"Philosophical Dimensions of Historiographical Discourse," Department of Philosophy, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland, February 19, 2020.

The Department of Philosophy, Adam Mickiewicz University (Poznań , Poland) and the Poznań Chapter of the Polish Philosophical Society invite all for discussion of the book of Chris Lorenz, Bordercrossing: Explorations between Philosophy and History and Historiography. Participants include: Hayden White (University of California in Santa Cruz) Aviezer Tucker (CEVRO Institute, Prague & the Gvirtzman Foundation) Monika Bobako (Adam Mickiewicz University) Krzysztof Brzechczyn (Adam Mickiewicz University) Ewa Domańska (Adam Mickiewicz University) Juliusz Iwanicki (Adam Mickiewicz University) Rafał Wierzchosławski (Catholic University of Lublin) Krzysztof Zamorski (Jagiellonian University, Kraków) and Chris Lorenz (Free University Amsterdam). Discussion will be held in a conference room in Jowita Hotel at Adam Mickiewicz University, Zwierzyniecka Street 7, Poznań on February 19, 2010 (from 10 a .m. to 2 p.m.). Contact: Krzysztof Brzechczyn (brzech@amu.edu.pl).

Pensky, Max. Review of Thomas Wheatland, THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL IN EXILE. NDPR (January 2010).

Wheatland, Thomas. The Frankfurt School in Exile. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2009. Following in the footsteps of earlier compendious intellectual histories of the Frankfurt School by Martin Jay and Rolf Wiggershaus, Thomas Wheatland's The Frankfurt School in Exile offers a thorough intellectual, political and institutional history of the adventures of the Frankfurt Institut fuer Sozialforschuung in the United States. Concentrating on this rich and strange institutional odyssey, and tapping the previously ignored archives of the Department of Sociology in Columbia University, Wheatland presents a far more vivid, nuanced, and strange picture of the Frankfurt Institute's American years. Among the many entrenched myths punctured in this book, the most important one to fall is the received view that the key figures of the Institute and their American, primarily New York, academic hosts were mutually indifferent. Just as significantly, however, Wheatland documents that the cadre of New York intellectuals gathered around the so-called 'little journals' of the nascent anti-Stalinist Left also had far more interest in, and were in far closer contact with, the Institute members than the existing historical literature suggests. These findings in general compel a reappraisal of the Institute's New York exile. And though Wheatland himself touches only very lightly on the political implications of this more intense and complex relationship, his history also, inevitably, raises questions about the developments that set both the New York anti-Stalinist Left, and less conspicuously the 'core' members of the Institute, on the path toward variations of neo-conservatism. The Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School has always been a candidate for an intellectual-historical approach: there is first of all the simple fact of its extraordinarily interesting history, the personal dramas of its eccentric and compelling cast of characters, and of course the extraordinary times in which these men lived and wrote. The intellectual history of the members of the Frankfurt School is indeed the history of twentieth century Europe in microcosm: bourgeois and proletariat, religion and secularism, philosophy and politics, crisis and critique. The intellectual histories of critical theory have surpassed in both number and quality the philosophical analyses. In English or in translation, Jay's classic Dialectical Imagination, and Wiggershaus' The Frankfurt School remain unsurpassed, and untranslated German works by Alex Demirovic and Wolfgang Kraushaar document the political life of the postwar Institute in West Germany in minute detail. But oddly the American years of Critical Theory remain, if not unresearched, then certainly under-researched and susceptible to caricature. Horkheimer and Adorno, comprising the center of the Frankfurt institute, adeptly shifted both personnel and resources to New York, where an uneasy but productive relationship through most of the 1930s produced much of the Frankfurt School's empirical work on authoritarianism and anti-Semitism. Political prudence and justified fears at American anti-communism in the prewar and wartime years led the critical theorists to adopt an attitude of deep reserve with their American hosts, while personally dismayed at the callow mass culture of the United States, the critical theorists nevertheless slogged through their fifteen-year exile in New York and California. Horkheimer and Adorno returned to post-war Germany as the rubble was barely cool, while Marcuse, at Santa Cruz, transformed himself into a Hawaiian-shirted guru of the American New Left. Well, not quite, as Wheatland's historical research shows in a series of linked studies of the myths and half-truths that this received view is based on. This research turns up no smoking guns or shocking disclosures. But it does considerably complicate and expand our understanding of what happened to the Frankfurt School in New York and California, and this expanded understanding will make it difficult for some of the myths of the received view to survive much longer. . . . Read the whole review here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=18727.

Cfp: "Walter Benjamin: Convergences of Aesthetics and Political Theology," Universidade de Chile, October 20-22, 2010.

