The University of Hull
6th – 8th January 2016
Call for Papers
The grief-stricken faces at Edward’s deathbed in the Bayeux Tapestry; the ambiguous ‘ofermod’ in The Battle of Maldon; the body-crumpling anguish of the Virgin witnessing the Man of Sorrows; the mirth of the Green Knight; the apoplectic anger of the mystery plays’ Herod and the visceral visionary experiences of Margery of Kempe all testify to the ways in which the medieval world sought to express, perform, idealise and understand emotion.
Yet while such expressions of emotion are frequently encountered by medievalists working across the disciplines, defining, quantifying and analysing the purposes of emotion often proves difficult. Are personal items placed in early Anglo Saxon graves a means for the living to let go of, or perpetuate emotion? Do different literary and historical forms lend themselves to diverse ways of expressing emotion? How does a character expressing emotion on stage or in artwork use both body and articulation to communicate emotion to their viewer? Moreover, is emotion viewed differently depending on the gendered identity of the body expressing it? Is emotion and its reception used to construct, deconstruct, challenge or confirm gender identities?
This conference seeks to explore the manifestations, performances and functions of emotion in the early to late Middle Ages, and to examine the ways in which emotion is gendered and used to construct gender identities.
Proposals are now being accepted for 20 minute papers. Topics to consider may include, but are not limited to:
- Gender and emotional expression: representing and performing emotion
- The emotional body
- Philosophies of emotion: theory and morality
- Emotional objects and vessels of emotion
- Language and emotion and the languages of emotion
- Preserving or perpetuating emotion
- Emotions to be dealt with: repressing, curtailing, channelling, transforming
- Forbidden emotion
- Living through (someone else’s) emotion
- The emotions of war and peace
- The emotive ‘other’
- Place and emotion
- Queer emotion
We welcome scholars from a range of disciplines, including history, literature, art history, archaeology and drama. A travel fund is available for postgraduate students who would otherwise be unable to attend.
Please email proposals of no more than 300 words to organiser Daisy Black by the 7th September 2015. All queries should also be directed to this address. Please also include biographical information detailing your name, research area, institution and level of study (if applicable).
Further details will soon be available on the conference website.
Showing posts with label interdisciplinary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label interdisciplinary. Show all posts
Monday, 17 August 2015
Thursday, 3 April 2014
CFP: 'To Die Would be an Awfully Big Adventure': The Glory and the Gore of Death and Horror Through the Ages
Bangor University, UK
Friday 6 June 2014
Abstracts are now being invited for the 10th annual Medievalism Transformed conference at Bangor University, a one-day interdisciplinary event sponsored by the School of English Literature. We will be convening to explore the medieval world and its sustained impact on subsequent culture and thought.
Papers are welcome from all disciplines related to medieval studies as well as modern expressions of medievalism. All topics within the general scope of the conference will be considered, including:
• Preparing for death
• Dying well
• Limbo / Purgatory
• Underworld
• Disease / Black Death / Medicine
• Ghosts
• The Occult / Cults
• The grotesque
• Apocalypse
• Saints / Martyrdom
• Theme of horror in medieval literature
Your proposal for a 20-minute paper should be no longer than 300 words. Please make submissions electronically to the conference convenors by 18 April. Proposals should be accompanied by your name, institutional affiliation, email address, and contact information. Please also specify any audio / visual requirements.
Letters of acceptance will be sent via email unless a hard copy is requested.
Friday 6 June 2014
Abstracts are now being invited for the 10th annual Medievalism Transformed conference at Bangor University, a one-day interdisciplinary event sponsored by the School of English Literature. We will be convening to explore the medieval world and its sustained impact on subsequent culture and thought.
Papers are welcome from all disciplines related to medieval studies as well as modern expressions of medievalism. All topics within the general scope of the conference will be considered, including:
• Preparing for death
• Dying well
• Limbo / Purgatory
• Underworld
• Disease / Black Death / Medicine
• Ghosts
• The Occult / Cults
• The grotesque
• Apocalypse
• Saints / Martyrdom
• Theme of horror in medieval literature
Your proposal for a 20-minute paper should be no longer than 300 words. Please make submissions electronically to the conference convenors by 18 April. Proposals should be accompanied by your name, institutional affiliation, email address, and contact information. Please also specify any audio / visual requirements.
Letters of acceptance will be sent via email unless a hard copy is requested.
Sunday, 9 February 2014
CFP: North Texas Medieval Graduate Student Symposium
8th Annual University of North Texas
Medieval Graduate Student Symposium
October 2nd, 2014
Interdisciplinarity in the Age of Relevance
We are happy to announce that the College of Visual Arts and Design of the University of North Texas in Denton Texas will be sponsoring our 8th Annual Medieval Graduate Student Symposium on Thursday October 2nd, 2014. Details can be found on the UNT symposium website.
This year the Symposium will be held in conjunction with the annual conference of the Texas Medieval Association, October 3-4, 2014. All Symposium participants are invited to attend TEMA’s meetings free of charge.
General Theme: “Interdisciplinarity in the Age of Relevance”
Keynote Speakers:
· Dr. Barbara Rosenwein, Loyola University, Chicago: "Jean Gerson's Interdisciplinary Theory of Emotions"
· Dr. Bruce Holsinger, University of Virginia: "Voice/Text/Character: Historical Fiction in the Archives"
Discussant:
· Dr. Joan Holladay, University of Texas, Austin
Call for Papers
While we will entertain papers on any topic, from any discipline of Medieval Studies — Art History, Religion, Philosophy, English, History, Foreign Languages, Music — we particularly welcome those that engage the multifaceted topic of “Interdisciplinarity in the Age of Relevance.” We encourage submission of papers that have been submitted and/or delivered elsewhere.
Travel subvention of $300 will be awarded to the best paper.
Deadline for submission of a 300 word abstract is June 1, 2014. Selected full papers will be due September 15th, 2014.
Paper Abstracts of 300 words should be sent to Mickey Abel
Medieval Graduate Student Symposium
October 2nd, 2014
Interdisciplinarity in the Age of Relevance
We are happy to announce that the College of Visual Arts and Design of the University of North Texas in Denton Texas will be sponsoring our 8th Annual Medieval Graduate Student Symposium on Thursday October 2nd, 2014. Details can be found on the UNT symposium website.
This year the Symposium will be held in conjunction with the annual conference of the Texas Medieval Association, October 3-4, 2014. All Symposium participants are invited to attend TEMA’s meetings free of charge.
General Theme: “Interdisciplinarity in the Age of Relevance”
Keynote Speakers:
· Dr. Barbara Rosenwein, Loyola University, Chicago: "Jean Gerson's Interdisciplinary Theory of Emotions"
· Dr. Bruce Holsinger, University of Virginia: "Voice/Text/Character: Historical Fiction in the Archives"
Discussant:
· Dr. Joan Holladay, University of Texas, Austin
Call for Papers
While we will entertain papers on any topic, from any discipline of Medieval Studies — Art History, Religion, Philosophy, English, History, Foreign Languages, Music — we particularly welcome those that engage the multifaceted topic of “Interdisciplinarity in the Age of Relevance.” We encourage submission of papers that have been submitted and/or delivered elsewhere.
Travel subvention of $300 will be awarded to the best paper.
Deadline for submission of a 300 word abstract is June 1, 2014. Selected full papers will be due September 15th, 2014.
Paper Abstracts of 300 words should be sent to Mickey Abel
Thursday, 18 July 2013
CFP: 15th Global Conference: Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness
Saturday 22nd March – Monday 24th March 2014, Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Presentations
This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary conference seeks to examine and explore issues surrounding evil and human wickedness. In wrestling with evil(s) we are confronted with a multi-layered phenomenon which invites people from all disciplines, professions and vocations to come together in dialogue and wrestle with questions that cross the boundaries of the intellectual, the emotional and the personal. Underlying these efforts there is the sense that in grappling with evil we are in fact grappling with questions and issues of our own humanity.
The complex nature of evil is reflected in this call for presentations: in recognising that no one approach or perspective can adequately do justice to what we mean by evil, so there is an equal recognition that no one form of presentation ought to take priority over others. We solicit contributions which may be
~ papers, panels, workshops, reports
~ case studies
~ performance pieces; dramatic readings; poetic renditions; short stories; creative writings
~ works of art; works of music
We will also consider other forms of contribution. Successful proposals will normally be given a 20 minute presentation space. Perspectives are sought from all academic disciplines along with, for example, those working in the caring professions, journalism, the media, the military, prison services, politics, psychiatry and other work-related, ngo and vocational areas.
Key themes for reflection may include, but are not limited to:
-what is evil?
-is there ‘new’ evil, or are evil acts/events pretty much the same across time with only our interpretive lenses changing as cultures shift?
-the nature and sources of evil and human wickedness
-evil animals? Wicked creatures?
-the places and spaces of evil
-crimes, criminals and justice
-psychopathic behaviour – mad or bad?
-villains, wicked characters and heroes
-vice and virtue
-choice, responsibility, and diminished responsibility
-social and cultural reactions to evil and human wickedness
-political evils; evil, power and the state
-evil and gender; evil and the feminine
-evil children
-hell, hells, damnation: evil and the afterlife
-the portrayal of evil and human wickedness in the media and popular culture
-suffering in literature and film
-individual acts of evil, group violence, holocaust and genocide; obligations of bystanders
-terrorism, war, ethnic cleansing
-fear, terror, horror
-the search for meaning and sense in evil and human wickedness
-the nature and tasks of theodicy
-religious understandings of evil and human wickedness
-postmodern approaches to evil and human wickedness
-ecocriticism, evil and suffering
-evil and the use/abuse of technology; evil in cyberspace
The Steering Group also welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals.
What to Send
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 10th October 2013. All submissions are at least double blind peer reviewed. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 17th January 2014. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to the Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract f) up to 10 key words
E-mails should be entitled: Evil15 Abstract Submission.
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 to 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.
Organising Chairs
Stephen Morris
Rob Fisher
The conference is part of the At the Interface programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Call for Presentations
This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary conference seeks to examine and explore issues surrounding evil and human wickedness. In wrestling with evil(s) we are confronted with a multi-layered phenomenon which invites people from all disciplines, professions and vocations to come together in dialogue and wrestle with questions that cross the boundaries of the intellectual, the emotional and the personal. Underlying these efforts there is the sense that in grappling with evil we are in fact grappling with questions and issues of our own humanity.
The complex nature of evil is reflected in this call for presentations: in recognising that no one approach or perspective can adequately do justice to what we mean by evil, so there is an equal recognition that no one form of presentation ought to take priority over others. We solicit contributions which may be
~ papers, panels, workshops, reports
~ case studies
~ performance pieces; dramatic readings; poetic renditions; short stories; creative writings
~ works of art; works of music
We will also consider other forms of contribution. Successful proposals will normally be given a 20 minute presentation space. Perspectives are sought from all academic disciplines along with, for example, those working in the caring professions, journalism, the media, the military, prison services, politics, psychiatry and other work-related, ngo and vocational areas.
