Cfp: "Transforming Human Nature in Science, Technology and the Arts," Dublin City University, October 21-23, 2011.

Update (April 18, 2011):

The venue has changed from Bahrain (due to the political unrest) to Dublin, Ireland. We are also extending the CFP deadline until June 1st. Please see the new details on our website: www.transformingthehuman.org. (Refresh the webpages if you have visited us before to clear your browser cache and see the updated pages.)

Original Post (January 26, 2011):

From genomics to virtual reality, technology has been changing the way human beings interact and navigate in the world at an ever increasing pace. During the last two decades, advances in technological integration are calling for special attention from thinkers across the disciplines and around the world. As the technological characteristics of the human condition impact our understanding of "the human", we are faced with radical changes in self-undersatnding and human identity. In short, through technology we are transforming human nature.

Possible Topics could include, but are not limited to:

· Bioethics, bioconservatism, bioliberalism, enhancement
· Posthumanist anthropology, aesthetics, ecology, feminism, critical theory
· Representation of human performance in technology and the arts
· Transhumanism and/or posthumanism in science fiction, fantasy, dystopian/utopian literature
· Enhancement and political discourse, regulation, and rights
· Humanism, transhumanism, and posthumanism in philosophy
· Poststructuralism, postmodernism, and posthumanism
· Transhuman and posthuman impact on ethics and/or value formation
· Phenomenology and postphenomenology
· Embodiment relations and identity
· Globalization and the spread of biomedicine and transhumanism
· Economic implications of transhumanist projects
· Popular culture and posthumanist representations
· Theology, enhancement, and the place of the posthuman
· Technology, robotics, and ethics
· Cybernetics, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality
· Cyborgs and democracy
· Humanity, human, biotechnology

Visit the conference website: http://www.transformingthehuman.org/.

"Current Topics in the Human Sciences," Technische Universität Berlin, June 18-19, 2010.

The conference seeks to analyze concepts that denote characteristics typically (though not necessarily exclusively) associated with being /human/. A guiding question is whether something can be gained from putting the category of the human back on the agenda of philosophy of science and inquiring into similarities and differences between questions and problems arising in various fields that study humans. Methodologically, two features are distinctive of the approach taken here: 1. We focus on specific concepts that denote the subject matters or methods of various human sciences, but that have also been objects of reflection within philosophy for a long time (for example practice, meaning, values, empathy). 2. We bring together * philosophers of science, who think philosophically about the research done about a given object of the human sciences (for example emotions, rationality, consciousness), * philosophers working in other fields, who think about the objects of the human sciences in the context of, say, philosophy of mind or ethics, * historians of philosophy (of science), who think about the ways in which our philosophical thinking about the concepts in question have developed. These two features are meant to stimulate discussions about (a) the extent to which philosophy is (or should be) informed by scientific studies of specifically human traits, (b) the extent to which philosophy of science is (or should be) in touch with more traditional philosophical debates, and (c) the extent to which the history of the philosophy (of the human sciences) can make a systematic contribution to current philosophy (of the human sciences). Visit the conference website here: http://www.wissensforschung.tu-berlin.de/serviceboxen/1819062010_current_topics_in_the_philosophy_of_the_human_sciences/program/

Cfp: "Humans and Other Animals: Challenging the Boundaries of Humanity," University of Manchester, June 11-12, 2010.

