CFP: US Thought and Culture between Practice and Paralysis

Call for Papers:

‘Making it Work: US Thought and Culture between Practice and Paralysis’,

April 5th-6th 2013.

University of Michigan US Literatures and Cultures Consortium*

Deadline for Proposals - January 8th 2013 (Notifications of acceptance by February 1st).

usistconference2013@gmail.com

Keynotes: 

Paul Taylor (Philosophy / African American and Diaspora Studies, Penn State): author of Race: A Philosophical Introduction

Lisi Schoenbach (English, University of Tennessee Knoxville): author of Pragmatic Modernism

 Are there distinctively American attitudes toward objectivity and truth, judgment and action?  Two of the most enduring cliches about US culture are, first, that its thought characteristically refuses universal grounds, and second, that it privileges material practicality over theoretical or metaphysical abstraction.  Yet without universal grounds, how can we be convinced that anything is worth doing?  Let’s grant that it is; such a groundless granting may initially let us act with a sense of freedom and unlimited potential, but justifying or revising that action requires us to establish provisional grounds that can themselves be hedged, negotiated, interrogated to the paralyzing point of infinity.  Which side of this tension to prioritize—whether to elide contingencies and reduce deliberative friction or to recuperate the experience of hesitancy and dwell in possibility—is a governing question for distinctively American thinkers from Jonathan Edwards to Audre Lorde, Emily Dickinson to Sidney Hook, Jane Addams to Timothy Leary.

With this interdisciplinary graduate conference, we, the US Literatures and Cultures Consortium at the University of Michigan, hope to foster cross-departmental discussion of questions like the following...

 How have objectivity, truth, rationality, and agency been represented and conceptualized in US thought and culture?  How have these models permitted or circumscribed action?  How have they informed individual and communal practices: from action planned or spontaneous, to decision-making public or private, to governance local and federal?  What universalist appeals do make their way into US culture?  How are shared belief and/or knowledge constructed, articulated, perpetuated, scrutinized and revised without universalist guarantees?  How have such modes of understanding interacted and conflicted? How, essentially, have US philosophers, artists, politicians and citizens forged justifications for acting and judging in a world without universal grounds?  And how and why have some of them found greater value in resisting just this rush to action?
 

Such questions might be addressed in relation to topics like, but not limited to, the following:
 

-the US-ness of US thought

-living with contingency

-specific artworks, historical and cultural events

-pragmatism, neo-pragmatism and other anti-foundationalisms

-metaphysics and materialisms

-epistemology and situated knowledge

-processes of investigation and discovery

-concrete realities and social imaginaries

-agency, deliberation and decision

-methods of social representation

-models of the public realm

-modes of belief, religious and secular

-individual and communal obligations

-art and social change

-educational methodology

Abstracts of up to 300 words for papers that will cast new light on these questions should be submitted by email to usistconference2013@gmail.comby January 8th 2013.  We seek submissions from fellow graduate students in any discipline, who work in any period of, and who take any approach to, US Culture.

Accepted presenters will be notified by February 1st.  

_____________________

*Ali Chetwynd, a PhD candidate in English at the University of Michigan and co-coordinator of Michigan's U.S. Literatures and Cultures Consortium, asked me to pass along this CFP, found at http://sitemaker.umich.edu/usists/conference_2013  

- LDB

CFP: Education Reform: Past, Present, and Future

CALL FOR PAPERS
The Councilor: A Journal of the Social Studies
Special Issue on Education Reform: Past, Present, and Future
Edited by Andrew Hartman (Illinois State University) and Jeff Manuel (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville)

Fundamental questions have roiled the American educational system in recent years. Critics suggest that public education is failing its students and the nation, pinning the blame on teachers' unions, curriculum, and educational bureaucracy, among other culprits. Skeptics, on the other hand, note that critiques of today's educational system are motivated by get-rich-quick privatization schemes or simply find educational reform to be the latest cause de jour. Teachers themselves often feel that their professionalism, their care for children as well as test scores, and their collective bargaining rights vis-a-vis administrators are threatened by possible reforms.

As the journal of record for the Illinois Council for the Social Studies, The Councilor will publish a special issue on the topic of educational reform. We seek academic articles and shorter reflective essays on topics related to educational reform in its current guise, but also its past iterations and possible future trajectories. Possible topics may include:

• Teachers’ firsthand experiences with new testing and accountability regimes
• Lessons from previous reform movements that might inform the current situation
• Discussion of how Illinois teachers and schools have responded to the challenges of education reform

For consideration, please submit an abstract of approximately 200 words to the editors by October 15, 2012. The editors will review all submissions and then invite authors to submit full articles to the journal in early 2013. Abstracts should be emailed to Andrew Hartman (ahartma@ilstu.edu) and Jeff Manuel (jemanue@siue.edu).

The Councilor is the peer-reviewed journal of the Illinois Council for the Social Studies. Since 1939, The Councilor has published articles that incorporate pedagogical innovation and practice into all disciplines of the social studies. The Councilor also provides a forum for scholars to publish articles that explore the ways in which they integrate research into the classroom.

USIH PSAs

Dear Readers: A few public service announcements that might be of interest to U.S. intellectual historians.

1) American Political Thought. A new journal from the University of Chicago Press. Thanks to Mike O'Connor for notifying me of this development. As Mike wrote to me: "The inaugural issue includes a roundtable on American Exceptionalism, featuring, among others, Rogers Smith. This issue also features reviews of books by Pauline Maier and John Patrick Diggins, and an article on Benjamin Franklin. It's indexed on JSTOR, where they've put up a bit of free content (see the link above)."

2) Jacobin. As regular readers here know by now, I'm a tireless advocate of this upstart leftist journal of ideas. The latest issue is now out, and several of the articles can be read for free online. The issue is excellent. I am particularly impressed by articles by my Illinois State University colleague Curtis White, "The Philanthropic Complex," and by the next great educational writer, Megan Erickson, "The Case for Cinderblocks." Also be sure to read the excellent review of Jim Livingston's Against Thrift by Tim Barker.