Key themes for reflection may include, but are not limited to:
-what is evil?
-is there ‘new’ evil, or are evil acts/events pretty much the same across time with only our interpretive lenses changing as cultures shift?
-the nature and sources of evil and human wickedness
-evil animals? Wicked creatures?
-the places and spaces of evil
-crimes, criminals and justice
-psychopathic behaviour – mad or bad?
-villains, wicked characters and heroes
-vice and virtue
-choice, responsibility, and diminished responsibility
-social and cultural reactions to evil and human wickedness
-political evils; evil, power and the state
-evil and gender; evil and the feminine
-evil children
-hell, hells, damnation: evil and the afterlife
-the portrayal of evil and human wickedness in the media and popular culture
-suffering in literature and film
-individual acts of evil, group violence, holocaust and genocide; obligations of bystanders
-terrorism, war, ethnic cleansing
-fear, terror, horror
-the search for meaning and sense in evil and human wickedness
-the nature and tasks of theodicy
-religious understandings of evil and human wickedness
-postmodern approaches to evil and human wickedness
-ecocriticism, evil and suffering
-evil and the use/abuse of technology; evil in cyberspace
The Steering Group also welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals.
What to Send
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 10th October 2013. All submissions are at least double blind peer reviewed. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 17th January 2014. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to the Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract f) up to 10 key words
E-mails should be entitled: Evil15 Abstract Submission.
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 to 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.
Organising Chairs
Stephen Morris
Rob Fisher
The conference is part of the At the Interface programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Friday, 1 March 2013
Registration Open: Cannibals: Cannibalism, Consumption and Culture
Kanaris Lecture Theatre and Conference Room
Manchester Museum, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom
Thursday 25th April – Friday 26th April 2013
Registration is now open for the Hic Dragones Cannibals: Cannibalism, Consumption and Culture conference. For information about how to register, please visit the conference website.
Conference Programme
Thursday 25th April
9.15-9.45am: Registration
9.45-10.00am: Welcome and Opening Remarks (Kanaris Lecture Theatre)
10.00-11.30am: Session 1: Cultural/Cannibal Encounters (Kanaris Lecture Theatre)
Chair: TBC
(i) Sarah-Louise Flowers (University of Manchester): Consuming Local Tradition: How Outsiders Have Left the Amazon’s Dead Cold and Lonely
(ii) Ruth (Meg) Oldman (Indiana University of Pennsylvania): Preying Upon Blood: Depictions of Catholics in Early Modern Literature
(iii) Michelle Green (University of Nottingham): The Wendigo Cannibal and the ‘Myth’ of Diabetes in Native American Groups
11.30-12.00am: Coffee
12.00-1.30pm: Parallel Sessions
Session 2a: Theorizing Cannibal Culture (Kanaris Lecture Theatre)
Chair: TBC
(i) Sandra Bowdler (University of Western Australia): ‘Cannibalism is Bad’
(ii) Kamil Łacina and Dagna Skrzypinska (Jagiellonian University, Krokow): Bon Appetit! A Concise Defense of Cannibalism
(iii) Suzanne Stuart (University of South Wales, Australia): A Very Particular ‘Consumer Culture’: Theorising Cannibalism in Cultural Discourse
Manchester Museum, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom
Thursday 25th April – Friday 26th April 2013
Registration is now open for the Hic Dragones Cannibals: Cannibalism, Consumption and Culture conference. For information about how to register, please visit the conference website.
Conference Programme
Thursday 25th April
9.15-9.45am: Registration
9.45-10.00am: Welcome and Opening Remarks (Kanaris Lecture Theatre)
10.00-11.30am: Session 1: Cultural/Cannibal Encounters (Kanaris Lecture Theatre)
Chair: TBC
(i) Sarah-Louise Flowers (University of Manchester): Consuming Local Tradition: How Outsiders Have Left the Amazon’s Dead Cold and Lonely
(ii) Ruth (Meg) Oldman (Indiana University of Pennsylvania): Preying Upon Blood: Depictions of Catholics in Early Modern Literature
(iii) Michelle Green (University of Nottingham): The Wendigo Cannibal and the ‘Myth’ of Diabetes in Native American Groups
11.30-12.00am: Coffee
12.00-1.30pm: Parallel Sessions
Session 2a: Theorizing Cannibal Culture (Kanaris Lecture Theatre)
Chair: TBC
(i) Sandra Bowdler (University of Western Australia): ‘Cannibalism is Bad’
(ii) Kamil Łacina and Dagna Skrzypinska (Jagiellonian University, Krokow): Bon Appetit! A Concise Defense of Cannibalism
(iii) Suzanne Stuart (University of South Wales, Australia): A Very Particular ‘Consumer Culture’: Theorising Cannibalism in Cultural Discourse
Wednesday, 31 October 2012
CFP: 2nd Global Conference: Apocalypse: Imagining the End
Wednesday 10th July–Friday 12th July 2013
Mansfield College, Oxford
Call for Presentations:
From Christian concept of the ‘Apocalypse’ to the Hindu notions of the Kali Yuga, visions of destruction and fantasies of the ‘end times’ have a long history. In the last few years, public media, especially in the West, have been suffused with images of the end times and afterward, from the zombie apocalypse (the AMC series The Walking Dead) to life after the collapse of civilization (the NBC series Revolution.) Several popular television series and video games (Deep Earth Bunker) are now based on preparing for and surviving the end of the world. Once a fringe activity, ‘survivalism’ has gone mainstream, and a growing industry supplies ‘doomsday preppers’ with all they need to the post-apocalyptic chaos. One purpose of the conference is to explore these ideas by situating them in context — psychological, historical, literary, cultural, political, and economic. The second aim of conference is to examine today’s widespread fascination the apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic thought, and to understand its rising appeal across broad sections of contemporary society around the world.
This interdisciplinary project welcomes presentations from all disciplines and research areas, including anthropology, psychoanalysis, political economy, psychology, area studies, communal studies, environmental studies, history, sociology, religion, theology, and gender studies.
Presentations,papers, performances, reports, work-in-progress, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to (but not limited to) the following themes:
- Decline, Collapse, Decay, Disease, Mass Death
- Survivalism and Doomsday Preppers
- Revolution
- Theories of Social Change
- Peak Oil, Resource Depletion, Global Warming, Economic Collapse
- The Second Coming/Millenarianism/Rapture
- The Hindu Kali Yuga
- Sex and Gender at the End of Time
- Ironic and/or Anti-Apocalyptic Thinking
- Utopia and Dystopia
- Intentional Communities as Communities of the End Times
- Selling the Apocalypse, Commodifying Disaster, and Marketing the End Times
- Death Tourism and Disaster Capitalism
- The Age of Terror
- Zombies, Vampires, and Werewolves in Post-Apocalyptic Fiction
- Disaster Fiction/Movies/Video Games
- History as Apocalypse
- Remembering and Reliving the Collapse of the Western Roman Empire
What to send:
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 8th February 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 10th May 2013. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: Apocalypse2 Abstract Submission.
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 to 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.
Organising Chairs:
Charles W. Nuckolls
Rob Fisher
The conference is part of the ‘Ethos’ series of research projects, which in turn belong to the Critical Issues programmes of ID.Net. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and challenging. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be published in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into 20-25 page chapters for publication in a themed dialogic ISBN hard copy volume.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Mansfield College, Oxford
Call for Presentations:
From Christian concept of the ‘Apocalypse’ to the Hindu notions of the Kali Yuga, visions of destruction and fantasies of the ‘end times’ have a long history. In the last few years, public media, especially in the West, have been suffused with images of the end times and afterward, from the zombie apocalypse (the AMC series The Walking Dead) to life after the collapse of civilization (the NBC series Revolution.) Several popular television series and video games (Deep Earth Bunker) are now based on preparing for and surviving the end of the world. Once a fringe activity, ‘survivalism’ has gone mainstream, and a growing industry supplies ‘doomsday preppers’ with all they need to the post-apocalyptic chaos. One purpose of the conference is to explore these ideas by situating them in context — psychological, historical, literary, cultural, political, and economic. The second aim of conference is to examine today’s widespread fascination the apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic thought, and to understand its rising appeal across broad sections of contemporary society around the world.
This interdisciplinary project welcomes presentations from all disciplines and research areas, including anthropology, psychoanalysis, political economy, psychology, area studies, communal studies, environmental studies, history, sociology, religion, theology, and gender studies.
Presentations,papers, performances, reports, work-in-progress, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to (but not limited to) the following themes:
- Decline, Collapse, Decay, Disease, Mass Death
- Survivalism and Doomsday Preppers
- Revolution
- Theories of Social Change
- Peak Oil, Resource Depletion, Global Warming, Economic Collapse
- The Second Coming/Millenarianism/Rapture
- The Hindu Kali Yuga
- Sex and Gender at the End of Time
- Ironic and/or Anti-Apocalyptic Thinking
- Utopia and Dystopia
- Intentional Communities as Communities of the End Times
- Selling the Apocalypse, Commodifying Disaster, and Marketing the End Times
- Death Tourism and Disaster Capitalism
- The Age of Terror
- Zombies, Vampires, and Werewolves in Post-Apocalyptic Fiction
- Disaster Fiction/Movies/Video Games
- History as Apocalypse
- Remembering and Reliving the Collapse of the Western Roman Empire
What to send:
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 8th February 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 10th May 2013. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: Apocalypse2 Abstract Submission.
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 to 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.
Organising Chairs:
Charles W. Nuckolls
Rob Fisher
The conference is part of the ‘Ethos’ series of research projects, which in turn belong to the Critical Issues programmes of ID.Net. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and challenging. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be published in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into 20-25 page chapters for publication in a themed dialogic ISBN hard copy volume.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
CFP: 4th Global Conference: Revenge
Sunday 14th July–Tuesday 16th July 2013
Mansfield College, Oxford
Call for Presentations:
Confucius is said to have remarked, ‘Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves,’ implying that revenge cannot be undertaken without recursive deleterious effects on the revenging agent. This is the view that revenge is at best counterproductive, or that seeking it runs counter to the ethical mandate that one turn the other cheek. Does that mean that vengeful motives are out of place in seeking justice for real wrongs? Should the law attempt to exclude vengeance-seeking? Do some economic or political systems tolerate, or even require, elaborate systems of revenge? Not all societies, of course, would agree that revenge is ethically problematic; some would define revenge as a necessary component in social relationships, even as a method for connecting people across time or over distances. Traditional grudges are commonplace in places as cultural different from each as the Swat Valley (Pakistan) and the American Southeast. Given all this, is is even possible to come up with a universally relevant concept of revenge that would make comparison possible?