With his stress on the constellation of art, religion and politics, Walter Benjamin has become a key thinker for the contemporary debate on the role of religion in the public sphere. Benjamin placed philosophy –the practice of criticism- at the service of art, seeking to release a political and theological potential he called “messianic”, far from every theocracy and fundamentalism. Benjamin’s urgent demand for the “politicization of art” as an antidote to the fascist “æsthetizationof politics” is well known. The aim of this international conference is to understand and discuss the bridge between the aforementioned demand and the contemporary attempts, by many thinkers influenced by Benjamin, to “politicize theology”, now understood as an antidote to the fundamentalist theologization of politics. Organizing Institutions: · Universidad de Chile · Instituto de Humanidades, Universidad Diego Portales · Goethe Institut,Santiago de Chile · DAAD, Santiago de Chile Conference Committee: · Vanessa Lemm, Universidad Diego Portales · Horst Nitschack, Universidad de Chile · Pablo Oyarzún, Universidad de Chile · Eduardo Sabrovsky, Universidad Diego Portales · Miguel Vatter, Universidad Diego Portales Confirmed international speakers: · Hauke Brunkhorst, Flensburg Universität, Flensburg, Germany · Gertrud Koch, Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany · Bettina Menke, Universität Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany We welcome proposals for 20-30 minute papers on all topics relevant to the conference theme, including the following: The artwork’s aura and its effacement: Technical reproducibility or alterity of the absolute? The crisis of experience. The concept of “profane illumination”. Language and the sacred. The Angel of History and “dialectics at a standstill”. Allegory and melancholy from the Trauerspiel to Baudelaire. Benjamin and the question of sovereignty. The Benjamin-Scholem dialogue. Kabbalah and Messianism. Benjamin and Political Theology Papers on other relevant topics will also be considered. Early submissions are welcome. Conference languages are Spanish and English. We will work with simultaneous translation during plenary sessions. Please send an abstract of a maximum of 600 words and a short bio to conferenciabenjamin@gmail.com, no later than April 15th 2010. Notification of acceptance will be sent no later than April 30th 2010. For further information, please contact the organizers at conferenciabenjamin@gmail.com.

Cfp: "Gendered Ways of Knowing? Gender, Natural Sciences and Humanities," Trento, Italy, December 1–4, 2010.

The aim of this congress is to push the question about the epistemological function of the category “gender” further, in particular from the perspective of multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary research. Since the rupture epistemologique of the late 18th century science has fabricated tools for sexualizing the objects of the world, while modern anthropology and biology have contributed to the universalization of gender cosmologies and the ontologization of binary gender codes. While gender studies have challenged this binary construction, they have also had a share in the naturalization of gender by using it as an independent variable. In recent years, however, the critique of gender studies has contributed to a self-critical reflection about methodologies and presumptions underlying research activities in different fields (including gender studies themselves), questioning the notion of knowledge itself. The conference is organized into four topic areas of particular interest: 1. Developments: The history and philosophy of sciences Gendering science and disciplining gender; the historicity of both gender and natural and human sciences; historical developments in both areas of research; how we arrived at the methods and categories we take for granted today. 2. Profiles: Research and researchers The issue of gender, knowledge and science(s) with regard to specific disciplines; importance and consequences of ‘objectivity/subjectivity’, need to ‘produce’ and to ‘re-present’ knowledge; methodologies of gender classification and reinforcement of binaries (or not); reflections on the “ideal researcher” and gender aspects in his/her construction; presentation of particularly important/significant figures. 3. Effects: Social, cultural and individual consequences How do representations and visualizations of scientific results (e.g. brain scans, anatomic drawings, genetic codes, statistics etc.) contribute to social and cultural perceptions of gender, and influence the communal and individual experience of bodiliness? What are the consequences on the level of biopolitics and the organization of culture and society? Effects of medical visualiziation on everyday self-perception and processes of normalization. 4. Perspectives: Politics and the organization of research European policies for research; inter-/transdisciplinarity as a focus; issues in biopolitics; gender issues in politics of employment, contracts, working conditions. We invite proposals for papers on any of the above topics. Abstracts of not more than 600 words should be sent by email to gender2010@fbk.eu by April 30, 2010. Please indicate the topic area your paper relates to. Authors of papers that have been accepted will be notified in July. Full versions of selected papers will be published after the conference. Conference languages are Italian and English. For further information and updates of the program please consult our webpage: http://gender2010.fbk.eu/ or send an email to gender2010@fbk.eu.

"Phenomenology, Embodiment, and Race," 40th Annual Philosophy Symposium, California State University, April 8-9, 2010.