Hosted by Institute for Science, Ethics & Innovation, Manchester and Institute of Philosophy, University of London. Theme This conference will seek to examine and challenge the boundaries so often drawn in philosophy, as elsewhere, between humans and other animals. It will draw on philosophical, legal and scientific perspectives in order to question the legitimacy and utility of such distinctions and thereby to explore the moral and philosophical meanings of humanity and being human. Background A century and half ago, Darwin’s theory of evolution challenged the notion of absolute species boundaries, showing that humans were related to animals rather than created unique amongst living creatures and putting us on a continuum with other animals and indeed all life on earth. We now accept that that there are many ways in which human and animal are both genetically and behaviourally similar. While there are ways in which we are different, according to Darwinian theory these are not differences in kind, but in degree. Nevertheless, the notion that we are somehow ‘special’, separated from other animals because of our species, purely in virtue of being human, has persisted. Several commentators writing on animal rights and interests have suggested that to deny animals equal moral consideration on the basis of their inherent capacities rather than as a function of species membership is morally unsound. Despite this, the notion of humanness as something qualitatively distinct in moral terms, the existence of the human “Factor X”, continues to retain philosophical credibility in many discussions. We talk of “human nature” as an essential quality of morally significant beings – that is, ourselves; “human rights” as something to which we, as morally significant beings, are entitled; “humanity” as a morally significant quantity. This focus on humanness as an indicator of moral status draws an implicit line: entities which are human are different, morally speaking, to entities which are not. Of chimeras and chimpanzees: re-questioning the (moral) meaning of ‘human’ Today, contemporary research across a range of scientific disciplines serves to blur the boundaries between human and non-human animals even further than Darwin’s discoveries did. Xenotransplantation, animals with human transgenes or engrafted with human tissues and cytoplasmic hybrid embryos all involve a mixture of human and animal biological components, leading to questions about how (and more importantly why) we should attempt to classify such creatures – as human or animal, or something else? Research in cognitive ethology reveals that animals may possess mental and psychological capacities such as self-awareness and complex reasoning ability, previously ascribed only to humans and often used to justify the moral line drawn between ourselves and other animals. Finally, studies of primate behaviour demonstrate that morality itself may have an evolutionary basis, challenging the view that moral agency and moral reasoning are the sole purview of humans. All of these serve to erode whatever sharp distinctions we might still think to draw between humans and other animal species. Genetically, biologically, as moral subjects and even as moral agents, humans are a species of animal. What implications might this have for philosophical considerations of human nature, for the use of ‘human’ as a qualifier or distinguishing feature in moral, legal and social contexts, and for how we view ourselves, other creatures that exist now and creatures that might one day exist? Further information may be here: http://www.isei.manchester.ac.uk/research/conferences/humansandotheranimals/conferenceoutline/.

Cfp: "Nature and Human Nature," University of Oxford, September 10-12, 2010.

Consciousness and Experiential Psychology Section, British Psychological Society. Mind is part of Nature, not apart from it. To deny this is to make the mind and consciousness alien intrusions into an otherwise mechanistic universe. Consciousness may be a remarkable phenomenon but we will start from the assumption that it is natural, not supernatural. To approach consciousness thus is to be intellectually consistent, aiming to account for the physical, biological and psychological phenomena we encounter without explanatory gaps that require the invention of special forces or substances. From this perspective - that our mental life emerges from, and hence is continuous with, all other living processes - consciousness inquiry becomes an integral part of our ethical domain, and it is easier to recognize that in acting harmfully towards our world we are acting harmfully towards ourselves. The roots of such actions are complex and attempts to uncover them often cite a sense of alienation or disconnection from the natural world. Whatever the case may be, an inquiry into the nature of mind, the nature of nature, and the nature of their interdependence is timely. This conference aims to promote such an inquiry. With this in mind we propose the following three broad themes for the 2010 CEP conference: (1) the nature of human nature, (2) the nature of nature and (3) the nature of their interdependence. Keynote Speakers:

• David Abram, cultural ecologist, philosopher, and founder and creative director of the Alliance for Wild Ethics.
• Matthijs Cornelissen, physician, psychologist, and founder of the Sri Aurobindo Centre for Consciousness Studies
• Peter Fenwick, neuropsychiatrist, neurophysiologist and Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Consultant Neuropsychiatrist at the Radcliffe Infirmary Oxford and Honorary Consultant Clinical Neurophysiologist at Broadmoor Hospital

Further information may be found here: http://www.bps.org.uk/conex/events/cep_2010.cfm.

Cfp: EROS 2010, 3rd Biennial Conference in the Human Condition Series, Nipissing University, Muskoka Campus, May 21-22, 2010.