This multi-disciplinary research and publications project seeks to explore the different ideas, actions, and cultural traditions of vengeance or revenge. The project explores the nature of revenge, its relationship with issues of justice, economy, and social organization, and its manifestation in the actions of individuals, cultures, communities and nations. We will also consider the history and political economy of revenge, its ‘legitimacy,’ the ‘scale’ of vengeful actions, and whether or not revenge has (or should have) ‘limits.’ Representations of revenge in film, literature, law, television, and cultural performances will be analysed; cultural ‘traditions’ of retaliation and revenge will be considered. And the role of mercy, forgiveness and pardon will be assessed.
Presentations will be considered on the following or related themes:
- Philosophies of revenge
- Revenge and political economy
- Revenge in the philsophies of East and South Asia: Confucian and Hindu perspectives
- Revenge in Maori culture
- Vengeance and gender
- Vengeance in history, literature, and popular culture
- Revenge cross-culturally
- Is there any proper and improper time for revenge? Can an act of revenge be carried across generations?
- Revenge, vengeance, retaliation
- Justice and revenge
- Betrayal, humiliation, shame, resentment, and revenge
- Revenge and the individual; revenge and the group; revenge and the nation; revenge and capitalism
- Revenge in music and the arts
- Revenge in television, film, radio and theatre
- Relationship between revenge and mercy, forgiveness, pardon
- Revenge case-studies: individual, cultural, and historical
The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals.
What to send:
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 8th February 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 10th May 2013. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 key words
E-mails should be entitled: REV4 Abstract Submission.
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 to 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:
Charles W. Nuckolls
Rob Fisher
The conference is part of the Probing the Boundaries programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers maybe invited for development for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s).
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Mansfield College, Oxford
Call for Presentations:
Confucius is said to have remarked, ‘Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves,’ implying that revenge cannot be undertaken without recursive deleterious effects on the revenging agent. This is the view that revenge is at best counterproductive, or that seeking it runs counter to the ethical mandate that one turn the other cheek. Does that mean that vengeful motives are out of place in seeking justice for real wrongs? Should the law attempt to exclude vengeance-seeking? Do some economic or political systems tolerate, or even require, elaborate systems of revenge? Not all societies, of course, would agree that revenge is ethically problematic; some would define revenge as a necessary component in social relationships, even as a method for connecting people across time or over distances. Traditional grudges are commonplace in places as cultural different from each as the Swat Valley (Pakistan) and the American Southeast. Given all this, is is even possible to come up with a universally relevant concept of revenge that would make comparison possible?
This multi-disciplinary research and publications project seeks to explore the different ideas, actions, and cultural traditions of vengeance or revenge. The project explores the nature of revenge, its relationship with issues of justice, economy, and social organization, and its manifestation in the actions of individuals, cultures, communities and nations. We will also consider the history and political economy of revenge, its ‘legitimacy,’ the ‘scale’ of vengeful actions, and whether or not revenge has (or should have) ‘limits.’ Representations of revenge in film, literature, law, television, and cultural performances will be analysed; cultural ‘traditions’ of retaliation and revenge will be considered. And the role of mercy, forgiveness and pardon will be assessed.
Presentations will be considered on the following or related themes:
- Philosophies of revenge
- Revenge and political economy
- Revenge in the philsophies of East and South Asia: Confucian and Hindu perspectives
- Revenge in Maori culture
- Vengeance and gender
- Vengeance in history, literature, and popular culture
- Revenge cross-culturally
- Is there any proper and improper time for revenge? Can an act of revenge be carried across generations?
- Revenge, vengeance, retaliation
- Justice and revenge
- Betrayal, humiliation, shame, resentment, and revenge
- Revenge and the individual; revenge and the group; revenge and the nation; revenge and capitalism
- Revenge in music and the arts
- Revenge in television, film, radio and theatre
- Relationship between revenge and mercy, forgiveness, pardon
- Revenge case-studies: individual, cultural, and historical
The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals.
What to send:
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 8th February 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 10th May 2013. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 key words
E-mails should be entitled: REV4 Abstract Submission.
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 to 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:
Charles W. Nuckolls
Rob Fisher
The conference is part of the Probing the Boundaries programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers maybe invited for development for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s).
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Wednesday, 5 September 2012
CFP: 4th Global Conference: Storytelling
Tuesday 21st May – Friday 24th May 2013
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Presentations
Human life is conducted through story, which comes naturally to us. Sharing stories is arguably the most important way we have of communicating with others about who we are and what we believe; about what we are doing and have done; about our hopes and fears; about what we value and what we don’t. We learn about and make sense of our lives by telling the stories that we live; and we learn about other lives by listening to the stories told by others. Sometimes, under the influence of the culture in which we are immersed, we live our lives in ways that try to create the stories we want to be able to tell about them.
Members of many professions, including medicine, nursing, teaching, the law, psychotherapy and counseling, spend a great deal of their time listening to and communicating through stories. Story is a powerful tool for teachers, because it is a good way of enabling students and other learners to integrate what they are learning with what they already know, and of placing what is learned in a context that makes it easy to recall. Story plays an important role in academic disciplines like philosophy, theology, anthropology, archaeology, history as well as literature Narrative methods for the collection of data are increasingly used in research in the social sciences and humanities, where the value of getting to know people in a more intimate and less distant way – almost as if we are getting to know them from the inside, begins to be viewed as having some value. Some academics have begun to realise the value of storytelling as a model for academic writing.
Most of us have lots of experience of relating to other lives through narrative forms, including the nursery stories we encounter as children; the books we read and the movies we watch. When we are moved by a play or a film or by a novel, we are moved because we begin imaginatively to live the lives of the characters that inhabit them. If we are lucky we will encounter as we grow up, fictional stories that stay with us like old friends, throughout our lives that we will revisit again and again as a way coming to terms with and responding to experiences in our own lives.
Storytelling: global reflections on narrative, will provide a space in which stories about story can be told, and in which the use of stories in the widest possible range of aspects of human life, can be reported. Abstracts are invited for individual contributions and for symposia of three closely related papers. They may address any aspect of story or narrative, including, for example:
Story as a pedagogical tool in academic disciplines such as history; anthropology, psychology, theology, cultural theory, medicine, law, philosophy, education, and archaeology.
Narrative and the gathering of stories of lived experience, as a research approach in any area of academic, professional and public life.
The place of story and storytelling in the practice of journalism; PR advertising; conflict resolution; architecture; religion; tourism, politics and the law, and in clinical contexts such as medicine, psychotherapy, nursing and counseling.
Finally abstracts may feature storytelling in any aspect of culture, including music (from opera to heavy metal, folk and sacred music); fine art; theatre; literature; cinema and digital storytelling.
Alongside traditional conference papers, participants are invited to propose presentations of other kinds including, for example, theatrical performance or song, or workshops aimed at engaging participants in active learning about story and its possibilities.
The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers will also be considered on any related theme.
What to Send:
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th November 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 15th February 2013 Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: STORY4 Abstract Submission.
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 to 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.
Organising Chairs
Gavin J Fairbairn
Rob Fisher
The conference is part of the Persons series of ongoing research and publications projects conferences, run within the Probing the Boundaries domain which aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore innovative and challenging routes of intellectual and academic exploration.
All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume. All publications from the conference will require editors, to be chosen from interested delegates from the conference.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Presentations
Human life is conducted through story, which comes naturally to us. Sharing stories is arguably the most important way we have of communicating with others about who we are and what we believe; about what we are doing and have done; about our hopes and fears; about what we value and what we don’t. We learn about and make sense of our lives by telling the stories that we live; and we learn about other lives by listening to the stories told by others. Sometimes, under the influence of the culture in which we are immersed, we live our lives in ways that try to create the stories we want to be able to tell about them.
Members of many professions, including medicine, nursing, teaching, the law, psychotherapy and counseling, spend a great deal of their time listening to and communicating through stories. Story is a powerful tool for teachers, because it is a good way of enabling students and other learners to integrate what they are learning with what they already know, and of placing what is learned in a context that makes it easy to recall. Story plays an important role in academic disciplines like philosophy, theology, anthropology, archaeology, history as well as literature Narrative methods for the collection of data are increasingly used in research in the social sciences and humanities, where the value of getting to know people in a more intimate and less distant way – almost as if we are getting to know them from the inside, begins to be viewed as having some value. Some academics have begun to realise the value of storytelling as a model for academic writing.
Most of us have lots of experience of relating to other lives through narrative forms, including the nursery stories we encounter as children; the books we read and the movies we watch. When we are moved by a play or a film or by a novel, we are moved because we begin imaginatively to live the lives of the characters that inhabit them. If we are lucky we will encounter as we grow up, fictional stories that stay with us like old friends, throughout our lives that we will revisit again and again as a way coming to terms with and responding to experiences in our own lives.
Storytelling: global reflections on narrative, will provide a space in which stories about story can be told, and in which the use of stories in the widest possible range of aspects of human life, can be reported. Abstracts are invited for individual contributions and for symposia of three closely related papers. They may address any aspect of story or narrative, including, for example:
Story as a pedagogical tool in academic disciplines such as history; anthropology, psychology, theology, cultural theory, medicine, law, philosophy, education, and archaeology.
Narrative and the gathering of stories of lived experience, as a research approach in any area of academic, professional and public life.
The place of story and storytelling in the practice of journalism; PR advertising; conflict resolution; architecture; religion; tourism, politics and the law, and in clinical contexts such as medicine, psychotherapy, nursing and counseling.
Finally abstracts may feature storytelling in any aspect of culture, including music (from opera to heavy metal, folk and sacred music); fine art; theatre; literature; cinema and digital storytelling.
Alongside traditional conference papers, participants are invited to propose presentations of other kinds including, for example, theatrical performance or song, or workshops aimed at engaging participants in active learning about story and its possibilities.
The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers will also be considered on any related theme.
What to Send:
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th November 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 15th February 2013 Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: STORY4 Abstract Submission.
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 to 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.
Organising Chairs
Gavin J Fairbairn
Rob Fisher
The conference is part of the Persons series of ongoing research and publications projects conferences, run within the Probing the Boundaries domain which aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore innovative and challenging routes of intellectual and academic exploration.
All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume. All publications from the conference will require editors, to be chosen from interested delegates from the conference.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
CFP: 2nd Global Conference: Monstrous Geographies
Wednesday 15th May – Friday 17th May 2013
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Presentations:
What is the relationship between the monstrous and the geographic? From ‘Aristotelian’ spaces – as containers of monsters and the monstrous – to ‘Leibnizian’ spaces, where the monstrous emerges from the topological relation between events and localities, monstrous geographies have always haunted the human cultural imagination. From the Necropolis to the Killing Fields and from the Amityville Horror to the island of Dr. Moreau, geographical locations may act as the repository or emanation of human evil, made monstrous by the rituals and behaviours enacted within them, or by their peculiarities of atmosphere or configuration. Whether actual or imagined, these places of wonder, fear and horror speak of the symbiotic relation between humanity and location that sees morality, ideology and emotions given physical form in the house, the forest, the island, the nation and even far away worlds in both space and time. They may engage notions of self and otherness, inclusion and exclusion, normal and aberrant, defence and contagion; may act as magnets for destructive and evil forces, such as the island of Manhattan; they are the source of malevolent energies and forces, such as Transylvania, Area 51 and Ringu; and they are the fulcrum for chaotic, warping energies, such as the Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis and Pandemonium. Alongside this, there exist the monstrous geographies created by scientific experimentation, human waste and environmental accidents, creating sites of potential and actual disaster such as the Chernobyl nuclear plant, the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the BP oil disaster, and the devastated coastline of Tohuku, Japan. These places raise diverse post-human quandaries regarding necessities in the present leading to real or imagined futures of humanity and habitation.