THURSDAY April 8 8:30 am Reception 9:00–9:15 Welcome Address 9:15–10:45 “White Microtomy and Black Volatility: Where is my Body?” by George Yancy, Duquesne University 11:00–12:30 “Race Assimilation and Self-Evaluative Emotions” by David Kim, University of San Francisco 12:30–2:00 Lunch Break 2:00–3:30 “The Particularities of Race/Gender and the Philosopher's Body” by Donna-Dale Marcano 3:45–5:15 “Whiteness in a Rainbow Society” by Linda Martin Alcoff, Hunter College, CUNY FRIDAY, April 9 8:30 am Refreshments 9:00–10:15 Alumni Session 10:30–12:00 “Pride and Prejudice: Ambiguous Racial, Religious, Ethnic Identities of Jewish Bodies” by Gail Weiss, The George Washington University 12:00–2:00 Lunch Break 2:00–3:30 “Hometactics: On Belonging and Becoming” by Mariana Ortega, John Carroll University 3:45–5:15 “Materializing Race” by Charles Mills, Northwestern University Conference webpage: http://hss.fullerton.edu/philosophy/40thSymposium.html.

Cfp: "The Cartesian 'Myth of the Ego' and the Analytic/Continental Divide," Radboud University of Nijmegen, September 3-4, 2010.

Themes and Objectives: The philosophical scene has been dominated for many years by the analytic/continental divide. This protracted history of antagonism has tended to obscure the fact that at least on one point the two traditions seem to be remarkably close, if not convergent. Despite all the differences in style and choice of topics, both traditions have been strongly shaped by a profound discussion with “Cartesianism”. Obviously, the term “Cartesianism” here does not necessarily refer to the historical positions defended by René Descartes. Quite to the contrary, both traditions seem to battle against a certain image of Cartesianism, broadly understood as the cluster of philosophical convictions grounded upon the supposition that philosophy should start from “the immediate data of consciousness” and not, for example, from human behaviour or man’s practical relation to reality as the existentialists and pragmatists would have it. One of the Cartesian doctrines that both analytic and continental philosophers generally found most unacceptable was that of the supposition of a pure Self, a pure Ego. What we could call the Cartesian “Myth of the pure Ego” stands for a number of theses: These roughly include two groups of convictions: 1) the metaphysical and epistemological claim that the conscious mind is an inner realm, connected to the outside world via the senses, to which only the ego has privileged access and about which it has incorrigible knowledge. 2) the methodological idea that this self forms the self-evident starting point of a philosophical system. Cartesian philosophy of mind has been a favourite target for analytic philosophers from the very beginning. Think only of Ryle’s critique of substance dualism as a category mistake. In recent days, Dennett’s use of the term “Cartesian Theater” is a prototypical example of the strawman-like position labelled ‘Cartesianism’. The term is used to denounce the view that consciousness is an inner space in which an ego, homunculus or other fictitious entity watches the data coming in from the ourside world. For its part, the continental tradition only became obsessed with combatting “Cartesianism” after Husserl revived the Cartesian ego in the shape of his transcendental phenomenology. In this sense, Husserl’s “Cartesianism” became profoundly influential exactly because it was so unacceptable to most of his followers. Continental philosophers have portrayed Descartes’s/Husserl’s “pure self” as a “phantastical invention” (Heidegger) or as a linguistic fiction (Derrida). This colloquium aims at a critical evaluation of the hidden anti-Cartesian consensus between analytic and continental philosophy. In this context, the colloquium will ask both historiographical and philosophical questions. Examples of historiographical questions include: to what extent did Descartes actually defend the “myth of the pure ego”? In other words, to what extent is “Cartesianism” a twentieth-century construction? What philosophical purposes does this construction serve? Is the rift between analytical and continental philosophy as deep as many have portrayed it? Philosophical questions include: which elements of the Cartesian tradition now still seem worth defending? Which ones should definitively be rejected, be it on the basis of insights gathered in analytic or on the basis of continental philosophy? Can philosophy really do without a “pure self”? Are there viable alternatives for a “pure self”? The organizers of this colloqium do not take an a apriori stand on these questions but invite participants to come to terms with “Cartesianism”, both from historical and contemporary philosophical perspectives. It is the hope of the organizers that in this fashion a fruitful dialogue not only between historical and systematic scholarship, but also between analytic and continental perspectives may result. Confirmed Speakers: Tom Sorell, Kathalin Farkas, Dan Zahavi, Shaun Gallagher Requirements: Papers are invited on any topic related to the theme of the conference. Please send us a brief summary of your paper (maximum 500 words) and a short CV. Submission deadline: 1 April, 2010. Decisions will be reported by 1 May, 2010. Inquiries and submissions should be directed to: leijenhorst@phil.ru.nl. Costs for travel and accomodation will be covered by the organizers. There is no conference fee.