“On the face of it at least, our civilization possesses no ars erotica. In return, it is undoubtedly the only civilization to practice a scientia sexualis…” Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction. Though a human nature may not exist, there is comfort in the notion that a unifying force should subsist within all humankind: that is the will to live. Sigmund Freud thoughtfully named the driving impulse Eros. If humankind does possess, as a matter of our continuance as a species, an impulse for life, a drive to overcome all adversity in order to reproduce itself, what does this say of the human condition? How can desire, pleasure and love lead to social bonds that ensure the perpetuation of the species in healthy abundance? What types of relations cultivate worth and esteem in the individual, and how can destructive elements of these same tropes damage the psyche and dissolve the very relations that lead to a healthy self-concept? More specific to historical circumstances, how have male, hetero and white notions of love led individuals to abandon their genuine selves? How does pathos reveal itself in minds and in societies and how can we know when there is satisfaction in love or if an alternative object has been found through sublimation? The Human Condition Series invites you to consider the concept of Eros, and to share original and revisited thoughts which transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries. We encourage expressions about how culture, habit, language, science and art, embody, remedy or fail Eros. Without prescription, we urge theorizations and analyses which seek to look beyond the here and now towards the possibilities to come. Themes include but are not limited to: •The concept of Eros in the work and scholarship of Luce Irigaray •Heroines and Heroes of Eros •The Eros of War •The Eros of Motherhood •Representation, construction, reproduction or analysis of Eros, Chaos or other mythological deities •Subject/Identity formation and constructions of gender, sex and sexuality •Eros and parthenogenesis in history and literature •Categories of normativity, disorder, pathology or deviance in desire •Eros as nature, power, cosmology, mythology, and society. •Eros and the transformation of consciousness, near-death and dreamlike states. •Sacred marriage, immortal/mortal love •Sex tourism, sex trafficking •From Eros as mythos to Eros as logos •The sensuous in the human world •Eros and Gaia in the marketing of holistic healing •Contemporary Families and Eros •Eros in women’s literature as a distinct tradition •The role of Eros in different religious and spiritual traditions •Semiotic approaches to Eros and culture, place, space, time. Featured Speaker, Luce Irigaray We are delighted to have Luce Irigaray deliver an original presentation for the EROS Conference via satellite from Paris. In Thinking the Difference, she writes “Poor Eros!…What has become of us, that we are so poor in love?” [1], inviting reconsideration of the Freudian position that relationships must be broken for civilization to exist. In her view, relations must be restored if we are to save ourselves and the earth from total annihilation. Irigaray’s ideas challenge the necessity of breaking the bonds of love, for it is human ties, like those shared by mother and daughter that are the “missing pillars of our culture”. Film Feature Eros (2004) is the collection of three short films exploring the subjects of love, sexuality, and desire: Il filo pericoloso delle cose, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, Equilibrium, directed by Steven Soderbergh, and The Hand, directed by Kar Wai Wong. Apply to Present If your work addresses these themes specifically or the topic of Eros in general, please submit a working title, an abstract of 300-400 words, and a short biography, before January 25th, 2010, to Erosthehumanconditionseries@gmail.com or Erosthehumancondition@gmail.com. Selected presenters will be notified by February 25th, 2010. Presenters are required to submit a 10-15 page summary paper and pay early bird registration by April 1st in order to appear on the conference schedule. Presenters will have until June 25th, 2010 to prepare their manuscripts for submission to the double-blind review process for possible publication. For further inquiries regarding the Eros conference please contact: Toivo Koivukoski, Associate Professor of Political Science Nipissing University, North Bay Campus 100 College Drive Northbay, ON P1B 8L7 Canada. Erosthehumanconditionseries@gmail.com

Marino, Patricia. Review of Laurie J. Shrage, ed. 'YOU'VE CHANGED': SEX REASSIGNMENT AND PERSONAL IDENTITY. NDPR (January 2010).

Shrage, Laurie J., ed.  'You've Changed': Sex Reassignment and Personal Identity. Oxford: OUP, 2009.

'You've Changed' is a thoughtful and engaging collection of eleven philosophical essays on sex reassignment, from a range of scholars with varying points of view. This book is unusual in the degree to which it brings philosophical rigor and depth to questions of ordinary life: In what way is my sex identity part of my overall identity? Is sex primarily an embodied, social, or experienced identity? How can we create a world in which everyone's sexual identity is respected? The book also shows the reader glimpses of important entailments in the other direction -- that is, ways in which our reflections on these local questions challenge our background theories and methods. The writing is interesting and lively, and there is a well-organized and insightful introduction by the editor, Laurie Shrage.

Naturally, this book will be of interest to those working in gender and sexuality studies, queer studies, feminist philosophy, and science studies. But it should also be of interest to those interested in the epistemological, metaphysical, and moral aspects of personal identity. The theorizing here offers a set of reflections on identity from a new and important perspective, and several authors argue that ethics, politics and values are essential to understanding identity. This claim is worth considering from a broader perspective than just sex and gender.

These essays take up a large number of topics. Rather than trying to address all of these I'll focus on a few broad themes. . . .

Read the whole review here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=18487.