Encompassing the factual and the fictional, the literal and the literary, this project investigates the very particular relationships and interactions between humanity and place, the natural and the unnatural, the familiar and the unfamiliar, and sees a multitude of configurations of human monstrosity and evil projected, inflicted, or immanent to place. Such monstrous geographies can be seen to emerge from the disparity between past and present, memory and modernity, urban and rural and can be expressed through categories of class, gender and racial difference as well as generational, political and religious tensions.
Presentations, papers, reports, performances, work-in-progress, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to any of the following themes:
Monstrous Cartographies
~Terra incognita
~Real and Mythic lost lands: eg., Atlantis, D’yss, and Shangri-La
~Utopias/Dystopias, future cities in time and space
~Malevolent regions: eg., Lemuria, Bermuda Triangle, Transylvania
~Sublime landscapes
~Bodies as maps and maps as bodies, eg. Prison Break
Monstrous Islands
~As sites of experimentation. Dr. Moreau, Jurassic Park etc As a beacon for evil: eg., Manhattan in Godzilla and Cloverfield
~As site of ritual evil and incest: eg., Wicker Man, Pitkin Islands, Isle of the Dead
~Imperialist intent and construction: eg., Prospero’s Island, Hong Kong, Hashima
Monstrous Cosmographies
~Evil planets and dimensions
~Comets, meteorites and beings from unknown worlds
~Worlds as dark reflections/twins of Earth
~Planets and alien landscapes that consume and mutate earthly travelers
Monstrous Environmental Geographies
~Polluted lakes and landscapes
~Landfills, oil spills and mining sites
~Melting icecaps and landforms at risk from global warming
~Land impacted by GM crops and associated experimentation
~Sites of starvation, disaster and pestilence
~De-militarized zones and no-man’s lands
Monstrous Religious Sites & Ritualistic Monstrosity
~Armageddon, Apocalypse and final battlegrounds
~Hell, the Underworld and Valhalla
~Eden, Purgatory, Paradise, El Dorado, Shangri La
~Sites of religious ritual, sacrifice and burial
~Houses and haunts of murderers and serial killers
Monstrous Landscapes of Conflict
~The land of the enemy and the other
~Sites of attack and retaliation
~Sites of revolution and protest
~Concentration camps, prisons and other sites of incarceration
~Sites of genocide, battlefields and military graveyards
~Border crossings
~Ghettos, shanty towns and relocation sites
~Urban and rural, cities, towns and villages and regional and national prejudice
~Minefields and sites of damage, destruction and ruin
~Arsenals, bunkers and military experimentation
Uncanny Geographical Temporalities
~Old buildings in new surroundings
~Buildings with too much, and those without, memory
~Soulless Architecture
~Ideological architecture, palaces, museums etc
~Places held in time, UNESCO sites and historical and listed buildings
~Old towns and New towns, rich and poor
~Appearing and disappearing towns/regions, eg., Brigadoon, Silent Hill
Monsters on the Move
~Contagion, scouring and infectious landscapes
~Monsters and mobile technologies: phone, video, cars, planes, computers etc
~Fluid identities, fluid places
~Touring Monstrosities, dreamscapes and infernal topologies
Architectural Monstrosity
~Mazes and labyrinths (with or without the Minotaur)
~Unsettling/revolting geometries (E.A. Abbot’s Flatland, H.P. Lovecraft’s City of R’lyeh)
~Monstrous/abject building materials (bones, concrete, excrements, the corpse in the wall)
~The architecture of death (hospices, death row, funeral homes, slaughterhouses)
What to Send:
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th November 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 15th February 2013. 300 word abstracts should be submitted to the Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats, following this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f0 up to 10 keywords
E-mails should be entitled: Monstrous Geographies 2 Abstract Submission
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to 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.
Organising Chairs
Jessica Rapson
Rob Fisher
The aim of the conference is to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into a themed ISBN hard copy volume.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Presentations:
What is the relationship between the monstrous and the geographic? From ‘Aristotelian’ spaces – as containers of monsters and the monstrous – to ‘Leibnizian’ spaces, where the monstrous emerges from the topological relation between events and localities, monstrous geographies have always haunted the human cultural imagination. From the Necropolis to the Killing Fields and from the Amityville Horror to the island of Dr. Moreau, geographical locations may act as the repository or emanation of human evil, made monstrous by the rituals and behaviours enacted within them, or by their peculiarities of atmosphere or configuration. Whether actual or imagined, these places of wonder, fear and horror speak of the symbiotic relation between humanity and location that sees morality, ideology and emotions given physical form in the house, the forest, the island, the nation and even far away worlds in both space and time. They may engage notions of self and otherness, inclusion and exclusion, normal and aberrant, defence and contagion; may act as magnets for destructive and evil forces, such as the island of Manhattan; they are the source of malevolent energies and forces, such as Transylvania, Area 51 and Ringu; and they are the fulcrum for chaotic, warping energies, such as the Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis and Pandemonium. Alongside this, there exist the monstrous geographies created by scientific experimentation, human waste and environmental accidents, creating sites of potential and actual disaster such as the Chernobyl nuclear plant, the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the BP oil disaster, and the devastated coastline of Tohuku, Japan. These places raise diverse post-human quandaries regarding necessities in the present leading to real or imagined futures of humanity and habitation.
Encompassing the factual and the fictional, the literal and the literary, this project investigates the very particular relationships and interactions between humanity and place, the natural and the unnatural, the familiar and the unfamiliar, and sees a multitude of configurations of human monstrosity and evil projected, inflicted, or immanent to place. Such monstrous geographies can be seen to emerge from the disparity between past and present, memory and modernity, urban and rural and can be expressed through categories of class, gender and racial difference as well as generational, political and religious tensions.
Presentations, papers, reports, performances, work-in-progress, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to any of the following themes:
Monstrous Cartographies
~Terra incognita
~Real and Mythic lost lands: eg., Atlantis, D’yss, and Shangri-La
~Utopias/Dystopias, future cities in time and space
~Malevolent regions: eg., Lemuria, Bermuda Triangle, Transylvania
~Sublime landscapes
~Bodies as maps and maps as bodies, eg. Prison Break
Monstrous Islands
~As sites of experimentation. Dr. Moreau, Jurassic Park etc As a beacon for evil: eg., Manhattan in Godzilla and Cloverfield
~As site of ritual evil and incest: eg., Wicker Man, Pitkin Islands, Isle of the Dead
~Imperialist intent and construction: eg., Prospero’s Island, Hong Kong, Hashima
Monstrous Cosmographies
~Evil planets and dimensions
~Comets, meteorites and beings from unknown worlds
~Worlds as dark reflections/twins of Earth
~Planets and alien landscapes that consume and mutate earthly travelers
Monstrous Environmental Geographies
~Polluted lakes and landscapes
~Landfills, oil spills and mining sites
~Melting icecaps and landforms at risk from global warming
~Land impacted by GM crops and associated experimentation
~Sites of starvation, disaster and pestilence
~De-militarized zones and no-man’s lands
Monstrous Religious Sites & Ritualistic Monstrosity
~Armageddon, Apocalypse and final battlegrounds
~Hell, the Underworld and Valhalla
~Eden, Purgatory, Paradise, El Dorado, Shangri La
~Sites of religious ritual, sacrifice and burial
~Houses and haunts of murderers and serial killers
Monstrous Landscapes of Conflict
~The land of the enemy and the other
~Sites of attack and retaliation
~Sites of revolution and protest
~Concentration camps, prisons and other sites of incarceration
~Sites of genocide, battlefields and military graveyards
~Border crossings
~Ghettos, shanty towns and relocation sites
~Urban and rural, cities, towns and villages and regional and national prejudice
~Minefields and sites of damage, destruction and ruin
~Arsenals, bunkers and military experimentation
Uncanny Geographical Temporalities
~Old buildings in new surroundings
~Buildings with too much, and those without, memory
~Soulless Architecture
~Ideological architecture, palaces, museums etc
~Places held in time, UNESCO sites and historical and listed buildings
~Old towns and New towns, rich and poor
~Appearing and disappearing towns/regions, eg., Brigadoon, Silent Hill
Monsters on the Move
~Contagion, scouring and infectious landscapes
~Monsters and mobile technologies: phone, video, cars, planes, computers etc
~Fluid identities, fluid places
~Touring Monstrosities, dreamscapes and infernal topologies
Architectural Monstrosity
~Mazes and labyrinths (with or without the Minotaur)
~Unsettling/revolting geometries (E.A. Abbot’s Flatland, H.P. Lovecraft’s City of R’lyeh)
~Monstrous/abject building materials (bones, concrete, excrements, the corpse in the wall)
~The architecture of death (hospices, death row, funeral homes, slaughterhouses)
What to Send:
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th November 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 15th February 2013. 300 word abstracts should be submitted to the Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats, following this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f0 up to 10 keywords
E-mails should be entitled: Monstrous Geographies 2 Abstract Submission
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to 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.
Organising Chairs
Jessica Rapson
Rob Fisher
The aim of the conference is to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into a themed ISBN hard copy volume.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
CFP: 5th Global Conference: Evil, Women and the Feminine
Saturday 18th May – Monday 20th May 2013
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Presentations:
"A wanton woman is the figure of imperfection; in nature an ape, in quality a wagtail, in countenance a witch, and in condition a kind of devil."
(Nicholas Breton, 1615)
Despite the attempts of feminists the conjunction between evil and the feminine seems unbroken. Established as secondary, derivative and hence inferior, women have been long suspected of being the source of human (though more often masculine) miseries, always in cahoots with the forces of evil and destruction. Paradoxically, at the same time, some have also been put on the pedestal and lauded as ideals of purity and dedication, yet these paragons only proved the rule that, on average, the feminine/woman equals imperfect and transgressive. Mischievous, beguiling, seductive, lascivious, unruly, carping, vengeful and manipulative – these are only a few of the epithets present in cultures and literatures across the world. In grappling with our understanding of what it is to be and do ‘evil’, the project aims to explore the possible sources of the fear and hatred of women and the feminine as well as their manifestations and pervasiveness across times, cultures and media.