3) Routledge Handbook of Cosmopolitan Studies. (Shameless self promotion alert.) This large anthology is now published--it's expensive, so you might recommend it to your institutional libraries. It includes my chapter, "Americans and Others: Historical Identity Formation in the United States."

 4) Ideas in History. This Nordic journal of intellectual history is issuing a CFP for a special theme issue on the history of economic ideas. Check it out: Since the 1980s, the economic landscape of the world has changed dramatically: globalisation, finanzialisation and deindustrialisation, rapid growth of global and national economic inequality, and repeated financial crises. Although the world has changed, intellectual historians have yet to seize the opportunity of offering historical in-depth understandings of the changes of global capitalism, then and now. This, we argue, should indeed be possible, and this special issue of Ideas in History calls for an economic turn’ of the discipline of intellectual history. We are interested in work that investigates the moral and cultural histories of economic rationalities and practice; work that traces the ways in which modern economic rationality became natural, and the ways in which it had to struggle (or collaborate) with religious and scientific authorities in order to gain legitimacy. Studies might concern various economic topics and practices, such as finance, poverty, markets, the state, regulation debates, statistics, money, insurance, etc., but it should investigate these from a perspective and/or methodology that can clearly be identified as affiliated with the discipline of intellectual history. Indeed, economic practices and rationalities offer great opportunities for being studied as representation, discourse, rhetoric, ideology, signs, symbols, etc., instead of merely being cold-hearted facts, graphs, figures, laws or objective truths that are not mediated through culture. Periodically, we are interested in the early modern period (with the rise of e.g. double-entry bookkeeping and of merchant capitalism in e.g. Venice), in the modern enlightenment period, and in the contemporary world. We are particularly interested in studies that investigate the moral and political controversies surrounding economic practices, and the role that religion and science, especially natural science, have played in these. Readings of work that deal with greater cultural and intellectual changes in the context of economic practices will be preferred over ‘great text’ readings. Reflections on whether the language of economics and economic values has today become a ‘master discourse’, stronger than both truth (science) and faith (religion) are highly welcome, as well as reflections on whether economic discourses are still haunted/supported by religious and/or scientific beliefs. Deadline for article submission is October 1st 2012.

 Ideas in History is a double-blind peer reviewed journal. Pieces should generally be 8-12,000 words long. Pieces will be received by the journal editors. Upon approval by the editorial board, pieces will then be sent for blind peer review. Ideas in History uses the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed., author-date system for references. Ideas in History subscribes to the principle of global English; manuscripts may be submitted in any self-consistent national form of English as concerns spelling, grammar and syntax. For placement of quotation marks, spellings of dates, capitalization conventions, placement of references, page numbering conventions and the compilation of the reference list, authors are referred to the Chicago Manual. The reference list should be labeled "References". Manuscripts should be submitted in Times New Roman 12. Footnotes, when necessary, should be used instead of endnotes and be formatted in Times New Roman 10. Manuscripts should be line spaced at either 1.5 or 2.0. Articles should be sent to Mikkel Thorup (idemt@hum.au.dk) or Christian Olaf Christiansen (idecoc@hum.au.dk).

Fun CFP For Film & History 2012 (The Conference): Chicks With Brains

The 2012 Film & History Conference (September 26-30, 2012) is focused on the theme of "Film and Myth." The conference is related to the journal, Film & History.

I found the following "area"/panel(?) call to be quite interesting:

---------------------------------------------------------
Area: Chicks with Brains: Representing Women’s Intellect in Film

Since the Second Wave Feminist Movement during the 1970s, Hollywood has slowly begun to give prominent and leading roles to women. However, the intellectual representations of women are out of line with reality, in many cases failing to reflect the successes and struggles that women have faced in a resistant social and political environment. This area considers the portrayals of traditional myths about “chicks with brains” across film history, as well as new myths and/or myth-busters that may have arisen since the Second Wave.

In what ways does Hollywood control expectations about the brains of women by foiling their intellect with their own bodies? Beautiful and naïve Elle Woods becomes a successful lawyer based on her knowledge of haircare products in Legally Blond; Natalie Portman is an astrophysicist whose sarcastic charm wins over Thor, heir to the God’s Realm of Asgard in superhero blockbuster Thor; and Easy A reminds us that smart teens—even ones as stunningly gorgeous as Emma Stone—aren’t accepted in the brutal high school hierarchies of popularity. How are smart women cast as threats to the social order, as in Julia Roberts' portrayal of 1950s Wellesley College co-ed Katherine Ann Watson in Mona Lisa Smile? What do we make of cinematic strategies that cast women as the counter-intellectual to men of superior intellect, such as Bella Swan in the Twilight saga, and Cameron Diaz in Bad Teacher, or don't allow them to display any characteristics of the intellectual at all?

This area seeks to critique the myths of women’s intellect in film across multiple genres and historic time periods, and across cultures and national borders (films do not need to have been produced in the U.S.). Papers might consider film history as well as cultural, social, or political history when formulating their analysis, in order to examine the twin complexities of subjugation by the film industry as well as the broader oppression of women in society.

Questions for consideration may include, but are not limited to:

· In what ways are women in film imprisoned by their intelligence?
· In what way are women ostracized for it?
· Are their cases in which women in film are set free, or live better, as a result of intellectual growth?
· How do female roles in film reinforce standards of beauty, submissiveness, and silence, over intellect, problem solving, or leadership?
· In what ways are smart women infantilized, or commodified, by their intelligence in film (i.e.: chicks, babes, and honeys who are, despite their appearance or place in society, intelligent)?
· How does an actress’s personal standards of intellect in her real life affect the way she is given roles, or seen on screen?
· Are there successes (i.e. females in film who are intelligent without also being objectified or villified)?