Taylor, James Stacey. Review of Todd May's DEATH. NDPR (October 2009).

May, Todd. Death. Cheshire: Acumen, 2009. Death exemplifies how popular philosophy should be done. It is a thoughtful, engaging, and carefully written reflection on the nature of death and what our response to it, as mortals who are aware that we will die, should be. Moreover, although it is aimed at a general audience Death is also likely to be of interest to philosophers who are professionally engaged with the questions that it addresses. May's philosophical range is broad, and so this book could profitably be used as an introduction to Ancient, Anglo-American, Continental, and Eastern views on death for persons unfamiliar with one or more of these traditions. Death is divided into three sections of approximately 40 pages each: "Our dealings with death", "Death and immortality", and "Living with death". The volume closes with suggestions for further reading and a short reference section. . . . Read the whole review here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=17907.

Griffiths, Paul. "The Distinction between Innate and Acquired Characteristics." STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY August 4, 2009.

The idea that some characteristics of an organism are explained by the organism's intrinsic nature, whilst others reflect the influence of the environment is an ancient one. It has even been argued that this distinction is itself part of the evolved psychology of the human species. The distinction played an important role in the history of philosophy as the locus of the dispute between Rationalism and Empiricism discussed in another entry in this encyclopedia. This entry, however, focuses on twentieth-century accounts of the innate/acquired distinction. These accounts have for the most part been inspired by the sciences of mind and behaviour. Innateness must be clearly distinguished from heritability, at least in the scientific sense of that term. The idea that heritability scores measure the degree to which a characteristic is innate is a vulgar fallacy. Heritability is a statistical measure of the sources of individual differences in a population. While heritability itself is well understood, its relationship to the innate/acquired distinction remains highly controversial. The belief that a trait is innate is today commonly expressed by saying it is ‘in the genes’. But genes play an essential role in the production of every trait. Consequently, it will not do to say simply that innate traits are ‘caused by genes’ whilst acquired traits are ‘caused by the environment’. Any relationship between genetic causation and the innate/acquired distinction will be far more complex than this. Recent philosophical analyses of the innate/acquired distinction can be classified into four types. The first identifies innate traits with those characteristic of an entire species and identifies acquired traits with those that vary between populations and individuals. A second type of analysis identifies innate traits with those that can be explained by natural selection. The third, and currently the most influential, identifies innate traits with those produced by a particular patterns of interaction between genes and environment. A fourth, quite different, type of analysis suggests that labelling a trait ‘innate’ is a way to indicate that it lies outside the domain of psychology. Finally, there is a tradition of scepticism about the innate/acquired distinction. Sceptics argue that it confounds a number of distinctions that are better kept separate, or, perhaps equivalently, that there is no one property of a trait that corresponds to its being innate. . . . Read the rest here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/innate-acquired/.

42nd Annual Meeting, Cheiron: the International Society for the History of the Behavioural and Social Sciences, Le Moyne College, June 24-27, 2010.

Papers, posters, symposia, or workshops may deal with any aspect of the history of the behavioral and social sciences or related historiographical and methodological issues. All submissions must conform to the length limitations listed below (references, tables, etc. may be appended). To facilitate blind review, please include a cover sheet indicating: a) title; b)author’s name and affiliation; c) author’s address and phone number; and d) audio/visual needs. All submissions must be received by 5pm CST on January 15, 2010. Authors are strongly encouraged to send submissions electronically as attachments (.doc or .rtf), although three printed copies of a submission may be sent by post to the address below. Papers: Submit a completed paper (7-8 double-spaced pages plus a short abstract), or a 700-800 word abstract plus short bibliography. Papers should be original, i.e., not previously presented at other conferences. Posters: Submit a 300-400 word abstract. Symposia: Submit a 250-300 word abstract describing the symposium as a whole, and a 500-700 word abstract plus short bibliography from each of the participants. A cover letter should include the names and institutional affiliations of each of the participants, which should not be revealed in the abstracts. Workshops: Contact the program chair (gsullivan@ccccd.edu). Student Travel Awards: Available to help defray travel expenses of students who present papers and posters. Please indicate if you are a student and wish to be considered for an award. Program submissions should be sent to: Jerry Sullivan at gsullivan@ccccd.edu. (N.B. gsullivan). If necessary, they may be sent by regular mail to Jerry Sullivan at: Collin College 2800 E. Spring Creek Parkway Plano, TX 75074 Visit the Society's homepage here: http://people.stu.ca/~cheiron/.

