CFP: "Imagination in the Human Sciences," Human Science Research Conference 2008, Ramapo College of New Jersey, June 11-14, 2008.

The International Human Science Research Association is the premier venue for scholars seeking to establish a rigorous paradigm for conducting empirical qualitative research in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Moreover, HSR is also a research community that includes many human service professions - especially psychotherapists, nurses, teachers and business researchers. While HSR encourages dialogue between qualitative and quantitative methods, its main focus is the promotion of qualitative methodologies. What distinguishes the Human Science approach to qualitative methodology from that of many other approaches to qualitative methodology is HSR's emphasis on appropriate epistemological foundations for qualitative research. Through coherent philosophical foundations appropriate to its subject matter of human experiences, Human Science researchers avoid defaulting back onto the epistemologies of the physical sciences. Instead, Human Science researchers are perpetually engaged in the articulation of appropriate non-naturalistic conceptual frameworks for conducting empirical research. It is for this reason that Human Science qualitative researchers will often have an expertise in continental phenomenological perspectives that offer alternatives to logical positivism and a sole reliance on materialist metaphysics. To this end, continental thinkers such as Dithey, Weber, Husserl, Heiddeger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Gadamer, Derrida, Ricouer, Foucoult and Amedeo Giorgi, are often applied to theory construction as well as research methodology, interpretation and analysis. This scholarly community has been meeting since the early eighties and has developed into an ongoing international multi-disciplinary research community that convenes annually in Europe and North America. While not exclusive to other topics, the conference theme of "Imagination in the Human Sciences" is profoundly interdisciplinary and inclusive of several disciplines and professions. Imagination is an important and under-researched issue in qualitative research - both as subject matter and methodology - and should serve as a constructive and productive focus for this year's conference. Further information is here: http://phobos.ramapo.edu/~hsr08ram/index.html.