This interdisciplinary project invites scholars, artists, writers, theologians, sociologists, psychologists, historians, etc. to present papers, reports, work-in-progress, art pieces and workshops on issues related but definitely not limited to the following themes:
~ Evil Women and Feminine Evil: Vices and Sins of Women
~ Representing and Misrepresenting the Female; Evil Women 'Talking Back'
~ Motherhood; Monstrous Motherhood; Infertility and its Meaning across Cultures
~ Monstrous Births and Infanticide
~ Matriarchy/Matricide/Spouse Murder
~ Devious Sexuality and Feminine Perversions
~ Women and/as the Abject; Unnatural Women/Femininity
~ Menstruation, Castration
~ Fears and Myths: Feminine Blood, Witchcraft, Vamp(ires)s, Sirens, Harpies, Lamias, etc.
~ Anthropological and Historical Perspectives on Evil Feminine and Femaleness
~ The Evil Woman in Literature, Religion, Medicine, Law across Times and Cultures
~ Psychoanalytic Perspectives: 'Vagina Dentata,' 'the Wandering Womb,' 'Poisonous Look' etc.
~ Sexualizing the Female or Evil Objectification
~ Trans-Cultural Conceptualisations of Femme Fatale vs the Perfect Woman
~ Women and (Misuse of) Power
~ Evil Beauty; the Meaning of Hair and Make-up
~ Evil, Feminine in Fantasy, Fairy Tales, Horror, Thriller
~ Evil, Feminine in Mythologies and Religions across the world
~ Case Studies: Evil Women on the Agenda
The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers will also be considered on any related theme.
What to Send:
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th November 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday15th February 2013. 300 word abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: EWF5 Abstract Submission.
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 to 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.
Organising Chairs:
Natalia Kaloh Vid
Rob Fisher
The conference is part of the At the Interface programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s). All publications from the conference will require editors, to be chosen from interested delegates from the conference.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Presentations:
"A wanton woman is the figure of imperfection; in nature an ape, in quality a wagtail, in countenance a witch, and in condition a kind of devil."
(Nicholas Breton, 1615)
Despite the attempts of feminists the conjunction between evil and the feminine seems unbroken. Established as secondary, derivative and hence inferior, women have been long suspected of being the source of human (though more often masculine) miseries, always in cahoots with the forces of evil and destruction. Paradoxically, at the same time, some have also been put on the pedestal and lauded as ideals of purity and dedication, yet these paragons only proved the rule that, on average, the feminine/woman equals imperfect and transgressive. Mischievous, beguiling, seductive, lascivious, unruly, carping, vengeful and manipulative – these are only a few of the epithets present in cultures and literatures across the world. In grappling with our understanding of what it is to be and do ‘evil’, the project aims to explore the possible sources of the fear and hatred of women and the feminine as well as their manifestations and pervasiveness across times, cultures and media.
This interdisciplinary project invites scholars, artists, writers, theologians, sociologists, psychologists, historians, etc. to present papers, reports, work-in-progress, art pieces and workshops on issues related but definitely not limited to the following themes:
~ Evil Women and Feminine Evil: Vices and Sins of Women
~ Representing and Misrepresenting the Female; Evil Women 'Talking Back'
~ Motherhood; Monstrous Motherhood; Infertility and its Meaning across Cultures
~ Monstrous Births and Infanticide
~ Matriarchy/Matricide/Spouse Murder
~ Devious Sexuality and Feminine Perversions
~ Women and/as the Abject; Unnatural Women/Femininity
~ Menstruation, Castration
~ Fears and Myths: Feminine Blood, Witchcraft, Vamp(ires)s, Sirens, Harpies, Lamias, etc.
~ Anthropological and Historical Perspectives on Evil Feminine and Femaleness
~ The Evil Woman in Literature, Religion, Medicine, Law across Times and Cultures
~ Psychoanalytic Perspectives: 'Vagina Dentata,' 'the Wandering Womb,' 'Poisonous Look' etc.
~ Sexualizing the Female or Evil Objectification
~ Trans-Cultural Conceptualisations of Femme Fatale vs the Perfect Woman
~ Women and (Misuse of) Power
~ Evil Beauty; the Meaning of Hair and Make-up
~ Evil, Feminine in Fantasy, Fairy Tales, Horror, Thriller
~ Evil, Feminine in Mythologies and Religions across the world
~ Case Studies: Evil Women on the Agenda
The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers will also be considered on any related theme.
What to Send:
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th November 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday15th February 2013. 300 word abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: EWF5 Abstract Submission.
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 to 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.
Organising Chairs:
Natalia Kaloh Vid
Rob Fisher
The conference is part of the At the Interface programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s). All publications from the conference will require editors, to be chosen from interested delegates from the conference.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Call for Submissions: Monsters and the Monstrous Journal
Volume 3, Number 1, Themed Issue on Monstrous Spaces/Spaces of Monstrosity
This issue is concentrating on spaces that are considered monstrous or are themselves capable of producing monstrosity. these spaces can be actual or authored, real or imaginary. Spaces of violence and murder, social taboo, ideological excess and human depravity from the past, present or future. Equally spaces natural or supernatural, earth found or star bound that produce, spawn or inevitably return to monstrosity in all its many human, cultural and temporal forms.
The Editors welcome contributions to the journal in the form of articles, reviews, reports, art and/or visual pieces and other forms of submission on the following or related themes:
● Monstrous Landscapes of Conflict: Genocide, battle zones, imprisonment, execution, torture
● Monstrous Environments: Biological experimentation, nuclear fallout, GM crops
● Monstrous Temporalities: Other dimensions, spirit worlds, mythical places
● Monstrous Cosmographies: Outer Space, Alien worlds, Terra Incognita, space craft, parallel universes
● Monstrous Religious Spaces: Hell, Hades, Purgatory, Heaven, Nirvana, Valhalla, Samsara, Paradise
● Monstrous Ideological Spaces: Society, Politics, Difference, Gender, Colonial, Post Colonial, Disabilities
Submissions for this Issue are required by Friday 8th March 2013 at the latest.
Contributions to the journal should be original and not under consideration for other publications at the same time as they are under consideration for this publication. Submissions are to be made electronically wherever possible using either Microsoft® Word or .rtf format.
For Further Information, please visit the journal's website.
Contributions are also invited for future issues of the journal which will include: “Monstrous Beauty/The Beauty of Monstrosity.”
We also invite submission to our special features on Non-English Language Book Reviews. Please mark entries for these topics with their respective headings.
All accepted articles, artworks and prose pieces will receive a free electronic version of the journal.
Length Requirements:
Articles – 5,000 – 7,000 words.
Reflections, reports and responses – 1,000 – 3,000 words.
Book reviews – 500 – 4,000 words.
Other forms of contributions such as artworks, photographs, poetry, prose and short stories are welcome.
In the case of visual work and images we ask that all copyrights to publication are either obtained or owned by the author/artist.
Send submissions via e-mail using the following Subject Line:
'Journal: Contribution Type (article/review/…): Author Surname'
Submissions E-Mail Address
Submissions will be acknowledged within 48 hours of receipt.
This issue is concentrating on spaces that are considered monstrous or are themselves capable of producing monstrosity. these spaces can be actual or authored, real or imaginary. Spaces of violence and murder, social taboo, ideological excess and human depravity from the past, present or future. Equally spaces natural or supernatural, earth found or star bound that produce, spawn or inevitably return to monstrosity in all its many human, cultural and temporal forms.
The Editors welcome contributions to the journal in the form of articles, reviews, reports, art and/or visual pieces and other forms of submission on the following or related themes:
● Monstrous Landscapes of Conflict: Genocide, battle zones, imprisonment, execution, torture
● Monstrous Environments: Biological experimentation, nuclear fallout, GM crops
● Monstrous Temporalities: Other dimensions, spirit worlds, mythical places
● Monstrous Cosmographies: Outer Space, Alien worlds, Terra Incognita, space craft, parallel universes
● Monstrous Religious Spaces: Hell, Hades, Purgatory, Heaven, Nirvana, Valhalla, Samsara, Paradise
● Monstrous Ideological Spaces: Society, Politics, Difference, Gender, Colonial, Post Colonial, Disabilities
Submissions for this Issue are required by Friday 8th March 2013 at the latest.
Contributions to the journal should be original and not under consideration for other publications at the same time as they are under consideration for this publication. Submissions are to be made electronically wherever possible using either Microsoft® Word or .rtf format.
For Further Information, please visit the journal's website.
Contributions are also invited for future issues of the journal which will include: “Monstrous Beauty/The Beauty of Monstrosity.”
We also invite submission to our special features on Non-English Language Book Reviews. Please mark entries for these topics with their respective headings.
All accepted articles, artworks and prose pieces will receive a free electronic version of the journal.
Length Requirements:
Articles – 5,000 – 7,000 words.
Reflections, reports and responses – 1,000 – 3,000 words.
Book reviews – 500 – 4,000 words.
Other forms of contributions such as artworks, photographs, poetry, prose and short stories are welcome.
In the case of visual work and images we ask that all copyrights to publication are either obtained or owned by the author/artist.
Send submissions via e-mail using the following Subject Line:
'Journal: Contribution Type (article/review/…): Author Surname'
Submissions E-Mail Address
Submissions will be acknowledged within 48 hours of receipt.
Wednesday, 29 August 2012
CFP: 3rd Global Conference: Femininities and Masculinities
Tuesday 21st May – Friday 24th May 2013
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Presentations:
Gender studies is an interdisciplinary field of academic study on the issues of gender in its social and cultural contexts. Since its emergence from feminism, gender studies have become one of the most deliberated disciplines. The following project aims at an interdisciplinary exchange of ideas and perspectives on the issues of femininity and masculinity in the 21st century. It invites ground-breaking research on a plethora of topics connected with gender, to propose an interdisciplinary view of the frontiers and to stake out new territories in the study of femininity and masculinity.
Papers, presentations, performances, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to any of the following themes:
1. Representations of Femininity and Masculinity
~ Femininity and masculinity in history and the history of gender
~ The representation of gender in culture, art, film, literature
~ The representation of gender in popular culture and media
~ Gender in the relation to politics, law and social studies
2. Gender Borders and Transgressions
~ Performativity of gender
~Female masculinities / male femininities
~ Androgyny
~ Transgender issues
~ The body and its transgressions
3. New Directions in Femininity and Masculinity Studies
~ New perspectives in masculinity and boyhood studies
~ Men in feminism
~ Third wave feminism, womanism
~ Postfeminism, post-feminism and postfemininity
~ Lesbian feminism
~ Eco-feminism
~ Cyberfeminism
~ Individual feminism
~ Feminist disability studies
4. Global and Regional Perspectives on Gender
~ Gender and race
~ Gender and nationality
~ Gender and (post)colonialism
~ Case studies of gender issues in local/regional/national perspectives
~ Global masculinity/ femininity
5. Gender in Relationships
~ Motherhood/fatherhood
~ Gender and family
~ Matriarchy/ patriarchy
~ Sororophobia and matrophobia
~ Misogyny and misandry
~ Female genealogy
~ Gender and maturity
6. Gender in Experience
~ Gender in visual and performance arts
~ Gender in advertisement
~ Gender mainstreaming
~ Gender in psychotherapy
~ Gender equality education
~ Gender in religion
~ Gender and NGOs
Papers will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th November 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 15th February 2013.