Cfp: ANTHROPOCENTRSM: INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE HISTORY OF AN IDEA.

Anthropocentrism can be a charge of human chauvinism, yet it can also be an acknowledgement of the boundaries of human consciousness; it is in tension with nature, the environment and nonhuman animals; and it is in apparent contrast to other-worldly cosmologies, religions and philosophies. Anthropocentrism has provided order and structure to humans' understanding of the world, while unavoidably expressing the limits of that understanding. It influences our ethics, our politics, and the moral status of others, yet how thoroughly is the concept and its history understood? This collection seeks essays that question the assumptions behind the label anthropocentrism, specifically aiming critically to enquire into presuppositions about the meaning of 'human'. The book will look fundamentally to understand what is anthropos in anthropocentrism. What are the epistemological and ontological problems of charges of anthropocentrism? Are not all human views inherently so? What scope is there for objective, 'ejective' or empathetic views that genuinely, and not merely rhetorically, trump anthropocentrism? In addition, essays may explore the history of anthropocentric ideas and their relation to, or implications for, the nonhuman world. Possible contributions on anthropocentrism include discussions relating to: the moral status of nonhuman animals; the history of theology; spirits, angels and God(s); humanism; creation and/or dominion; the history of science and scientific research (vivisection, Darwinism, etc.); the history of the environment and environmental activism/conservation; concepts of nature. Topics are not place or period limited. The collection as a whole should serve as a course text for classes in intellectual history or the history of philosophy, as well as being pertinent to animal studies, environmental studies, theology and philosophy. Please send abstracts of no more than 500 words, with an accompanying CV to Rob Boddice, boddice@hotmail.co.uk, by May 15th, 2009. For further information, visit: http://independent.academia.edu/RobBoddice.

"Understanding Human Nature: Biological Explanations and Beyond," Department of Philosophy, University of Antwerp, May 11, 2009.

Joint organisation by the Centre for Ethics and the Centre for Philosophical Psychology; sponsored by the Research Foundation - Flanders. The explanation of human behaviour and cognition has become more and more inspired by biological models and evolutionary theory. Are the human sciences becoming the handmaiden of biology (or vice versa)? To answer this question one has to understand better what it means to understand and explain specific aspects of human behaviour and cognition, such as perception, emotions, moral conduct and cultural practices. This symposium wants to stimulate critical reflection on these issues and help to understand what it means to understand and explain human beings. Schedule: 9.15 Welcome 9.30 Filip Buekens, “Evolutionary Psychology and the Calm Sunshine of the Mind” 10.30 Coffee 11.00 Peter Goldie, “Bald Naturalism and the Personal Perspective” 12.00 Fred Keijzer, “Making a difference: Can representations influence biological behavior?” 13.00 – 14.30 Lunch 14.30 Jesse Prinz, “Where does Morality come from?” 15.30 Coffee 16.00 Andreas De Block, “Darwin meets Douglas: Culturally evolving disgust” Further information may be found here: http://www.ua.ac.be/main.aspx?c=*WIJSBEG&n=74156&ct=69169.

Cfp: "Conditions of Freedom," 15th International Philosophy Colloquium Evian, Evian (Lake Geneva), July 12-18, 2009.