Please e-mail 250-500 word abstracts to the Area Chair: Laura Mattoon D’Amore, ldamore-at-rwu.edu.
---------------------------------------------------------

My academic situation is a bit uncertain for the summer and fall. Otherwise I'd find a way to either present or attend. I hope Laura D'Amore gets plenty of applications for her panel. Perhaps I can coax her or one of her forthcoming panel participants to share some of their findings at USIH? - TL

CFP: postwar political economy

(Note: I post this on behalf of Mike O'Connor, the current S-USIH treasurer.)

I am soliciting papers and a potential chair for a panel at the annual conference of the Society for U.S. Intellectual History, to be held November 1-2, 2012 in New York City. The subject of the panel is "postwar political economy." I am seeking any papers that deal with the intellectual history of the relationship between government and the economy in the United States in the latter half of the twentieth century. Both the disciplinary methodology and the subject may be considered broadly: please submit anything that you might consider relevant.

To apply, send a CV and an abstract of less than one page to Mike O'Connor at oconnor [at] gsu [dot] edu. Those who wish to be considered as the chair of the panel should send a CV to the same address, with a short note explaining their interest. Please submit all documents in MS Word or .pdf format no later than May 1, 2012. The conference organizers will not allow conference attendees to participate in more than one panel. All participants in the conference must be members of the Society for U.S. Intellectual history, and pay the conference registration fee.

CFP: “The Enlightenment between Europe and the United States: Twentieth-Century Tensions”

May 26-27, 2011
Center for Advanced Studies
Ludwig Maximilian University
Munich, Germany

The Enlightenment is often presented as the idea that unifies America and Europe. It shaped the eighteenth-century era of democratic revolutions on both sides of the Atlantic; it fostered the growth of industrial capitalism in the nineteenth century, which by 1900 had given imperial powers to the United States and Europe; it was the heart of anti-fascism in the twentieth century and, later, the keystone to Cold War politics, as practiced in Western Europe and the United States. Finally, publication of Salmon Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, in 1989, inaugurated a new geopolitical moment, with the enlightened (pluralist, secular) West contrasted to a religious, reactionary and Eastern opposite. The September 11 attacks reaffirmed such polarities, and such clichés, once again suggesting the Enlightenment as the bridge between Europe and America as well as a barrier between Euro-America and the world around it.

Focusing on the twentieth century, this conference will subject such notions to careful scrutiny. It will investigate narratives that associate the Enlightenment with Europe and America. What plays the central role in these narratives? Is it democracy? Is it a universal norm of human rights? Is it a commitment to science and technology? Or is it political economy – capitalism, social democracy, socialism – that best characterizes the Enlightenment bond between Europe and America? This conference will also pose questions about the Enlightenment as a kind of trans-Atlantic glue. Is it the Enlightenment per se or a debate (dialectic) about the Enlightenment that matters most? Advocates of post-modernism, in America and Europe, are united in their opposition to the Enlightenment. Could this opposition be a bond between Europe and America? And is the Enlightenment itself unitary, in the twentieth century, or does it demand geographical qualification – Scottish Enlightenment, American Enlightenment, German Enlightenment, French, etc., as is often the case in scholarship on the eighteenth-century Enlightenment? If so, might the existence of several Enlightenments be divisive rather than unifying with regard to the European-American relationship?

This conference is part of a larger research project, being conducted at the Ludwig Maximilian University’s Center for Advanced Studies and titled “Transatlantic Cultures: America, Europe and the West.”

Though this conference will be primarily concerned with personalities and texts from within America and Europe, its themes are obviously global in scope. We therefore invite papers from Europeanists, Americanists and from scholars working outside European and American history. Participants will be encouraged to comment creatively on the geography of the Enlightenment in modern history, on its primary locations, on the extent to which it is genuinely or indigenously Euro-American; and the extent to which the Enlightenment implies something less circumscribed than the trans-Atlantic relationship. Historians, scholars working in political theory, post-colonial studies, literary studies and international relations are all encouraged to respond to this call for papers. Seriously researched pre-circulated papers will be a requirement and will be regarded as the foundation for a published volume of conference essay.

Proposals of about one page in length should be sent to Dr. Sonja Asal at the Center for Advanced Studies: sonja.asal@cas.lmu.de. Proposals are due by December 6, 2010; and completed papers for pre-circulation will be due by May 5, 2011.

Professor Christof Mauch, Ludwig Maximilian University; Professor Michael Kimmage, Catholic University of America

Research Project: “Transatlantic Cultures,” Center for Advanced Studies, Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich

Center for Advanced Studies
LMU
Seestraße 13
80802 München
http://www.en.cas.uni-muenchen.de/index.html

CFP: “The Enlightenment between Europe and the United States: Twentieth-Century Tensions”

May 26-27, 2011
Center for Advanced Studies
Ludwig Maximilian University
Munich, Germany

The Enlightenment is often presented as the idea that unifies America and Europe. It shaped the eighteenth-century era of democratic revolutions on both sides of the Atlantic; it fostered the growth of industrial capitalism in the nineteenth century, which by 1900 had given imperial powers to the United States and Europe; it was the heart of anti-fascism in the twentieth century and, later, the keystone to Cold War politics, as practiced in Western Europe and the United States. Finally, publication of Salmon Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, in 1989, inaugurated a new geopolitical moment, with the enlightened (pluralist, secular) West contrasted to a religious, reactionary and Eastern opposite. The September 11 attacks reaffirmed such polarities, and such clichés, once again suggesting the Enlightenment as the bridge between Europe and America as well as a barrier between Euro-America and the world around it.

Focusing on the twentieth century, this conference will subject such notions to careful scrutiny. It will investigate narratives that associate the Enlightenment with Europe and America. What plays the central role in these narratives? Is it democracy? Is it a universal norm of human rights? Is it a commitment to science and technology? Or is it political economy – capitalism, social democracy, socialism – that best characterizes the Enlightenment bond between Europe and America? This conference will also pose questions about the Enlightenment as a kind of trans-Atlantic glue. Is it the Enlightenment per se or a debate (dialectic) about the Enlightenment that matters most? Advocates of post-modernism, in America and Europe, are united in their opposition to the Enlightenment. Could this opposition be a bond between Europe and America? And is the Enlightenment itself unitary, in the twentieth century, or does it demand geographical qualification – Scottish Enlightenment, American Enlightenment, German Enlightenment, French, etc., as is often the case in scholarship on the eighteenth-century Enlightenment? If so, might the existence of several Enlightenments be divisive rather than unifying with regard to the European-American relationship?