Major, William, and Bryan Sinche. "Giving Emerson the Boot." CHRONICLE REVIEW January 17, 2010.

Americanists of the world, unite! Weary with the cult of Ralph Waldo Emerson—the Sage of Concord, the Father of American Transcendentalism—ours is a call to arms. We have awakened from a century-long sleep to find ourselves confronted with a grave mistake, an intellectual blunder: an unseemly idolatry for one of the most confounding of American writers. Speed thee to thy rest, pernicious Sage, for we will submit our students to you no more. What is it about the old man that so vexes? To begin, there's the ego. Other than the odd English major, virtually every student encountering Emerson for the first time (there's almost never a second) gains very little from the exercise other than a rough appreciation for what it must be like to sit in the company of a boorish deity. Emerson writes from on high. (Is it any wonder that another boor, Frank Lloyd Wright, was such a devoted follower?) Our man has taken in a holy draught of air and unfortunately decided to let it out, and his followers have been keen on following the scent ever since. Our students, however, rightly detect something more foul. What a student finds, in fact, is a set of contradictory, baffling, radical, reactionary ideas that offer no practical guidelines for actual human behavior. And that's the good news. Most students can hardly be expected to grapple with Emerson's Nature or "Experience" with any degree of efficacy. They may come to understand some of the major principles and tensions and perhaps, later on in some dark hour, Emerson will re-emerge to teach a lesson about not trusting appearances or the value of stoicism. In all likelihood, students will leave Emerson having been immersed in a confused stew of 19th-century occultism offered up in schizophrenic prose. And we, their professors, often act as if their difficulties stemmed from their own lack of imagination. The fault, though, is that of the author. Because of Emerson's obscurantist and peripatetic style, his meanings—assuming there are some—are hidden. Consider this koan, one among many: "It is essential to a true theory of nature and of man, that it should contain somewhat progressive. Uses that are exhausted or that may be, and facts that end in the statement, cannot be all that is true of this brave lodging wherein man is harbored, and wherein all his faculties find appropriate and endless exercise. And all the uses of nature admit of being summed in one, which yields the activity of man an infinite scope." That is the prose of a crazy person. . . .

Read the rest here: http://chronicle.com/article/Giving-Emerson-the-Boot/63512/.

Possen, David D. Review of Soren Kierkegaard, CONCLUDING UNSCIENTIFIC POSTSCRIPT TO THE PHILOSOPHICAL CRUMBS. NDPR (January 2010).

Kierkegaard, Soren. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Crumbs. Ed. and trans. Alastair Hannay. Cambridge: CUP, 2009. There have so far been three discernible phases -- three stages, appropriately enough -- in the enterprise of translating Kierkegaard into English. The first began during the Great Depression, and was something of a religious stage. Its spearhead was Walter Lowrie, an Episcopal minister who cast himself as Kierkegaard's "missionary", and promoted Kierkegaard's vision of faith as a bulwark against liberal theology. The translations of Lowrie and his cohort are marked by a lyrical and solemn enthusiasm, which is often sustained by deft tinkering with the text. A second stage, which it is tempting to call "ethical", was launched in the 1970s by Howard and Edna Hong of St. Olaf College. Its fruit is Kierkegaard's Writings, the comprehensively annotated Princeton edition of Kierkegaard's complete works. The Hongs prized consistency and literal precision, if at times at the expense of English flow. Their books remain indispensable tools for the scholar. This leaves the third and ongoing stage of Kierkegaard translation, which I cannot resist calling "aesthetic". Its main engine is Alastair Hannay, a Scottish-born philosopher recently retired from the University of Oslo. Hannay's offerings are deservedly popular: they are not only highly accurate, but also packaged dextrously for a wide readership. Until now, Hannay's translations -- Fear and Trembling (1985), The Sickness Unto Death (1989), an abridged Either/Or (1992), selections from Kierkegaard's Papers and Journals (1996), and A Literary Review (2001) -- were carried by Penguin. The translation here under review is Hannay's latest, the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, and his first with Cambridge (in the series "Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy"). It is a colossal achievement. . . . Read the whole review here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=18607.

Ferreira, M. Jamie. Review of Sharon Krishek, KIERKEGAARD ON FAITH AND LOVE. NDPR (January 2010).