The idea of freedom stands at the center of practical philosophy, embedded in a thick web of relations with concepts such as subjectivity, rationality, morality, and existence. It draws its force from the tension between two roles: on the one hand as a fundamental metaphysical or anthropological determination of human beings; on the other as designating a political ideal that can more or less be realized or fail to be realized in concrete forms of life. Rousseau's opening flourish in The Social Contract, "Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains," underlines this tension. In this sense the idea of freedom stands not only practically but also conceptually under complex conditions, which need to be understood in order to grasp what we really mean by "freedom." In this context there is a canonical distinction between two traditions: on one side liberalism, which follows Hobbes in understanding freedom negatively as freedom from physical constraints; and, on the other, the tradition inaugurated by Rousseau and Kant, which critically insists that an increase in real freedom cannot consist merely in more options, but only in autonomy, the freedom to rational and self-determined action. Recently theorists like Raz, Skinner, and Pettit have argued that autonomy is threatened when we are dominated or lack a reasonable range of options. With Hegel, Heidegger, or Merleau-Ponty it can be objected that the idea of autonomy is too abstract and that freedom must be understood as situated freedom, embedded in and developing out of our everyday bodily and practical engagement with the world. Philosophers like Schiller as well as, in different ways, Nietzsche and Foucault have attacked the one-sided rationalism of the notion of autonomy and argued for an aesthetic model of freedom as self-fashioning and self-realization that occurs in a framework of bodily practices and techniques of the self. On the social level, debates over the concept of freedom first and foremost revolve around the question of how a common life of free individuals, a free society, is possible. While the liberal tradition, following for instance Tocqueville and Mill, mainly reflects on how individual freedom can be protected from the encroachments of society, the autonomy tradition, from Hegel to Arendt to Habermas, maintains that individual freedom can only exist in a society of free, self-governing people. But the objection of abstraction is soon raised against this conception as well: Marx points to the persistence of real unfreedom under conditions of exploitation and alienation, despite the realization of formal freedom - an argument taken up by Adorno and Marcuse in the twentieth century that finds echoes in discourses on the situation of excluded voices, like those of (post-)colonial subjects, or the freedom-restricting effects of gender norms (for example by Beauvoir, Butler, and MacKinnon). The question of mediating between the basic liberties of the individual and the collective right to self-determination continues to structure debates in recent French social philosophy (Balibar, Castoriadis, but also Levinas and Nancy) as well as in Anglo-American discussions around authors like Walzer, Taylor, and Fraser. The Fifteenth International Philosophy Colloquium Evian invites philosophers to Lake Geneva to discuss these issues concerning the conditions of freedom. We especially invite contributions that explore the conditions of freedom from (post-)structural, phenomenological, hermeneutic, or (post-)analytical perspectives, as well as the differences and convergences among them. The International Philosophy Colloquium Evian aims especially to encourage its participants to transcend the narrow confines of different traditions in philosophy. It is conceived particularly as a place where the divide between continental and analytic philosophy is overcome, or at least where their differences can be rendered philosophically productive. The passive mastery of French, German, and English (the three languages of discussion of the colloquium) is an indispensable prerequisite for its participants. Visit the conference homepage here: http://www.geisteswissenschaften.fu-berlin.de/we01/arbeitsbereiche/ab_bertram/eviancolloquium/.

Cfp: 10th International Conference on the Study of Persons, University of Nottingham, August 3-7, 2009.

Papers in any area or discipline are welcome, so long as their themes are of concern to the ideas and concepts of persons, personhood, and personality as a philosophical, theological, psychological, social, political, historical, creative or linguistic concern. Papers must not exceed a length of 3000 words and should be prepared for blind review. In the e-mail or letter sent with the submission, we require the following eight items: word count -3000 words maximum author's name academic status (professor, unaffiliated, graduate student) institutional affiliation (if any) mailing address e-mail address the paper's title an abstract -200 words maximum. Submission deadline is MAY 1st, 2009. Abstracts will be accepted on that date, with full texts of paper due by July 1. All submissions which do not include items 2-8 (if only abstract is being submitted) will be disqualified. Word count is due when full paper is submitted. No more than one submission by the same author will be considered. Email as an attachment a copy of your paper and/or abstract in rich text format to: Prof. Randy Auxier, Philosophy Dept, Southern Illinois University, Faner Hall, MC-4505, Carbondale, IL 62901, USA, or to personalist61@yahoo.com; Papers and/or abstracts will be reviewed by a committee. Notification of acceptance will be made via email in late May. For full details of the Conference (accommodation, fees, application and payment, travel to Nottingham, places to visit, etc.) go to www.spcps.org.uk/intlconf.html.

Cfp: "The Tenacity of the Nature/Nurture Divide," Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, March 20-21, 2009.

The formula nature/nurture (Na-Nu) has captured a very basic split in the causal structure we assign to the constitution of the human. The divide determines explanatory strategies in scientific and non-scientific arenas. We aim to further our understanding of the tenacity of this binary distinction by contextualizing it within a large time scale, and through different cultures. This workshop will bring together scientists, historians and philosophers, who will tackle the Na-Nu complex from different and complementary angles and will contribute to the collective answering of questions linked to it. Is there for instance something inevitable about such dramatic dichotomous structure? Why does it seem to recur, under ever new shapes, with every new shift in the life and social sciences? Or has it progressively weakened under the strain of criticism and alternative frames? Are we then witnessing its last incarnations? What would a future con¬ceptual field of humanities and the life sciences look like without such a conceptual and ontological divide? Speakers: Evelyn Fox Keller, Lisa Gannett, Peter Hammerstein, Tim Ingold, Ursula Klein, Geoffrey Lloyd, Federico Navarrete, Eric Turkheimer, Elizabeth Williams. For more information, please visit: http://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/en/news/index.html

CFP: "Science and Human Perspectives: Western and Russian Perspectives," Department of Philosophy, Baylor University, November 16-18, 2008.