This conference is part of a larger research project, being conducted at the Ludwig Maximilian University’s Center for Advanced Studies and titled “Transatlantic Cultures: America, Europe and the West.”

Though this conference will be primarily concerned with personalities and texts from within America and Europe, its themes are obviously global in scope. We therefore invite papers from Europeanists, Americanists and from scholars working outside European and American history. Participants will be encouraged to comment creatively on the geography of the Enlightenment in modern history, on its primary locations, on the extent to which it is genuinely or indigenously Euro-American; and the extent to which the Enlightenment implies something less circumscribed than the trans-Atlantic relationship. Historians, scholars working in political theory, post-colonial studies, literary studies and international relations are all encouraged to respond to this call for papers. Seriously researched pre-circulated papers will be a requirement and will be regarded as the foundation for a published volume of conference essay.

Proposals of about one page in length should be sent to Dr. Sonja Asal at the Center for Advanced Studies: sonja.asal@cas.lmu.de. Proposals are due by December 6, 2010; and completed papers for pre-circulation will be due by May 5, 2011.

Professor Christof Mauch, Ludwig Maximilian University; Professor Michael Kimmage, Catholic University of America

Research Project: “Transatlantic Cultures,” Center for Advanced Studies, Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich

Center for Advanced Studies
LMU
Seestraße 13
80802 München
http://www.en.cas.uni-muenchen.de/index.html

Call for Papers: American Literature Association 2011 Conference

American Literature Association 2011 Conference / Boston, Massachusetts, May 26 - 29, 2011
Susan Glaspell Society Panel
Dramatizing Ideas: Intellectual Hybrids, Heterodoxies, and Humanisms in Greenwich Village

Selecting for traits, cross breeding, grafting, Claire Archer, the horticultural mad scientist at the center of Glaspell’s 1921 drama The Verge, uses all of these techniques to create a new self-reproducing species of plant, calling her efforts “mad new comings together.” In imagining Claire’s work in this play, Glaspell hit upon a metaphor for the intellectual life of Greenwich Village, where new ideas in politics, philosophy, science, spirituality, and art were bred and crossbred.

Glaspell’s horticultural metaphors for ideas have been linked by recent scholars to the educational organicism of John Dewey, to the Pragmatism of William James, to the Humanism of F. C. S. Schiller, to the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud, to the ontology of Henri Bergson, as well as to the evolutionary science of Lamarck, Darwin, and Haeckel. Such metaphors must be seen as the culmination of Glaspell’s own long-standing interest in the fusion of different ways of knowing. “When art weds science,” Glaspell wrote in her first novel, The Glory of the Conquered, “the resulting library is difficult to manage.” Extending these metaphors into a more general inquiry, the Susan Glaspell Society invites papers that address Greenwich Village as a site for the transformation of ideas.

The Glaspell Society is pleased to present its panel as part of the Five Drama Societies’ series on “Dramatizing Ideas.” Papers addressing any aspect of Glaspell’s drama and performance are welcome, as are papers dealing with her novels and short fiction. Additional possible topics include but are not limited to:

Glaspell and Science, Religion, Philosophy
Horticulture in Glaspell’s Writings
Influence of Science and/or Religion on Greenwich Village Writers or Artists
Pragmatism in Greenwich Village
The Heterodoxy Club and other Ideas of Heterodoxy
Aesthetic Fusions in Modern American Theatre, Literature, and Art
Eastern Religion and Culture in Modern America
Intellectual Genealogies of Progressive Reforms
NY Reception of Continental Philosophy: Nietzsche, Freud, Bergson
(Con)fusions of Philosophy / Intellectual Chimeras
Ideas of Race and Race-mixing in Greenwich Village
Early History of Genetics and Race
Ecology and Art in Modern America
Synesthesia in Modern Art, Literature, Theatre
The Idea of Nature in Early Twentieth-Century America
Intellectual Hybridity in Periodicals: The Masses, The Little Review, TNR, The Nation
Material Conditions of Intellectual Activity
Intellectualism and Political Radicalism
History of Greenwich Village

Please send 300 word abstract and brief bio by January 15th to Michael Winetsky at GlaspellsocietyALA2011@yahoo.com. The American Literature Association Conference will meet at the Westin Copley Place in Boston, May 26 - 29, 2011. For further information visit www.americanliterature.org.

Call for Papers: American Literature Association 2011 Conference

American Literature Association 2011 Conference / Boston, Massachusetts, May 26 - 29, 2011
Susan Glaspell Society Panel
Dramatizing Ideas: Intellectual Hybrids, Heterodoxies, and Humanisms in Greenwich Village

Selecting for traits, cross breeding, grafting, Claire Archer, the horticultural mad scientist at the center of Glaspell’s 1921 drama The Verge, uses all of these techniques to create a new self-reproducing species of plant, calling her efforts “mad new comings together.” In imagining Claire’s work in this play, Glaspell hit upon a metaphor for the intellectual life of Greenwich Village, where new ideas in politics, philosophy, science, spirituality, and art were bred and crossbred.

Glaspell’s horticultural metaphors for ideas have been linked by recent scholars to the educational organicism of John Dewey, to the Pragmatism of William James, to the Humanism of F. C. S. Schiller, to the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud, to the ontology of Henri Bergson, as well as to the evolutionary science of Lamarck, Darwin, and Haeckel. Such metaphors must be seen as the culmination of Glaspell’s own long-standing interest in the fusion of different ways of knowing. “When art weds science,” Glaspell wrote in her first novel, The Glory of the Conquered, “the resulting library is difficult to manage.” Extending these metaphors into a more general inquiry, the Susan Glaspell Society invites papers that address Greenwich Village as a site for the transformation of ideas.