300 word abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 key words
E-mails should be entitled: FM3 Abstract Submission.
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 to 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.
Organising Chairs:
Barbara Braid
Rob Fisher
The conference is part of the At the Interface programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s).
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Presentations:
Gender studies is an interdisciplinary field of academic study on the issues of gender in its social and cultural contexts. Since its emergence from feminism, gender studies have become one of the most deliberated disciplines. The following project aims at an interdisciplinary exchange of ideas and perspectives on the issues of femininity and masculinity in the 21st century. It invites ground-breaking research on a plethora of topics connected with gender, to propose an interdisciplinary view of the frontiers and to stake out new territories in the study of femininity and masculinity.
Papers, presentations, performances, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to any of the following themes:
1. Representations of Femininity and Masculinity
~ Femininity and masculinity in history and the history of gender
~ The representation of gender in culture, art, film, literature
~ The representation of gender in popular culture and media
~ Gender in the relation to politics, law and social studies
2. Gender Borders and Transgressions
~ Performativity of gender
~Female masculinities / male femininities
~ Androgyny
~ Transgender issues
~ The body and its transgressions
3. New Directions in Femininity and Masculinity Studies
~ New perspectives in masculinity and boyhood studies
~ Men in feminism
~ Third wave feminism, womanism
~ Postfeminism, post-feminism and postfemininity
~ Lesbian feminism
~ Eco-feminism
~ Cyberfeminism
~ Individual feminism
~ Feminist disability studies
4. Global and Regional Perspectives on Gender
~ Gender and race
~ Gender and nationality
~ Gender and (post)colonialism
~ Case studies of gender issues in local/regional/national perspectives
~ Global masculinity/ femininity
5. Gender in Relationships
~ Motherhood/fatherhood
~ Gender and family
~ Matriarchy/ patriarchy
~ Sororophobia and matrophobia
~ Misogyny and misandry
~ Female genealogy
~ Gender and maturity
6. Gender in Experience
~ Gender in visual and performance arts
~ Gender in advertisement
~ Gender mainstreaming
~ Gender in psychotherapy
~ Gender equality education
~ Gender in religion
~ Gender and NGOs
Papers will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th November 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 15th February 2013.
300 word abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 key words
E-mails should be entitled: FM3 Abstract Submission.
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 to 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.
Organising Chairs:
Barbara Braid
Rob Fisher
The conference is part of the At the Interface programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s).
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
CFP: 11th Global Conference: Violence
Thursday 9th May – Saturday 11th May 2013
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Presentations:
This conference is one of a continuing series that aims to bring together people from a wide range of disciplines to focus on Violence. Our intention is to contribute to the body of thought which seeks to understand the nature and causes of this endemic feature of society. Such a complex phenomenon has many faces, a multitude of contexts (real or imagined), and many possible explanations in relation to causation and to the role Violence has played and still plays in societies all over the world and at every stage of development. Perpetrators may be states, political or religious factions within states, military groups, state or private institutions, communities, gangs, families or individuals. The range of possible victims is equally diverse and possible explanations range across historical, cultural, political, ethical, literary, functional, psychological, criminological, sociological, biological and economic sources. We therefore invite contributions from any and all of these disciplinary areas.
Our inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary approach seeks to do justice to the richness of this theme at a conference where fruitful dialogue between and across disciplines is highly valued.
The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals.
What to send:
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th November 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 15th February 2013. 300 word abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: Violence 11 Abstract Submission.
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 to 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:
Diana Medlicott
Rob Fisher
The conference is part of the Probing the Boundaries programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s).
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Presentations:
This conference is one of a continuing series that aims to bring together people from a wide range of disciplines to focus on Violence. Our intention is to contribute to the body of thought which seeks to understand the nature and causes of this endemic feature of society. Such a complex phenomenon has many faces, a multitude of contexts (real or imagined), and many possible explanations in relation to causation and to the role Violence has played and still plays in societies all over the world and at every stage of development. Perpetrators may be states, political or religious factions within states, military groups, state or private institutions, communities, gangs, families or individuals. The range of possible victims is equally diverse and possible explanations range across historical, cultural, political, ethical, literary, functional, psychological, criminological, sociological, biological and economic sources. We therefore invite contributions from any and all of these disciplinary areas.
Our inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary approach seeks to do justice to the richness of this theme at a conference where fruitful dialogue between and across disciplines is highly valued.
The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals.
What to send:
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th November 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 15th February 2013. 300 word abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: Violence 11 Abstract Submission.
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 to 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:
Diana Medlicott
Rob Fisher
The conference is part of the Probing the Boundaries programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s).
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Wednesday, 1 August 2012
Conference Review: Religious Men in the Middle Ages
University of Huddersfield, 6-8 July 2012
by Dr. Hannah Priest
At the beginning of July, I attended the Religious Men in the Middle Ages conference at the University of Huddersfield. This conference was an interdisciplinary exploration of the intersection of masculinities and religious identities, across the entirety of the Middle Ages.
The conference began with the first of three plenary sessions: Professor Michael L. Satlow (Brown University) speaking on ‘Antique and Early Medieval Rabbinic Thought on Constructions of Masculinity and Religiosity with Particular Reference to Torah Study’. Satlow explored the representations of religious masculinity in Rabbinic thought, particularly as relates to hegemonic discourses of masculinity and desire. Using ancient and early medieval examples, he argued that the evident shift from the metaphor of Torah study as the ‘salve’ or ‘cure’ for desire to the martial imagery of ‘conquest’ and ‘domination’ of desire created a discourse of masculinity that, though it differed from hegemonic discourse, did not oppose it. Satlow’s engaging and informative address set the tone for the conference to come – the definitions of ‘religious’, ‘men’ and ‘Middle Ages’ were to be broad, but also understood with close attention to specifics and contexts.
My own paper – ‘Intersections of Christological Devotion and Romance Masculinity’ – was in the first of the parallel sessions that followed the coffee break. The panel I was in was entitled ‘Christocentric Piety’, and also included Matthew Hoskin (University of Edinburgh) – speaking on ‘The Close Proximity of Christ to the Male Monk in John of Ephesus’ Lives of Eastern Saints’ – and Carolyn Muir (University of Hong Kong) – ‘Bride/Bridegroom Revisited: Further Thoughts on Men and Mystic Marriage’. Both Hoskin and Muir gave fascinating papers, and I was glad to be first in the session so I could devote my full attention to my co-presenters. Hoskin’s paper struck a good balance of depth and accessibility, which was good for those of us less familiar with the Eastern traditions. Muir spoke on various presentations of John the Evangelist as ‘bride of Christ’, and was illustrated with both visual and textual examples. That our panel spanned literary, historical and art historical perspectives, with some good discussions and parallels drawn, indicates the interdisciplinary nature of the conference as a whole.
Highlights of the first day also included, for me, papers by Lisa Kranzer (University of Birmingham) and Sarah Bastow (University of Huddersfield) discussing self-perception, writing and exile during the Reformation. It is still somewhat unusual to get papers on Reformation writings at a self-styled ‘medieval’ conference, but Kranzer and Bastow’s contributions allowed for a consideration of periodization and cultural shift, while also highlighting the continuity of certain (gendered) constructions of identity.
So, the first day began with a discussion of ancient Rabbinic thought, and ended with papers on Elizabethan Protestant reform.
The second day was equally diverse. I attended papers on male devotional practice, demonstrations of personal faith by warriors, pastoral responsibilities of laymen in the late Middle Ages, seventh-century Eastern traditions of the monk as mourner, male tears in the fourteenth century, Jewish bans on polygamy, Henry of Huntingdon, Hereward the Wake, and the Buddha Gautama. All the papers were of a very high standard, it is difficult to choose ‘highlights’ from a consistently strong programme. However, I was very taken by James MacGregor (Georgetown University)’s ‘Dude Prays Like a Lady? Varieties of Male Devotion to Saint George in Late Medieval England’ and Hannah Hunt’s ‘The Monk as Mourner: Eastern Christian Self-Identity in the Seventh Century’ – the former, because it spoke clearly to my own work on chivalric and martial masculinity in late medieval literature; the latter, because it was so far removed from my own research that it served as an engaging and enlightening introduction to something almost entirely new to me.
The second plenary of the conference, in the late morning session of the 7th July, was Professor James Clark (University of Bristol), speaking on ‘The Attractions of the Monastic Life for English Men Between the Black Death and the Reformation’. Drawing on Steve Rigby’s argument that there was a 30% increase in the number of men living in monastic houses in 1500 as compared to 1400, Clark explored the numerous reasons ‘why men became monks’. He argued that the number of dispensations sought at this time to ordain young men below the canonical age suggests that there was a ‘ready supply of young men’ seeking to swell the numbers of older monastic houses; this, Clark asserted, may well mean that the ‘last’ monks of medieval England were also, in many ways, the youngest generation of monks for some time. The main body of Clark’s lecture, however, was concerned with the reasons for this shift, and he explored the idea of monastic ‘career progression’ in depth, as well as the potential for establishing social capital exploited by merchant families entering their sons into monastic houses. Clark’s argument was compelling, and went a long way to dispelling some of the myths of the decay and decrepitude of the decades leading to the dissolution of the monasteries.
The final half-day of the conference offered parallel sessions, followed by the third plenary. The session I attended first had papers from Emma Wells (University of Durham), Marita von Weissenberg (Yale University) and Andrew Fleming (University of Oxford), who spoke on the experience of royal pilgrimage in the late Middle Ages, married male saints (also in the later Middle Ages) and Thomas of Cantilupe respectively. The papers worked well together, and led to some interesting discussions in the question sessions afterwards.
To end the conference, there was a plenary session with Dr. Jennifer Thibodeaux (University of Wisconsin-Whitewater) speaking on ‘The Discourse of Clerical Masculinity: Masculinity and Sexuality in the Writings of Norman Clerics’. Thibodeaux’s paper focussed on the Anglo-Norman pro-clerical marriage tracts that appeared after the First and Second Lateran Councils’ voiding and banning of clerical marriage. With close readings of particular tracts, Thibodeaux argued that the writers drew on certain Pauline writings on marriage to suggest that disorder would necessarily follow a ban on clerical marriage. She went on to illustrate some of the ways in which these tract writers negated the reformed new model of masculinity (based in celibacy) by relying on a ‘householder model’ of the male as husband and father. While, as Thibodeaux pointed out, these tracts were localized both geographically and temporally, this final plenary offered a thought-provoking interrogation of a ‘battle’ for religious masculinity that is often overlooked.