Krishek, Sharon. Kierkegaard on Faith and Love. Cambridge: CUP, 2009. Krishek's general aims in this bold book are to show that Kierkegaard's normative revisioning of the concept of religious faith entails a normative revisioning of the concept of love, and that Kierkegaard's project in Works of Love fails to do justice to his best insights about love. In particular, Krishek argues that the model of faith in "two movements" found in Johannes de Silentio's Fear and Trembling is a necessary corrective to the model of love found in Works of Love. This entails a re-examination of both works, prefaced by a re-consideration of the ways in which Kierkegaard's various presentations of love raise issues about loss and resignation. The re-examinations of Fear and Trembling and Works of Love can be judged independently -- that is, the success of her argument about Fear and Trembling does not depend on the success of her argument about Works of Love. Moreover, whether or not her boldest challenge to Works of Love is convincing, her analysis makes illuminating distinctions and in the process introduces the reader to the most recent scholarship on Works of Love. For these reasons, the book is worthwhile reading for any Kierkegaard student or scholar. To an academic audience chastened over the decades by warnings not to put all the writing done by Søren A. Kierkegaard into one melting pot (but to distinguish clearly between pseudonymous writings and signed writings), Krishek's attempt to illuminate and amend one of Kierkegaard's signed religious texts (Works of Love) by reference to an earlier pseudonymous text (Fear and Trembling), and to show "how two of Kierkegaard's most noticeable voices, when joined together, create a clear and interesting ensemble" is provocative (141). Her justification is, I think rightly, that "the core of some of Kierkegaard's most important ideas can be traced back to his pseudonymous writings, and in some cases their expression in these writings is particularly lucid and illuminating" (141). In other words, Krishek usefully reminds us not to overlook the continuity, repetition, and complementarity in Kierkegaard's works. . . . Read the whole review here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=18629.

Pub: C. L. R. James, YOU DON'T PLAY WITH REVOLUTION.

James, C. L. R.  You Don't Play with Revolution: the Montreal Lectures of C. L. R. James. Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2009.

Revolution is a serious business, and C.L.R. James knew more than most. Our brand-new collection presents eight never-before-published lectures by the celebrated Marxist cultural critic, delivered during his stay in Montreal in 1967 and 1968. Ranging in topic from Marx and Lenin to Shakespeare and Rousseau to Caribbean history and the Haitian Revolution, these lectures demonstrate the staggering breadth and clarity of James' knowledge and interest.

Strikingly little information exists today about the period of time James spent working with West Indian intellectuals and students in Canada in the late 1960s, but the research of editor David Austin demonstrates the critical role these encounters played in the development of James' more mature critical theory. Readers just beginning to delve into James work will find this collection accessible and engaging, an ideal introduction to a complex and multi-faceted body of scholarship. Also included are two seminal interviews produced with James during his stay in Canada, selected correspondence from the time period, and an appendix of essays on James' work, which includes the seminal Marty Glaberman essay, "C.L.R. James: The Man and His Work.".

You Don't Play With Revolution also includes a preface by Robert A. Hill, co-founder of the C.L.R. James Study Circle and historical advisor to the new James archive at Columbia University, and a lengthy historical introduction by David Austin.
 
Further information is available here: http://www.akpress.org/2009/items/youdontplaywithrevolution.

Cfp: THE DIALOGUE BETWEEN CONTINENTAL AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY. BALKAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY (forthcoming 2011).

Contemporary philosophy has been broadly conceived as divided into two camps, analytic and continental. These two camps often ignore each other, sometimes criticize each other, and most rarely discuss matters together in a friendly and constructive spirit. There are various reasons for this situation. Some of the reasons are historical, having to do with the unfortunate developments between the two World Wars that stopped the dialogue and communication between various philosophical schools in Germany and Central Europe. The gap went on widening, and now we have to deal with it. There are exceptions, however. On the topical side, there is already a fledgling tradition of dialogue in various areas. In philosophy of mind and philosophy of psychology there is work being done in mediating between Husserlian phenomenological approach on the one hand and the approaches of cognitive science and analytic philosophy of mind on the other. Shaun Gallagher is one of the exemplary authors doing such a crossing-boundary scholarly work. In philosophy of science there is a beginning of a dialogue between a more hermeneutically oriented approach and the traditional philosophy of science. An exemplary work is the 206 volume of Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science devoted to “Hermeneutics and Science”. In political philosophy there are authors who combine the tradition of German idealism with inspiration from Rawls and Scanlon.

The philosophical situation in the Balkans has always been characterized by day to day contacts and collaboration between philosophers belonging to different schools and orientations. We see this as an opportunity for our journal: why not extend this spirit of tolerance and collaboration, and offer a space for dialogue between the two still antagonistic camps?

Those who are interested to contribute to the Special Issue of BJP for 2011 can find the guidelines for submission at http://www.philosophybulgaria.org/en/Publikacii/BJP/index.php.

The deadline for submission of papers is 31 December, 2010.

"Georg Lukács's 'Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat,'" Marx and Philosophy Society, London Knowledge Lab, February 6, 2010.