The Glaspell Society is pleased to present its panel as part of the Five Drama Societies’ series on “Dramatizing Ideas.” Papers addressing any aspect of Glaspell’s drama and performance are welcome, as are papers dealing with her novels and short fiction. Additional possible topics include but are not limited to:

Glaspell and Science, Religion, Philosophy
Horticulture in Glaspell’s Writings
Influence of Science and/or Religion on Greenwich Village Writers or Artists
Pragmatism in Greenwich Village
The Heterodoxy Club and other Ideas of Heterodoxy
Aesthetic Fusions in Modern American Theatre, Literature, and Art
Eastern Religion and Culture in Modern America
Intellectual Genealogies of Progressive Reforms
NY Reception of Continental Philosophy: Nietzsche, Freud, Bergson
(Con)fusions of Philosophy / Intellectual Chimeras
Ideas of Race and Race-mixing in Greenwich Village
Early History of Genetics and Race
Ecology and Art in Modern America
Synesthesia in Modern Art, Literature, Theatre
The Idea of Nature in Early Twentieth-Century America
Intellectual Hybridity in Periodicals: The Masses, The Little Review, TNR, The Nation
Material Conditions of Intellectual Activity
Intellectualism and Political Radicalism
History of Greenwich Village

Please send 300 word abstract and brief bio by January 15th to Michael Winetsky at GlaspellsocietyALA2011@yahoo.com. The American Literature Association Conference will meet at the Westin Copley Place in Boston, May 26 - 29, 2011. For further information visit www.americanliterature.org.

CFP: Special Issue of the European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy (EJPAP)

European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, 2011, 2, 2.

Symposia: “Pragmatism and the social sciences: a century of influences and interactions”

Editors: Roberto Frega (University of Bologna), Filipe Carreira da Silva (University of Lisbon)

The second issue of 2011 of the European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy (EJPAP) will be devoted to the relationship between pragmatism and the social sciences. The issue is explicitly interdisciplinary in focus and aims at assessing the relevance and fruitfulness of the pragmatist tradition for the development of contemporary social theory, as well as the place of pragmatist themes and concepts within the social sciences.

Since its origins, in fact, classical American pragmatism has been a philosophy resolutely open to the social sciences. Not only pragmatists have been actively engaged in social scientific research themselves (think of W. James, J. Dewey, G.H. Mead, C. Morris), but they have also conceived of the birth and development of the social sciences as one of the most innovative traits of modern society, the one truly capable of incarnating the pragmatist conception of the scope of knowledge within human experience.

It was mostly to social sciences, in fact, that pragmatist philosophers, social scientists, and reformers such as J. Dewey, W.E.B. Du Bois, L. Trilling, S. Hook, W. Mills turned to in order to find the analytical categories that could make philosophical thinking more attuned to the transformations changing contemporary societies. At the same time, the social sciences have always looked at pragmatism as a philosophy that offers useful tools for making sense of social, cultural and political practices and institutions.

The aim of this issue of EJPAP is to discuss the reciprocal influences between pragmatism and the social sciences, and at exploring the current state of their interactions within contemporary philosophy and social sciences.

Contributions from both philosophers and social scientists are thus welcome.

Possible questions for discussion include at least the following:

1. The role of pragmatist concepts for empirical social scientific research. How have concepts such as: public, situation, self, agency been developed by social scientists in their empirical work? What normative practices have been adopted because of influences stemming from pragmatism? What is the heuristic value of pragmatist categories and theories for work in the social sciences?

2. The role of the social sciences in the development of pragmatism. Historical accounts of the close relation (since the inception of the pragmatist movement) between pragmatist philosophy and experimental and social science are particularly welcome; these could include, for example, discussions of the importance of the social sciences in the development of the philosophies of Peirce, James, Dewey or Mead. Papers discussing the epistemological dimension of this historical relation are also welcome. Of equal interest are theoretical questions concerning the extent to which pragmatist philosophers draw upon empirical research to illustrate their claims, or of how research carried on within the social sciences has been and still is integrated in the reflection of pragmatist philosophers.

3. Pragmatism as a philosophy of the social sciences. Is there really a pragmatist philosophy of the social sciences? Which are its main, distinctive traits? How might traditional pragmatist sources contribute to its development? Which are the current approaches to the philosophy of the social sciences within the pragmatist tradition?

Abstracts of 400-500 words should be sent to Roberto Frega (roberto.frega@unibo.it) by February 15th 2011.

The deadline for receipt of submissions is November 15th 2011. This issue of EJPAP will appear online in late 2011.

CFP: Special Issue of the European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy (EJPAP)

European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, 2011, 2, 2.

Symposia: “Pragmatism and the social sciences: a century of influences and interactions”

Editors: Roberto Frega (University of Bologna), Filipe Carreira da Silva (University of Lisbon)

The second issue of 2011 of the European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy (EJPAP) will be devoted to the relationship between pragmatism and the social sciences. The issue is explicitly interdisciplinary in focus and aims at assessing the relevance and fruitfulness of the pragmatist tradition for the development of contemporary social theory, as well as the place of pragmatist themes and concepts within the social sciences.

Since its origins, in fact, classical American pragmatism has been a philosophy resolutely open to the social sciences. Not only pragmatists have been actively engaged in social scientific research themselves (think of W. James, J. Dewey, G.H. Mead, C. Morris), but they have also conceived of the birth and development of the social sciences as one of the most innovative traits of modern society, the one truly capable of incarnating the pragmatist conception of the scope of knowledge within human experience.

It was mostly to social sciences, in fact, that pragmatist philosophers, social scientists, and reformers such as J. Dewey, W.E.B. Du Bois, L. Trilling, S. Hook, W. Mills turned to in order to find the analytical categories that could make philosophical thinking more attuned to the transformations changing contemporary societies. At the same time, the social sciences have always looked at pragmatism as a philosophy that offers useful tools for making sense of social, cultural and political practices and institutions.