For further information, visit the conference homepage: http://www.baylor.edu/philosophy/index.php?id=57776.

Ouma, Steve Odero, and Aakash Singh. "Review of Mary-Jo Delvecchio, et al., eds. POSTCOLONIAL DISORDERS." MOR August 5, 2008.

Delvecchio, Mary-Jo, Sandra Teresa Hyde, Sarah Pinto, and Byron Good, eds. Postcolonial Disorders. Berkeley: U of California P, 2007. The overarching thesis, as articulated in the Editors' Introduction, is that colonialism had a distortive effect on the psyche of the colonized and that this distortion continues to manifest itself in the lives of individuals in the postcolonial world. The Editors begin by defining three key terms: subjectivity, disorders, and postcolonial. The definition of subjectivity provided is curious, however, especially given that it is the focus of the book as a whole. Although the scope of the meaning of subjectivity is at first limited to the quality of being an individual subject of a postcolony, as soon as the reader reaches the first chapter, she finds that the state is also a subject. The focus thus shifts from individual subjectivity to the subjectivity of polities, but the transition is made without the help of the copious traditional scholarly material on the topic. Quite the contrary, reference is made to the deficiencies of the literature on subjectivity, from Foucault's archaeology of the modern subject, through Lacanian analyses of political subjectivity and gender, to Judith Butler's linking of subjectivity and subjection. The irony of such an exercise is that the works referred to are theoretico-philosophical in nature and thus ought not to be measured against the essays in this book, which purport to be ethnographic instead. The term disorders puns on the clinical or psychiatric sense of a malady, as well as referring to the contradiction between the 'order' imposed throughout the colonial experience and that which has prevailed in the postcolonial era. All the authors included in the volume seem to agree on a fundamental axiom, that the contemporary postcolonial situation has been profoundly and determinatively impacted by the colonial regime, which may be characterized by violence, subjugation, appropriation, exploitation, marginalization, and so on. Thus, disorders are to be expected, and postcolonial, then, naturally gets defined in terms of traumatic memory and imposed institutional structures. . . . Read the whole review here: http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=4392.

"The Post/Human Condition," Annual Conference, Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy (ASCP), University of Auckland, December 3–5, 2008.

What is it to be human? The advent of modern science, the industrial revolution, the rise of the modern nation-state, and the development of evolutionary theory conspired to bring about the collapse of traditional understandings of the human condition during the Enlightenment. But recently the modern and postmodern paradigms that emerged out of this period of philosophical upheaval have themselves been put to the test by an unprecedented constellation of phenomena: biotechnologies, globalization, the ecological crisis, and the virtualization of social relations, to name but a few. How then are we to think about the human experience today? What language can we find for it? Indeed, what language would provide not only a descriptive but also the necessary critical perspective on the human condition in the contemporary context? Is the category of “the human” still viable, or should we now speak of “the post-human”? Are we better served by categories such as “animal” or “life”? Are the “de-centering” strategies of postmodernism to be further developed, or is it imperative, as some have maintained, to revive the concept of the “subject”? What is the status of the body and embodiment in an age of technological prosthesis and genetic manipulation? How is the social or “plural” character of human existence to be theorized in view of contemporary patterns and possibilities of familial, economic, and political interaction? What, if anything, has been contributed by the recent “post-secular turn” in philosophy to questions concerning the human condition? And finally, what, if anything, can be said by the philosopher about the “ends” of humanity today? The ASCP 2008 Conference Committee invites proposals for papers exploring these questions or any others of relevance to contemporary philosophical debates concerning the (post-)human condition. Paper proposals in other areas of Continental Philosophy are also welcome. Proposals are also encouraged for topical panels addressing the conference theme and for panels on books by Australasian philosophers. Keynote Speakers:

• Prof. Leonard Lawlor (Penn State)
• Prof. Ewa Ziarek (SUNY Buffalo)
• Prof. David Wills (SUNY Albany)
• A/Prof. Nikolas Kompridis (York)