Speakers:

• Gordon Finlayson (Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Sussex and is the author of many books and articles on the Frankfurt School);
• Tim Hall (Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of East London.  His article "Reification, Materialism and Praxis: Adorno's critique of Lukács" is forthcoming in Telos [2010] and he is the co-editor of The Fundamental Dissonance of Existence: New Essays on the Social, Political and Aesthetic Theory of Georg Lukács [New York: Continuum, 2010]);
• Michalis Skomvoulis (PhD student at the University of Paris 1: Panthéon-Sorbonne and has written extensively on Lukacs).

Attendance is free and open to all. To register e-mail Meade McCloughan: m.mccloughan@ucl.ac.uk.

Marx and Philosophy Society: http://www.marxandphilosophy.org.uk/.

Cfp: "Thinking the World in the 21st Century," School of Philosophy, University of Tasmania and Australian Phenomenology and Hermeneutics Association (APHA), April 30-May 1, 2010.

"Thinking the World in the 21st Century" will feature keynote addresses by Prof. Peg Birmingham (DePaul University, Chicago, USA) and Prof. David Wood (Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA). Currently Prof. Birmingham, whose research focuses upon political philosophy, ethics, and feminist theory, is working on a project titled ‘A Lying World Order: Deception as a Philosophical and Political Problem’. Prof. Wood, whose research ranges from continental philosophy to ecology to art and creativity, is working on ‘Things at the Edge of the World’.

‘World’, then, relates their thought, and ‘world’ is the theme around which this colloquium is gathered. With this as the rather open background, we are seeking contributions with a worldly bent: they may be steeped in phenomenology or graced with the lightest of hermeneutic touches. They might take the shape of a standard conference paper, or be entirely creative. Together we hope to create a collegial, challenging, and inspiring colloquium.

Please email your 250-500 word abstract to Philosophy.Admin@utas.edu.au by February 15th.

Cfp: "Attending to the Other: Critical Theory and Spiritual Practice," St. Catherine's College, University of Oxford, September 23-26, 2010.

15th Biennial Conference, International Society for Religion, Literature and Culture (ISRLC).

Short papers are invited for the following panels; contributors should aim to deliver a 20-minute piece with 10 further minutes for questions and discussion. Please send the proposed title of your paper, with an abstract of not more than 500 words, to the convenor of the panel for which it seems most appropriate.

• Literature
• Modern Theology
• The Bible
• Islamic Studies
• Judaism
• Religion and Modernity
• German Idealism
• Postcolonialism
• Movies
• The Visual Arts
• Higher Education
• Spirituality and Reconciliatio
• Continental Philosophy of Religion
• Critical Theory
• Gender
• Theological Humanism
• Music

The deadline for receipt of abstracts is 30th March 2010.

Visit the conference webpage here: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~worc2329/index.html.

Pub: RETHINKING 1968. PHAENEX 4.2 (2009).

Editorial Introduction: "Rethinking 1968" by KEVIN W. GRAY i-ii

• "May 1968, Sartre and Sarkozy Abstract by JEAN-PIERRE BOULÉ 1-25
• "Saving 1968: Thinking with Habermas against Habermas" by KEVIN W. GRAY 26-44
• "The May 1968 Archives: a Presentation of the Anti-Technocratic Struggle in May 1968" by ANDREW FEENBERG 45-59
• "May ’68 and the One-Dimensional State" by CHRIS REYNOLDS 60-77
• "The Frankfurt School’s Interest in Freud and the Impact of Eros and Civilization on the Student Protest Movement in Germany: a Brief History" by PETER-ERWIN JANSEN 78-96
• "Les événements de Mai as Theory and Practice" by ADRIAN SWITZER 97-129
• "Sartre’s Pure Critical Theory" by JOHN DUNCAN 130-175

Download the issue here: http://www.phaenex.uwindsor.ca/ojs/leddy/index.php/phaenex/issue/view/346.

Cfp: "Making Sense Of: Health, Illness and Disease," Oriel College, University of Oxford, September 11-13, 2010.

This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary project aims to explore the processes by which we attempt to create meaning in health, illness and disease. In previous years, this interdisciplinary conference has attracted delegates from around the world, including practising clinicians, academics from a variety of disciplines, and persons involved in community-based organizations. At the beginning of the 21st Century, the world is facing a plethora of health problems, some of which could not have easily been predicted as recently as the last two decades of the last century. Globally, there are critical conditions brought about by war, persecution, mass migration, famine and gross social inequalities. In the 'developed societies', a combination of demographic and life-style factors is putting increasing pressures on health-care facilities that are in danger of fragmentation and under-funding. For its part, the general public is presenting practitioners with a challenging contradiction: on the one hand, people live longer than ever before and are, in some respects, healthier – but, on the other, the burden of chronic disease and 'un-wellness' is increasing, and so is the concern with health-related matters on the part of the 'man and woman in the street'. The wellness/illness profile of to-day's communities renders prevention as important as therapy – which, in turn, implies that prevailing social attitudes have a key role in the dynamics of health, illness and health care as an inter-related system.