The aim of this issue of EJPAP is to discuss the reciprocal influences between pragmatism and the social sciences, and at exploring the current state of their interactions within contemporary philosophy and social sciences.

Contributions from both philosophers and social scientists are thus welcome.

Possible questions for discussion include at least the following:

1. The role of pragmatist concepts for empirical social scientific research. How have concepts such as: public, situation, self, agency been developed by social scientists in their empirical work? What normative practices have been adopted because of influences stemming from pragmatism? What is the heuristic value of pragmatist categories and theories for work in the social sciences?

2. The role of the social sciences in the development of pragmatism. Historical accounts of the close relation (since the inception of the pragmatist movement) between pragmatist philosophy and experimental and social science are particularly welcome; these could include, for example, discussions of the importance of the social sciences in the development of the philosophies of Peirce, James, Dewey or Mead. Papers discussing the epistemological dimension of this historical relation are also welcome. Of equal interest are theoretical questions concerning the extent to which pragmatist philosophers draw upon empirical research to illustrate their claims, or of how research carried on within the social sciences has been and still is integrated in the reflection of pragmatist philosophers.

3. Pragmatism as a philosophy of the social sciences. Is there really a pragmatist philosophy of the social sciences? Which are its main, distinctive traits? How might traditional pragmatist sources contribute to its development? Which are the current approaches to the philosophy of the social sciences within the pragmatist tradition?

Abstracts of 400-500 words should be sent to Roberto Frega (roberto.frega@unibo.it) by February 15th 2011.

The deadline for receipt of submissions is November 15th 2011. This issue of EJPAP will appear online in late 2011.

CFP Of Interest: Essays in Philosophy

This upcoming issue of Essays in Philosophy looks like it's begging for a contribution from an intellectual historian. I mean, the best predictor of the future is past performance, right? That's what the investment adds tell us. Anyway, I've put passages of interest in bold. - TL

---------------------------------------------------------

Call for papers: Special issue of Essays in Philosophy

Philosophy's Future: Science or Something Else?

It has been well over two centuries since Kant asked, essentially, whether philosophy is possible as a science. What is the answer? Analytic philosophers today talk as if our discipline is a branch of science: We aspire to the rigor of mathematics, the objectivity of physics, the explanatory power of biology, and so forth. But if philosophy is like a science, then it is a science like no other. Philosophical proposals that are hundreds or even thousands of years old are taken seriously in the present, even as it is widely believed that those ideas don't solve their respective problems. No philosophical idea ever dies, and no philosophical idea ever gains full acceptance, either. No other solution-based, intellectual discipline has this property. Philosophers hypothesize answers like scientists, structure arguments like mathematicians, and end up with theories as inscrutable as art. It is time to ask again where philosophy stands as a problem solving discipline-to ask again, have we advanced even one step? Can we?

Essays in Philosophy, Volume 12, Number 2
Issue date: July 2011
Submission deadline: December 31, 2010
Editors: Eric Dietrich (SUNY Binghamton) and Zach Weber (University of
Melbourne)

All submissions should be sent to the general editor via email:
boersema@pacificu.edu.

CFP Of Interest: Essays in Philosophy

This upcoming issue of Essays in Philosophy looks like it's begging for a contribution from an intellectual historian. I mean, the best predictor of the future is past performance, right? That's what the investment adds tell us. Anyway, I've put passages of interest in bold. - TL

---------------------------------------------------------

Call for papers: Special issue of Essays in Philosophy

Philosophy's Future: Science or Something Else?

It has been well over two centuries since Kant asked, essentially, whether philosophy is possible as a science. What is the answer? Analytic philosophers today talk as if our discipline is a branch of science: We aspire to the rigor of mathematics, the objectivity of physics, the explanatory power of biology, and so forth. But if philosophy is like a science, then it is a science like no other. Philosophical proposals that are hundreds or even thousands of years old are taken seriously in the present, even as it is widely believed that those ideas don't solve their respective problems. No philosophical idea ever dies, and no philosophical idea ever gains full acceptance, either. No other solution-based, intellectual discipline has this property. Philosophers hypothesize answers like scientists, structure arguments like mathematicians, and end up with theories as inscrutable as art. It is time to ask again where philosophy stands as a problem solving discipline-to ask again, have we advanced even one step? Can we?

Essays in Philosophy, Volume 12, Number 2
Issue date: July 2011
Submission deadline: December 31, 2010
Editors: Eric Dietrich (SUNY Binghamton) and Zach Weber (University of
Melbourne)

All submissions should be sent to the general editor via email:
boersema@pacificu.edu.

CFP: “Intellectuals and Their Publics”

Third Annual U.S. Intellectual History Conference
Sponsored by USIH and the Center for the Humanities
The Graduate Center, CUNY
New York City
October 21-22, 2010

Paper and panel proposals are welcome for the Third Annual U.S. Intellectual History Conference to be held on October 21-22, 2010 in New York City. The Conference is being organized by the editors of the U.S. Intellectual History (USIH) blog in coordination with the City University of New York's Center for the Humanities (The Graduate Center). Founded in 2007, USIH promotes discussion of American intellectual history and fosters connections between scholars from any discipline sharing this interest. Visit our site: http://us-intellectual-history.blogspot.com/

This year’s theme is “Intellectuals and Their Publics.” We seek papers and panels reflecting upon the social, political, and cultural impact of intellectuals and their varied relationships to a diversity of publics, such as ethnic or racial groups, professionals, scholars, artists, politicians, or civil rights organizations. Intellectuals have always worked in relationship to their audience. In what ways have intellectuals defined, or been defined by, their audiences? In the pluralistic public culture of the United States, have audience divisions shaped distinctive intellectual traditions or supplemented a common public culture? In general, how have intellectuals—whether scientists or theologians, philosophers or authors, artists or policymakers—sought broader public relevance, as social critics, “public intellectuals,” or in other ways? In what ways have academic intellectuals breached disciplinary boundaries and/or reached non-academic audiences? Have the responsibilities pressed upon, and accepted by, Black, Latino/a, Native American, and Asian-American intellectuals been different from those expected of Euro-Americans? While we solicit papers on these and related issues, we welcome papers and panels on other aspects of U.S. intellectual history as well.