Conference Streams (draft list):

• Animality and Humanity
• Human/Post-Human
• Bare Life and Biopolitics
• The Posthuman Body
• Merleau-Ponty
• Phenomenology of Life
• Phenomenology and Post-Phenomenology
• Arendt and the Human Condition
• Hegel, Desire, Subjectivity
• Levinas and the Humanism of the Other
• Humanism and Anti-Humanism
• The Legacy of Existentialism
• Comparative Philosophy
• Philosophy & Literature
• A Post-Human Aesthetics?
• Richard Rorty in memoriam
• Philosophy of the Future
• The Human To-Come

Abstract Submissions:

Deadline: Friday, September 19, 2008. Paper and panel proposals should be emailed to Dr Simone Drichel at simone.drichel@stonebow.otago.ac.nz. Please include your name, paper title, an abstract (200 words max), plus up to 5 key words.

Further information will be posted here in due course: http://www.ascp.org.au/conferences.htm.

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.

CFP: "Self, Identity and Culture: East and West," Society for Indian Philosophy, Kolkata, India, January 6-9, 2009.

Some Suggested Topics: Self and Personal Identity, Artificial Intelligence, Reductionist Theory, Empirical Self and Transcendental Self, Cultural Self, Self, Culture and Globalization, Tradition and Modernity, Dualism, Parallelism, Materialism, Split Personality, Individualism and Collectivism, Society, Culture and Religion, Personal Immortality, Cybernic Immortality, Immortality and Freedom, Yoga and Self realization, Atman and Brahman, Self-Consciousness and Identity, Consciousness and Unconsciousness, Cultural Relativism, Deconstructionism, Culture and Meaning. Selected papers from the conference will be published (subject to editorial review) in a special volume of the Journal of Indian Philosophy and Religion. Advisory Board: Kisor K. Chakrabarti (USA), Kate Bemis (USA), Wayne Borody (Canada), Thomas Brooke (UK), Linda B. Elder (USA), Ashoke Kumar Ganguly (India), Gordon Hais t (USA), Laurent Metzer (France), Isaac Nevo (Israel), David Rose (UK), G. T. Smith (USA), Andrew Ward (UK), Bill Wyllie (UK). Special arrangements have been made with local hotels for a limited number of hotels at a special conference rate. There will be also two trips for conference participants and interested scholars before and after the conference. "Encounter India" program will be offered before and after the conference. Kindly visit our web page for details. Detail information about publication of papers, hotel booking, registration, pre-conference and post-conference trip will be available on December 5, 2007. In addition to the main program, the meeting will also host book launches,artistic and cultural activities, exhibitions, plenty of space and opportunity for informal networking and alliance building. If you are interested to submit a paper proposal, please send by email an abstract (150 words)by February 5, 2008. Please include title of your paper, Full Name, Current affiliation, phone number and an email address. If you want to participate without presenting a paper, i.e., chair a session, organize a panel, conduct a round table session or any other offer please get in touch with Dr. Chandana Chakrabarti, Director Center for Spirituality, Ethics and Global Awareness, PO Box M, Bethany, WV 26032. Email: Chandana Chakrabarti cchakrabarti@bethanywv.edu; cchakrabarti@yPhone; Tel.: 304-829-752, Fax: 304-829-7926.

CFP: "What is Masculinity? How Useful is It as a Historical Category?" Birkbeck College, University of London, May 14-16, 2008.

In recent years, there has been an explosion in scholarship that questions masculinity in history. This vibrant new approach has incorporated many different theoretical and empirical considerations in historical scholarship. This conference, to be held at Birkbeck College, University of London on 14th, 15th & 16th May 2008, fosters discussion across fields and time period specialism. We have groundbreaking papers in contemporary and modern, early modern, medieval, Classical, Ancient and non-western history, from historians throughout the world who are working in the general field of masculinity studies. The conference will provide discussion of the latest thinking, debates and contention in this field, that it will serve as a review of 'where we are now' in terms of scholarship in the field of masculinity studies. There will be three plenary lectures, by John Tosh (Modern), Alexandra Shepard (Early Modern) and Ruth Mazo Karras (Medieval), and a Round Table discussion with Harry Brod (Philosophy), Thomas Hubbard (Classics) and the three plenary speakers. Read the rest of the CFP here: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/hca/about/conferences/whatismasculinityconference.