In conclusion, I would offer a warm congratulations to the conference organizers (Dr. Pat Cullum and Dr. Katherine J. Lewis) for putting together such a full and stimulating programme. I know they are in the process of putting together an edited collection based on the conference, and I will look forward to seeing this.
by Dr. Hannah Priest
At the beginning of July, I attended the Religious Men in the Middle Ages conference at the University of Huddersfield. This conference was an interdisciplinary exploration of the intersection of masculinities and religious identities, across the entirety of the Middle Ages.
The conference began with the first of three plenary sessions: Professor Michael L. Satlow (Brown University) speaking on ‘Antique and Early Medieval Rabbinic Thought on Constructions of Masculinity and Religiosity with Particular Reference to Torah Study’. Satlow explored the representations of religious masculinity in Rabbinic thought, particularly as relates to hegemonic discourses of masculinity and desire. Using ancient and early medieval examples, he argued that the evident shift from the metaphor of Torah study as the ‘salve’ or ‘cure’ for desire to the martial imagery of ‘conquest’ and ‘domination’ of desire created a discourse of masculinity that, though it differed from hegemonic discourse, did not oppose it. Satlow’s engaging and informative address set the tone for the conference to come – the definitions of ‘religious’, ‘men’ and ‘Middle Ages’ were to be broad, but also understood with close attention to specifics and contexts.
My own paper – ‘Intersections of Christological Devotion and Romance Masculinity’ – was in the first of the parallel sessions that followed the coffee break. The panel I was in was entitled ‘Christocentric Piety’, and also included Matthew Hoskin (University of Edinburgh) – speaking on ‘The Close Proximity of Christ to the Male Monk in John of Ephesus’ Lives of Eastern Saints’ – and Carolyn Muir (University of Hong Kong) – ‘Bride/Bridegroom Revisited: Further Thoughts on Men and Mystic Marriage’. Both Hoskin and Muir gave fascinating papers, and I was glad to be first in the session so I could devote my full attention to my co-presenters. Hoskin’s paper struck a good balance of depth and accessibility, which was good for those of us less familiar with the Eastern traditions. Muir spoke on various presentations of John the Evangelist as ‘bride of Christ’, and was illustrated with both visual and textual examples. That our panel spanned literary, historical and art historical perspectives, with some good discussions and parallels drawn, indicates the interdisciplinary nature of the conference as a whole.
Highlights of the first day also included, for me, papers by Lisa Kranzer (University of Birmingham) and Sarah Bastow (University of Huddersfield) discussing self-perception, writing and exile during the Reformation. It is still somewhat unusual to get papers on Reformation writings at a self-styled ‘medieval’ conference, but Kranzer and Bastow’s contributions allowed for a consideration of periodization and cultural shift, while also highlighting the continuity of certain (gendered) constructions of identity.
So, the first day began with a discussion of ancient Rabbinic thought, and ended with papers on Elizabethan Protestant reform.
The second day was equally diverse. I attended papers on male devotional practice, demonstrations of personal faith by warriors, pastoral responsibilities of laymen in the late Middle Ages, seventh-century Eastern traditions of the monk as mourner, male tears in the fourteenth century, Jewish bans on polygamy, Henry of Huntingdon, Hereward the Wake, and the Buddha Gautama. All the papers were of a very high standard, it is difficult to choose ‘highlights’ from a consistently strong programme. However, I was very taken by James MacGregor (Georgetown University)’s ‘Dude Prays Like a Lady? Varieties of Male Devotion to Saint George in Late Medieval England’ and Hannah Hunt’s ‘The Monk as Mourner: Eastern Christian Self-Identity in the Seventh Century’ – the former, because it spoke clearly to my own work on chivalric and martial masculinity in late medieval literature; the latter, because it was so far removed from my own research that it served as an engaging and enlightening introduction to something almost entirely new to me.
The second plenary of the conference, in the late morning session of the 7th July, was Professor James Clark (University of Bristol), speaking on ‘The Attractions of the Monastic Life for English Men Between the Black Death and the Reformation’. Drawing on Steve Rigby’s argument that there was a 30% increase in the number of men living in monastic houses in 1500 as compared to 1400, Clark explored the numerous reasons ‘why men became monks’. He argued that the number of dispensations sought at this time to ordain young men below the canonical age suggests that there was a ‘ready supply of young men’ seeking to swell the numbers of older monastic houses; this, Clark asserted, may well mean that the ‘last’ monks of medieval England were also, in many ways, the youngest generation of monks for some time. The main body of Clark’s lecture, however, was concerned with the reasons for this shift, and he explored the idea of monastic ‘career progression’ in depth, as well as the potential for establishing social capital exploited by merchant families entering their sons into monastic houses. Clark’s argument was compelling, and went a long way to dispelling some of the myths of the decay and decrepitude of the decades leading to the dissolution of the monasteries.
The final half-day of the conference offered parallel sessions, followed by the third plenary. The session I attended first had papers from Emma Wells (University of Durham), Marita von Weissenberg (Yale University) and Andrew Fleming (University of Oxford), who spoke on the experience of royal pilgrimage in the late Middle Ages, married male saints (also in the later Middle Ages) and Thomas of Cantilupe respectively. The papers worked well together, and led to some interesting discussions in the question sessions afterwards.
To end the conference, there was a plenary session with Dr. Jennifer Thibodeaux (University of Wisconsin-Whitewater) speaking on ‘The Discourse of Clerical Masculinity: Masculinity and Sexuality in the Writings of Norman Clerics’. Thibodeaux’s paper focussed on the Anglo-Norman pro-clerical marriage tracts that appeared after the First and Second Lateran Councils’ voiding and banning of clerical marriage. With close readings of particular tracts, Thibodeaux argued that the writers drew on certain Pauline writings on marriage to suggest that disorder would necessarily follow a ban on clerical marriage. She went on to illustrate some of the ways in which these tract writers negated the reformed new model of masculinity (based in celibacy) by relying on a ‘householder model’ of the male as husband and father. While, as Thibodeaux pointed out, these tracts were localized both geographically and temporally, this final plenary offered a thought-provoking interrogation of a ‘battle’ for religious masculinity that is often overlooked.
In conclusion, I would offer a warm congratulations to the conference organizers (Dr. Pat Cullum and Dr. Katherine J. Lewis) for putting together such a full and stimulating programme. I know they are in the process of putting together an edited collection based on the conference, and I will look forward to seeing this.
Monday, 16 July 2012
CFP: 14th Global Conference: Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness
Sunday 10th March – Tuesday 12th March 2013
Lisbon, Portugal
Call For Presentations:
This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary conference seeks to examine and explore issues surrounding evil and human wickedness. In wrestling with evil(s) we are confronted with a multi-layered phenomenon which invites people from all disciplines, professions and vocations to come together in dialogue and wrestle with questions that cross the boundaries of the intellectual, the emotional and the personal. Underlying these efforts there is the sense that in grappling with evil we are in fact grappling with questions and issues of our own humanity.
The complex nature of evil is reflected in this call for presentations: in recognising that no one approach or perspective can adequately do justice to what we mean by evil, so there is an equal recognition that no one form of presentation ought to take priority over others. We solicit contributions which may be
~ papers, panels, workshops, reports
~ case studies
~ performance pieces; dramatic readings; poetic renditions; short stories; creative writings
~ works of art; works of music
We will also consider other forms of contribution. Successful proposals will normally be given a 20 minute presentation space. Perspectives are sought from all academic disciplines along with, for example, those working in the caring professions, journalism, the media, the military, prison services, politics, psychiatry and other work-related, ngo and vocational areas.
Key themes for reflection may include, but are not limited to:
what is evil?
the nature and sources of evil and human wickedness
evil animals? Wicked creatures?
the places and spaces of evil
crimes, criminals and justice
psychopathic behaviour – mad or bad?
villains, wicked characters and heroes
vice and virtue
choice, responsibility, and diminished responsibility
social and cultural reactions to evil and human wickedness
political evils; evil, power and the state
evil and gender; evil and the feminine
evil children
hell, hells, damnation: evil and the afterlife
the portrayal of evil and human wickedness in the media and popular culture
suffering in literature and film
individual acts of evil, group violence, holocaust and genocide; obligations of bystanders
terrorism, war, ethnic cleansing
fear, terror, horror
the search for meaning and sense in evil and human wickedness
the nature and tasks of theodicy
religious understandings of evil and human wickedness
postmodern approaches to evil and human wickedness
ecocriticism, evil and suffering
evil and the use/abuse of technology; evil in cyberspace
The Steering Group also welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals.
What to Send
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 12th October 2013. All submissions are minimally double blind peer reviewed. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to the Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract f) up to 10 key words
E-mails should be entitled: Evil14 Abstract Submission.
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 to 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.
Organising Chairs
Stephen Morris
Rob Fisher
The conference is part of the At the Interface programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Lisbon, Portugal
Call For Presentations:
This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary conference seeks to examine and explore issues surrounding evil and human wickedness. In wrestling with evil(s) we are confronted with a multi-layered phenomenon which invites people from all disciplines, professions and vocations to come together in dialogue and wrestle with questions that cross the boundaries of the intellectual, the emotional and the personal. Underlying these efforts there is the sense that in grappling with evil we are in fact grappling with questions and issues of our own humanity.
The complex nature of evil is reflected in this call for presentations: in recognising that no one approach or perspective can adequately do justice to what we mean by evil, so there is an equal recognition that no one form of presentation ought to take priority over others. We solicit contributions which may be
~ papers, panels, workshops, reports
~ case studies
~ performance pieces; dramatic readings; poetic renditions; short stories; creative writings
~ works of art; works of music
We will also consider other forms of contribution. Successful proposals will normally be given a 20 minute presentation space. Perspectives are sought from all academic disciplines along with, for example, those working in the caring professions, journalism, the media, the military, prison services, politics, psychiatry and other work-related, ngo and vocational areas.
Key themes for reflection may include, but are not limited to:
what is evil?
the nature and sources of evil and human wickedness
evil animals? Wicked creatures?
the places and spaces of evil
crimes, criminals and justice
psychopathic behaviour – mad or bad?
villains, wicked characters and heroes
vice and virtue
choice, responsibility, and diminished responsibility
social and cultural reactions to evil and human wickedness
political evils; evil, power and the state
evil and gender; evil and the feminine
evil children
hell, hells, damnation: evil and the afterlife
the portrayal of evil and human wickedness in the media and popular culture
suffering in literature and film
individual acts of evil, group violence, holocaust and genocide; obligations of bystanders
terrorism, war, ethnic cleansing
fear, terror, horror
the search for meaning and sense in evil and human wickedness
the nature and tasks of theodicy
religious understandings of evil and human wickedness
postmodern approaches to evil and human wickedness
ecocriticism, evil and suffering
evil and the use/abuse of technology; evil in cyberspace
The Steering Group also welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals.
