylor University), Richard McClelland
(Gonzaga University), and Katherin Rogers (University of Delaware).
These invited speakers will also participate as resident “experts”
during the seminar discussions.

Proposals not longer than two pages (double-spaced), and in Word
format, should be submitted electronically to Dr. Brian Clayton at
clayton@gem.gonzaga.edu no later than 30 June 2013, and should include
title, author(s), institutional affiliation (if any), mailing address,
email address, and the text of the proposal. The seminar organizers
will send acceptances by 8 July 2013.

The seminar and its associated public events are part of a series of
jointly-sponsored programs focused on “Faith, Reason and Popular
Culture.”  The conviction behind these programs is that if Christian
institutions of higher learning are to respond properly to their
charge to be places where faith seeks understanding, then they must
engage contemporary popular culture. Film is among the most powerful
and important forms of popular culture. Thus, the seminar organizers
seek scholars who will engage in two days of discussion investigating
issues of faith and philosophical import raised by contemporary
popular film. Presenters need not have any formal academic
appointment.

For further information please contact Dr. Brian Clayton, Director,
Gonzaga University Faith and Reason Institute at
clayton@gem.gonzaga.edu.


CFP: Philosophy of Art and Literature Graduate Student Conference

University of New Mexico Philosophy Graduate Student Association Presents:

2013 Annual Graduate Student Conference

Call for Papers

Philosophy of Art and Literature

April 19th and 20th

Albuquerque, NM

Keynote Speaker: Professor John Lysaker (Emory University)

Faculty Speaker: Professor Iain Thomson (UNM)

Continental philosophy is often, and unfairly, dismissed as (bad) literary criticism. While it is true that, thanks to Martin Heidegger, art and literature have played a crucial role in the development of continental thought, the past three decades have witnessed among continental thinkers an increasingly pronounced abandonment of literary and artistic obsessions in favor of an emphasis on the ethical and the political. In the meanwhile, traditionally marginalized artistic forms (film, television, graphic novels) have been granted philosophical importance, and writers traditionally regarded as literary figures (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry James, David Foster Wallace) are being considered part of the American philosophical heritage. What is the status of the aesthetic in the wake of these changes?

We invite papers that consider this question from a variety of perspectives. Some lines of inquiry that might be addressed include:

· What role can the encounter with a work of art or literature continue to play in shaping philosophical reflection?

· What relationship does the production of art and literature bear to the (political) organization of public space?

· Do literary and poetic forms have a home in philosophical discourse? Are there modes of philosophical reflection that require for their expression poetic or literary form?

· What promise remains in the Heideggerian inheritance that has, in many ways, been disregarded?

· Is there an inherent connection between the art work’s resistance (to interpretation, to appropriation) and political resistance?

· What counts as art today, and what is at stake in that decision? Have the answers to this question fundamentally changed?

· How does art shape or reshape the everyday and life as such?

We welcome papers from graduate, and advanced undergraduate, students in any area.

Please submit papers of 3,500 words or less prepared for blind review to:

Pgsa2013@gmail.com

Deadline for submission: January 15, 2013