The 2010 conference is extending a call for papers on any aspect of this complex set of circumstances. Because this is a very broad brief, we particularly welcome papers that address the following themes:
I. Health, Illness and Disease in a Globalised World
* Health, human rights and social justice
* Health, disease and citizenship
* Health and place
* Diasporas and disease
* Health, disease and international medicine
II. Systemic Problems in Health Care
* Managerial vs clinical imperatives
* Professional hierarchies and internal conflicts
* The speed of innovation
* The contested nature of evidence-based medicine
* Patients or clients?
III. Beliefs about Health
* Positive thinking, tranquillity and mindfulness
* Faith in diets (including water), eg vegan, low-carb, natural/organic
* Exercise, breathing
* Belief vs practice
* Fears: allergies, sensitivities, negativethinking, stress, contamination
* Puritanism and health beliefs
* 'Healthism' as the new religion
IV. Attitudes to Medicine/Healing
* Medicine as science
* Alternative/non-western approaches: evidence or ideology?
* Mistrust in 'the system' ('medicine/science cannot explain everything')
* Mistrust in the practitioners (lack of knowledge/competence/professionalism)
* Risk and trust in the medical encounter (including hospital stays)
* Litigation in the context of health care; the underlying complexities
V. Purveyors of information
* The media and the popularity of medical programs
* Personal networks
* Dr C. O. M. Puter – the role of the Internet
* Reflexivity in the system – how does public information feed back into health care?

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 26th March 2010. If your paper is accepted for presentation at the conference, an 8 page draft paper should be submitted by Friday 13th August 2010. 300 word abstracts should be submitted to both Organising Chairs with the subject line HID9.  Abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats, following this order: author(s), affiliation, email address, title of abstract, body of abstract.  Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer all paper proposals submitted. If you do  not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Joint Organising Chairs:

• Maria Vaccarella, Marie Curie Research Fellow, King’s College, London, E-mail: maria.vaccarella@inter-disciplinary.net;
• Dr Rob Fisher, Inter-Disciplinary.Net, Priory House, Wroslyn Road, Freeland, Oxfordshire, OX29 8HR, United Kingdom, E-mail: hid9@inter-disciplinary.net.

Cfp: "Concepts of Health and Illness," University of the West of England, September 1-3, 2010.

Keynote Speakers:

• KWM Fulford (Warwick, UK), "Delusion and Spiritual Experience: Facts, Values and Concepts of Disorder in Mental Health"
• Lennart Nordenfelt (Linköping, Sweden), tba
• Fredrik Svenaeus (Södertörns högskola, Sweden), "What is phenomenology of medicine? Embodiment, illness and being-in-the-world"

Over the past three decades, various accounts of health, illness and disease have been proposed by researchers from history, sociology, law, philosophy, public health and economics. Often, however, proponents of various accounts have been isolated within their own discipline with an apparent unawareness of competing accounts. As a result, while there are now a number of different accounts of health, illness and disease available, there is no consensus about which, if any, of these accounts is ultimately acceptable and what implications each account may have.

This three-day international conference will explore differences and overlaps between these different accounts. The conference aims to bring together researchers from multiple disciplines to create dialogue between them, as well as between researchers and healthcare practitioners, on the concepts of health, illness and disease.

We welcome contributions from philosophers, historians and sociologists of medicine on any topic that falls within the broad remit of the conference title. Each paper will be allotted 20 minutes for presentation, followed by a ten-minute discussion. We aim for the conference to be inclusive and to represent a broad range of views and approaches. We particularly welcome contributions from healthcare practitioners. There will be a number of slots reserved for graduate papers and graduate bursaries will be available.

Please send proposals (500 word abstract) via email by Monday 12 April, 2010 to both organisers:

• Dr Havi Carel havi.carel@uwe.ac.uk
• Dr Rachel Cooper r.v.cooper@lancaster.ac.uk

Cfp: "Translation and Philosophy," Humanities Institute, University College Dublin, March 25-26, 2010.