In addition to individual papers, we also encourage submissions of full panels and applications from those who would be interested in moderating a session. Please submit electronic abstracts for papers, panels, or both by Tuesday, June 15, 2010. Proposals should be approximately 200 words and include a concise curriculum vitae for each participant. Be sure to include your postal and e-mail addresses, as well as a phone number. Those interested in chairing a session or commenting should send a CV indicating areas of expertise and interests. Panels will feature three papers, no longer than 20 minutes each. Sessions will last 120 minutes.

Please address all inquiries and abstracts to:

Andrew Hartman
ahartma@ilstu.edu

CFP: “Intellectuals and Their Publics”

Third Annual U.S. Intellectual History Conference
Sponsored by USIH and the Center for the Humanities
The Graduate Center, CUNY
New York City
October 21-22, 2010

Paper and panel proposals are welcome for the Third Annual U.S. Intellectual History Conference to be held on October 21-22, 2010 in New York City. The Conference is being organized by the editors of the U.S. Intellectual History (USIH) blog in coordination with the City University of New York's Center for the Humanities (The Graduate Center). Founded in 2007, USIH promotes discussion of American intellectual history and fosters connections between scholars from any discipline sharing this interest. Visit our site: http://us-intellectual-history.blogspot.com/

This year’s theme is “Intellectuals and Their Publics.” We seek papers and panels reflecting upon the social, political, and cultural impact of intellectuals and their varied relationships to a diversity of publics, such as ethnic or racial groups, professionals, scholars, artists, politicians, or civil rights organizations. Intellectuals have always worked in relationship to their audience. In what ways have intellectuals defined, or been defined by, their audiences? In the pluralistic public culture of the United States, have audience divisions shaped distinctive intellectual traditions or supplemented a common public culture? In general, how have intellectuals—whether scientists or theologians, philosophers or authors, artists or policymakers—sought broader public relevance, as social critics, “public intellectuals,” or in other ways? In what ways have academic intellectuals breached disciplinary boundaries and/or reached non-academic audiences? Have the responsibilities pressed upon, and accepted by, Black, Latino/a, Native American, and Asian-American intellectuals been different from those expected of Euro-Americans? While we solicit papers on these and related issues, we welcome papers and panels on other aspects of U.S. intellectual history as well.

In addition to individual papers, we also encourage submissions of full panels and applications from those who would be interested in moderating a session. Please submit electronic abstracts for papers, panels, or both by Tuesday, June 15, 2010. Proposals should be approximately 200 words and include a concise curriculum vitae for each participant. Be sure to include your postal and e-mail addresses, as well as a phone number. Those interested in chairing a session or commenting should send a CV indicating areas of expertise and interests. Panels will feature three papers, no longer than 20 minutes each. Sessions will last 120 minutes.

Please address all inquiries and abstracts to:

Andrew Hartman
ahartma@ilstu.edu

CFP: American Ideas In Context (University of Nottingham)

FYI: From Nick Witham, USIH participant in 2009.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CFP

American Ideas in Context

A Postgraduate and Early Career Conference

School of American and Canadian Studies, University of Nottingham

14 September 2010

Plenary Speaker: Professor Michael O'Brien, Cambridge University

Intellectual history, or the history of ideas, is a methodological approach too often downplayed in disciplinary discussions of American Studies. This belies the fact that the study of American ideas and their specific contexts is vital to a wide variety of work currently taking place within the field.

The School of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottingham has historically provided a unique institutional context for the development of scholarship in American intellectual history. This one-day conference seeks to build on this expertise in order to highlight and promote the existence of a nation-wide community of postgraduates and early career researchers whose study of the interdisciplinary history of American ideas ranges from history and political theory to literature, art history and cultural studies. Proposing a broad definition of intellectual history, "American Ideas in Context" not only invites papers that cover traditional ground by stressing the importance of certain key intellectuals or abstract ideas. It also encourages presentations that highlight the origins of American ideas in social and political movements. This approach seeks to widen the classification of intellectual 'institutions' to encompass cultural as well as strictly academic sites of knowledge production (visual cultures and the press, for example). Contributions exploring the function of global, transnational and comparative linguistic factors in the formation of American thought will also be encouraged.

Overall, it is hoped that the conference will contribute to a wider understanding of the multiple historical, political and social contexts in which American ideas have been forged.

Subjects might include:

- Republicanism
- Liberalism
- Pragmatism
- Historiography
- Social Science
- The Old and New Lefts
- Conservatism
- Race Thinking
- Feminism
- Environmentalism
- Globalisation
- Identity Politics

If you are a postgraduate student or have completed a PhD since 2005 and wish to give a paper, please send a proposal of no more than 300 words along with a short CV to the contact details below. Papers should be of 20 minutes duration. There will be a number of travel bursaries available for postgraduate presenters, and information about accommodation options will be available shortly.

DEADLINE: 1 May 2010

Email: Nick Witham, american.ideas-at-gmail.com
Here's a link to the conference blog.

CFP: American Ideas In Context (University of Nottingham)

FYI: From Nick Witham, USIH participant in 2009.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CFP

American Ideas in Context

A Postgraduate and Early Career Conference

School of American and Canadian Studies, University of Nottingham

14 September 2010

Plenary Speaker: Professor Michael O'Brien, Cambridge University

Intellectual history, or the history of ideas, is a methodological approach too often downplayed in disciplinary discussions of American Studies. This belies the fact that the study of American ideas and their specific contexts is vital to a wide variety of work currently taking place within the field.