What to Send
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 12th October 2013. All submissions are minimally double blind peer reviewed. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to the Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract f) up to 10 key words
E-mails should be entitled: Evil14 Abstract Submission.
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 to 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.
Organising Chairs
Stephen Morris
Rob Fisher
The conference is part of the At the Interface programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
CFP: 2nd Global Conference: Sins, Vices and Virtues
Wednesday 13th March – Friday 15th March 2013
Lisbon, Portugal
Call For Presentations:
Not every culture recognises the notion of sin but all of them recognise the idea of a religious or spiritual transgression. All or nearly all the ‘Christian’ vices-virtues were those espoused by Greek-Roman philosophers first and are, therefore, not exclusively Christian in the origin. The Judaic idea of ‘sin’ varies considerably across time and the accountability of society/group vs. individual fluctuates as well. Also, the (Latin) idea of sin as ‘transgression’ or ‘breaking of the (divine) law’ is at variance with the (Greek) idea of sin as ‘missing the mark’ and ‘mistake/error.’
The idea of virtues likewise does not seem to be universal, though all offer guidelines to what they consider ‘right living. Actions that violate rules of morality and the guidelines concerning virtuous living have been the foundations of every culture across centuries.
However, due to civilisational progress and secularisation, the ideas and definitions behind the variously understood concepts of ‘sin’, ‘vice’ and ‘virtue’ have changed. For instance, in Christian culture the traditional list of the Church Fathers was unofficially updated to include social sins prevalent in what is called the era of ‘unstoppable globalisation’ and these DO not necessarily embrace Christians only.
Thus, apart from the familiar: Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed, Sloth, which individuals were to test their conscience for, the Roman Catholic Church now cautions the whole of humanity inter alia about: Genetic modification and human experimentations; Polluting the environment; Social injustice; Causing poverty; Paedophilia, contraception, abortion; Taking drugs; and Financial gluttony. Not only are the ‘new sins’ not necessarily Christian in nature but they seem inter- and transcultural, disregarding religious persuasion. It seems no longer the matter of individual transgression that has spiritual repercussions, but rather the sin whose subject is the entire, global and transcultural society. Furthermore, the question that arises is whether the notions of virtue are changing their meaning in the commercially-driven ‘dog-eat-dog’ modern world as well, and whether to be ‘good’ or ‘virtuous’ means the same for all cultures.
Are we then to talk about a completely new culture-blind hamartiology or new schematization of virtues? What are the real changes between medieval and today’s religious/moral doctrines preached across the modern world and its diverse cultural make-up? What about non-Christian cultures with different categories of religious/spiritual transgressions? May one actually still talk about ‘sin’ at all or is it an obsolete word in a multicultural world? Are all Western Christian sins, vices and virtues recognised and shared by other cultures as well?
This interdisciplinary conference seeks a new, provocative, intercultural perspective on some enduring truths concerning virtues and vices, sins and transgressions. Do we need a new list of moral commandments in the globalised, multicultural 21st century? Should they be religious or secular in nature? Who are these aimed at? And, finally, is it possible, reaching back to the origins of humanity, to find common denominators between religious/spiritual definitions of vices and virtues of all belief systems? Can discussions of ‘sin’ not introduce theology and religion into the contemporary discussion?
We are inviting scholars, theologians, anthropologists, artists, teachers, psychologists, therapists, philosophers, teachers of ethics, etc. to present papers, reports, works of art, work-in-progress, workshops and pre-formed panels on issues related but not limited to the following themes:
The genealogy of the idea of sin or religious transgression around the world
Anthropology of transgression
Sinful/Transgressive actions, evil thoughts, religious taboos in Christian and non-Christian cultures
What are the pre-Islam Arabic ideas of sin? How do these influence Islamic thought and how do they shape or not shape fundamentalist Islamic political thought?
Lexicon of sinfulness/transgression and virtuousness in Christian and non-Christian cultures
Social functions of sins and virtues
Modern sins and vices: Individual and social; religious and secular; intercultural
Social ‘sins’: ‘Institutional’ and ‘structural’; their social ramifications
‘-isms’ in religious and spiritual discourse
Communal versus individual sins/transgressions: Do societies sin? How are societies policing them?
The concept of sin or spiritual transgression/deviation and philosophy
The notions of ‘sins’, vices and virtues on the political arena (secular morality or no morality)
Psychology of sin (‘sinful’ or ‘abnormal’?; the concept of sin after Darwin, Nietzsche and Freud)
Emotions and moral decision-making
How to represent evil and morality in art: Representation of sins and sinners, vices, transgressions and virtues in art, literature, movies in Christian and non-Christian cultures
Genderisation of sins, vices and virtues in Christian and non-Christian cultures
Ideology of sin/religious transgression and technological progress: G/god or the Machine; ‘sins’ of productive necessity
Theologies and Nature: Environmental studies and the notions of ‘sin’, transgression and virtue
Sins/Vices and/in the Media (ie adveritising)
Medieval crusades and modern (holy) wars
Sinless, non-transgressive life in 21st century: Possibility or wishful thinking?
Fear of the confessional or ‘McDonald-isation’ of spiritual life; is confession needed at all?
Public and penitential practices across the ages and cultures
Punishment for sin/transgression and rewarding virtue across the ages and cultures: individual and collective
Visions of Hell, Paradise and other afterlife Realms across cultures
Virtues in the modern times; virtues in a modern man
What to Send
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 12 October 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper of no more than 3000 words should be submitted by Friday 18th January 2013. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract
E-mails should be entitled: Sins and Virtues 2 Abstract Submission.
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 to 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.
Organising Chairs
Katarzyna Bronk
Rob Fisher
The conference is part of the At the Interface series of research projects. The aim of the conference is to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into a themed ISBN hard copy volume.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Lisbon, Portugal
Call For Presentations:
Not every culture recognises the notion of sin but all of them recognise the idea of a religious or spiritual transgression. All or nearly all the ‘Christian’ vices-virtues were those espoused by Greek-Roman philosophers first and are, therefore, not exclusively Christian in the origin. The Judaic idea of ‘sin’ varies considerably across time and the accountability of society/group vs. individual fluctuates as well. Also, the (Latin) idea of sin as ‘transgression’ or ‘breaking of the (divine) law’ is at variance with the (Greek) idea of sin as ‘missing the mark’ and ‘mistake/error.’
The idea of virtues likewise does not seem to be universal, though all offer guidelines to what they consider ‘right living. Actions that violate rules of morality and the guidelines concerning virtuous living have been the foundations of every culture across centuries.
However, due to civilisational progress and secularisation, the ideas and definitions behind the variously understood concepts of ‘sin’, ‘vice’ and ‘virtue’ have changed. For instance, in Christian culture the traditional list of the Church Fathers was unofficially updated to include social sins prevalent in what is called the era of ‘unstoppable globalisation’ and these DO not necessarily embrace Christians only.
Thus, apart from the familiar: Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed, Sloth, which individuals were to test their conscience for, the Roman Catholic Church now cautions the whole of humanity inter alia about: Genetic modification and human experimentations; Polluting the environment; Social injustice; Causing poverty; Paedophilia, contraception, abortion; Taking drugs; and Financial gluttony. Not only are the ‘new sins’ not necessarily Christian in nature but they seem inter- and transcultural, disregarding religious persuasion. It seems no longer the matter of individual transgression that has spiritual repercussions, but rather the sin whose subject is the entire, global and transcultural society. Furthermore, the question that arises is whether the notions of virtue are changing their meaning in the commercially-driven ‘dog-eat-dog’ modern world as well, and whether to be ‘good’ or ‘virtuous’ means the same for all cultures.
Are we then to talk about a completely new culture-blind hamartiology or new schematization of virtues? What are the real changes between medieval and today’s religious/moral doctrines preached across the modern world and its diverse cultural make-up? What about non-Christian cultures with different categories of religious/spiritual transgressions? May one actually still talk about ‘sin’ at all or is it an obsolete word in a multicultural world? Are all Western Christian sins, vices and virtues recognised and shared by other cultures as well?
This interdisciplinary conference seeks a new, provocative, intercultural perspective on some enduring truths concerning virtues and vices, sins and transgressions. Do we need a new list of moral commandments in the globalised, multicultural 21st century? Should they be religious or secular in nature? Who are these aimed at? And, finally, is it possible, reaching back to the origins of humanity, to find common denominators between religious/spiritual definitions of vices and virtues of all belief systems? Can discussions of ‘sin’ not introduce theology and religion into the contemporary discussion?
We are inviting scholars, theologians, anthropologists, artists, teachers, psychologists, therapists, philosophers, teachers of ethics, etc. to present papers, reports, works of art, work-in-progress, workshops and pre-formed panels on issues related but not limited to the following themes:
The genealogy of the idea of sin or religious transgression around the world
Anthropology of transgression
Sinful/Transgressive actions, evil thoughts, religious taboos in Christian and non-Christian cultures
What are the pre-Islam Arabic ideas of sin? How do these influence Islamic thought and how do they shape or not shape fundamentalist Islamic political thought?
Lexicon of sinfulness/transgression and virtuousness in Christian and non-Christian cultures
Social functions of sins and virtues
Modern sins and vices: Individual and social; religious and secular; intercultural
Social ‘sins’: ‘Institutional’ and ‘structural’; their social ramifications
‘-isms’ in religious and spiritual discourse
Communal versus individual sins/transgressions: Do societies sin? How are societies policing them?
The concept of sin or spiritual transgression/deviation and philosophy
The notions of ‘sins’, vices and virtues on the political arena (secular morality or no morality)
Psychology of sin (‘sinful’ or ‘abnormal’?; the concept of sin after Darwin, Nietzsche and Freud)
Emotions and moral decision-making
How to represent evil and morality in art: Representation of sins and sinners, vices, transgressions and virtues in art, literature, movies in Christian and non-Christian cultures
Genderisation of sins, vices and virtues in Christian and non-Christian cultures
Ideology of sin/religious transgression and technological progress: G/god or the Machine; ‘sins’ of productive necessity
Theologies and Nature: Environmental studies and the notions of ‘sin’, transgression and virtue
Sins/Vices and/in the Media (ie adveritising)
Medieval crusades and modern (holy) wars
Sinless, non-transgressive life in 21st century: Possibility or wishful thinking?
Fear of the confessional or ‘McDonald-isation’ of spiritual life; is confession needed at all?
Public and penitential practices across the ages and cultures
Punishment for sin/transgression and rewarding virtue across the ages and cultures: individual and collective
Visions of Hell, Paradise and other afterlife Realms across cultures
Virtues in the modern times; virtues in a modern man
What to Send
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 12 October 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper of no more than 3000 words should be submitted by Friday 18th January 2013. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract
E-mails should be entitled: Sins and Virtues 2 Abstract Submission.
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 to 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.
Organising Chairs
Katarzyna Bronk
Rob Fisher
The conference is part of the At the Interface series of research projects. The aim of the conference is to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into a themed ISBN hard copy volume.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
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