Update: Note the change of dates (see comment 2 below). Original Post: The aim of the symposium is to explore the relationship between these two disciplines and papers are welcome from across a range of disciplines including, but not limited to: Translation Studies, Philosophy (both Continental and Analytic), German, French and English Literature, Linguistics and Intercultural Studies. Papers are particularly welcome from graduate students working in relevant areas. Papers may focus on some of the below questions, or on any aspect of the relationship between these two traditions: What is the nature of the relationship between translation and philosophy? In their mutual search for meaning and greater understanding in what way can they be said to be similar? What are their differences? With philosophy, perhaps more than any other genre, translation is pushed to the limits in an effort to carry across terms that are not existent in the target language – words like différance, Geist, Dasein, to name but a few, are common currency in the English speaking philosophical world, how does this impact on English as a language in general? Could philosophy be said to be a type of translation? Is translation itself philosophical? Given that many of the great philosophical works are read in translation, to what extent is philosophy dependent on translation? To what extent has translation modified and re-invented the work of philosophers? From Descartes to Ricoeur, philosophy has often strived to provide a ‘theory of translation’, what impact, if any, do these theories have on translation in practice? Is there a ‘perfect’ translation? Papers should be appropriate for a 20-30 minute presentation. Full paper and abstracts (of 200-400 words) should be emailed to lisa.foran@ucdconnect.ie no later than FEBRUARY 26, 2010; please indicate ‘Translation and Philosophy Symposium’ in the subject line. For further information, visit: http://www.dublinphilosophy.org/.

Cfp: "Philosophy in Literature," University of Vaasa, Finland, May 27-28, 2010.

Plato, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche are classical examples of the philosophers who discuss philosophical ideas with literary style. Writers of world literature such as Dostoyevsky, Hesse, and Beauvoir, for their part, are known as novelists whose books discuss philosophical questions or are otherwise considered to be philosophical or profound. These and many other examples from different countries and continents show that literature can enrich and stimulate the discussion on philosophical themes. Again, philosophical concepts and thematizations may offer tools for literary research of literature. The goal of this conference is to bring together philosophers and scholars of the study of literature to discuss the aptness of literature in the discussion of philosophical questions and the suitability of philosophical concepts and theories in literary research. The papers to be proposed can be case studies in which examples of literature are discussed. The papers can also be theoretical studies that aim to contribute to the theory of the study of literature or philosophy.

Some suggested questions and subtopics are the following:

• Examples of the philosophical themes or questions discussed in world literature by different authors from different periods
• Examples of the approaches to philosophical themes or questions in literature
• Which philosophical themes, fields (e.g., metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics) or questions are or have been especially apt to be discussed in the forum of world literature? Why?
• Which philosophical themes or questions are difficult to be discussed by means of fiction? Why?
• Which literary genres or types of novels are especially suitable to be forums of philosophical discussion?
• In what ways does philosophical imagination differ from fiction? In what sense is imagination similar in philosophy and in fiction?
• What special tools are available in literature to deal with philosophical questions - tools that are lacking from standard academic philosophical prose?
• In what ways can philosophical tools (concepts, views, theories) be used for the analysis of literature of different countries and cultures? In what ways should philosophical tools not be used in literary research?
• What philosophically interesting differences and similarities can be found in the literature of different cultures and continents? Are the differences related to philosophical themes and questions, or rather to approaches or the ways of discussing?
• What gender differences are there in male and female novelists' approaches to philosophical questions? How do philosophically oriented novelists discuss gender?
• How have feminist philosophers treated issues relating to gender, sexuality and embodiment in literary works? What kinds of philosophical concepts or theoretical approaches can be productive from the feminist perspective when studying the above mentioned questions in literature?

Conference Directors: Chandana Chakrabarti, Davis and Elkins College, and Tomi Lethonen, University of Vassa, Finland

Please send 150 words abstract by email to Panos Eliopoulos ksatriya@tri.forthnet.gr by February 15, 2010.

Cfp: "Shifting the Geography of Reason: Music, Rhythm and Movement," 7th Annual Conference, Caribbean Philosophical Association, Cartagena, Colombia, August 11-14, 2010.

We invite proposals from scholars in any discipline who aim to 'shift the geography of reason' by exploring critical, theoretical, and creative questions about or relating to the Caribbean, its Diaspora, and the 'global south' more generally, including the South in the North. We particularly welcome North-South and South-South intersections and/or dialogues. In recognition of the central importance of music, dance, festivals, and performance in the Caribbean, this meeting will focus on shifting the geography and bio-graphy of reason through music, rhythm, and movement. Both, paper and panel proposals that address the broader and ongoing organizing theme of the CPA (“shifting the geography of reason”), and those that focus on any of the specific themes highlighted in this year’s conference, are welcome. We invite explorations of race and racism, gender, colonization and decolonization, sexuality, imperialism, and migration, social and intellectual movements, and related areas, not only in the Caribbean, but globally. We accept proposals in English, French, and Spanish.

Send submissions for panels and abstracts of individual presentations by March 31st, 2010,by email to caribphil2010@gmail.com.  Visit the conference website here: http://www.caribbeanphilosophicalassociation.org/CPA_2010.html.