The School of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottingham has historically provided a unique institutional context for the development of scholarship in American intellectual history. This one-day conference seeks to build on this expertise in order to highlight and promote the existence of a nation-wide community of postgraduates and early career researchers whose study of the interdisciplinary history of American ideas ranges from history and political theory to literature, art history and cultural studies. Proposing a broad definition of intellectual history, "American Ideas in Context" not only invites papers that cover traditional ground by stressing the importance of certain key intellectuals or abstract ideas. It also encourages presentations that highlight the origins of American ideas in social and political movements. This approach seeks to widen the classification of intellectual 'institutions' to encompass cultural as well as strictly academic sites of knowledge production (visual cultures and the press, for example). Contributions exploring the function of global, transnational and comparative linguistic factors in the formation of American thought will also be encouraged.

Overall, it is hoped that the conference will contribute to a wider understanding of the multiple historical, political and social contexts in which American ideas have been forged.

Subjects might include:

- Republicanism
- Liberalism
- Pragmatism
- Historiography
- Social Science
- The Old and New Lefts
- Conservatism
- Race Thinking
- Feminism
- Environmentalism
- Globalisation
- Identity Politics

If you are a postgraduate student or have completed a PhD since 2005 and wish to give a paper, please send a proposal of no more than 300 words along with a short CV to the contact details below. Papers should be of 20 minutes duration. There will be a number of travel bursaries available for postgraduate presenters, and information about accommodation options will be available shortly.

DEADLINE: 1 May 2010

Email: Nick Witham, american.ideas-at-gmail.com
Here's a link to the conference blog.

Tim's Light Reading (12/17/2009)

1. What Today's Philosophers Think: Although I understand some of the questions given here by The PhilPapers Surveys, another subset are beyond me---at least as of today. The authors of the quiz concede that they framed many of the questions within the analytic tradition, and my strengths (the few I possess) do not lie in the history of that era, or in its terminology, so my ignorance should not have surprised me. Still, I'm intrigued by what I do know of the issues. The demographics portion of the survey included a question (at the bottom) about the non-living philosophers with which today's group identified. Notice Foucault garnered only 11 votes, and Adorno only 6. I was shocked to see Hume at the top, as well as Aristotle---one of my favorites---still holding at #2. My other favorite is Aquinas, who came in at #24 with 69 votes. Dewey, Sellars, and Peirce came in at 29, 30, and 31 with 31, 30, and 28 votes, respectively. James entered at 34 with 22 votes. Based on my more recent, less historical observations of Catholic thought and the analytical framework of the questions, I'm somewhat surprised to see neither this guy nor this movement on the lists. I figured one or the other would get the 5 minimum nods to be counted.

2. Livingston At HNN: Here's a partial reprise of James Livingston's USIH address, which is also an excerpt from his new book, The World Turned Inside Out: American Thought and Culture at the End of the 20th Century. And here's his new blog address. There he takes on the criticisms of Eric Alterman given during the conference, and reveals---at the end of the post---that he told a (white) lie to Alterman and the rest of us during Q&A.

3. Culture Wars at "The Great Books College of Chicago": As an observer and student of trends in the history of the great books idea, I can't resist bringing to your attention a story out of Chicago. The gist is this: Some faculty and and students at Shimer College are worried that the administration, headed by President Thomas K. Lindsay, is engineering a conservative take over of the institution. A bit of background is necessary. Shimer began as a small liberal arts college in Illinois, originally located in Mount Carroll, that took on a great books curriculum in the 1950s. That curriculum derived from the thinking of Robert Maynard Hutchins, former University of Chicago president, and probably Mortimer J. Adler, Hutchins's friend and intellectual advisor. The college's great books list originally looked a lot like the one comprising Britannica's 1952 Great Books set, but evolved to something more liberal and inclusive as time passed. With regard to its staff, faculty, and students, Shimer became known, especially in the 1970s, for its liberal social and cultural atmosphere. This was evident not just in behavior (which hearsay has probably amplified) during the "Me Decade," but also---and more importantly---in Shimer's radically democratic shared governance scheme, the "Assembly," discussed in the first link above. While some comments to the article express dismay at the culture wars overlay in the piece, saying this is an administrative issue only, there does appear to be a right-ward trend in relation to new Board of Trustees members. This weblog is documenting student, faculty, and staff resistance to the changes. There's a lot to say about this story, but my biggest surprise is that this political-social tug-of-war is only just now hitting Shimer. I'm shocked it didn't happen in the 1980s or 1990s, well before its move to Chicago.

4. The Great Books College of C.S. Lewis: Thanks to John Fea, I have learned that a C.S. Lewis-inspired, ecumenically Christian college is opening in Northfield, MA. The curriculum is, of course, to be based on the great books idea. John didn't say which version of the great books idea they'd be utilizing, but I can imagine a Britannica connection. I'd have to explore their website to learn more. I'll wait on that project, however, until they actually open and host a first class.

5. So you read the Encyclopedia Britannica?: Continuing the great books/Britannica subtheme of today's entries, A.J. Jacobs reflects on the proportion of things-remembered to things-learned after having read the Encyclopedia Britannica near the beginning of this decade. He recorded much of that endeavor in his 2004 book, The Know-It-All. Two parts from the Youtube clip caught my attention. Jacobs emphatically declares that he's forgotten "a huge amount" right off the bat-- about 97-98 percent he thinks. But he also reflects, around the 55 second mark, on the fact that he's gained a deeper, more useful-than-trivia kind of knowledge from that reading. For instance, he cited a justified, affirming optimism about humanity's ability to adapt and grow (my words) that has resulted from his survey of the accomplishments of human civilization.

6. Midsouth Philosophy Conference: I bring this to your attention because of the openness of the call---meaning historians of the Lovejovian variety might be welcome: "The thirty-fourth annual Midsouth Philosophy Conference is scheduled for Friday afternoon and Saturday, March 5-6, at The University of Memphis. Papers in any area are welcome. There will be a $25 registration fee, payable by cash or check at the conference (but not by credit or debit card). Alastair Norcross (University of Colorado at Boulder) will deliver the keynote address."