Calendar

“Secularism and Its Discontents”

The New School for Social Research

16th Annual Philosophy Graduate Student Conference

Keynote Speaker: Gil Anidjar (Columbia)

Keynote Roundtable Featuring: Simon Critchley (The New School) and others TBA

With the increased social secularization in the West, philosophy, politics, and religion have become strange bedfellows. This emphasis on secularization has sparked controversies concerning the role of religion in the political sphere that have taken the form of lawsuits against forced funding of birth control, liberal democratic states outlawing hijabs, and increased focus on religious extremism as a way to define marginalized social classes. Unfortunately, in many liberal rationalizations of the political sphere there is a failure to give accounts of contemporary and historical forms of theology and specifically secularism. Questions are then raised: have politics and religion been separated by secular movements and relegated to their own jargons, ideas, and concepts, or are they both necessary to give fuller accounts of the interplays between them? With new arguments forming both in support of increased space for religion in politics and also in support of the complete separation of religion and politics under the guise of secularization – and both in the name of“freedom,” “equality,” and “rights” –  one is forced to ask a fundamental question: what is the role of religion in politics? And what are the political, theological, and philosophical ramifications of this role? From ancient thought to contemporary philosophy, issues of transcendence, absence, silence, resistance, and action have been raised as theological questions within the realm of the political. However, the extent to which religion and politics intersect in the contemporary world has become increasingly contentious in terms of religious expression and secular movements.

From political theology to radical orthodoxy to studies on political myth, the meaning of the relation between the sacred and the secular has yet to secure a consistently meaningful definition despite an increased popular rhetoric among various camps in the secularism debates. As such, the question of the influence that politics and religion have on one another is of significant import. This question holds major sway in any debate concerning the possibility of and warrant for a secular society, and to understand secular movements, one must first understand the contemporary and historical connections between the secular and the sacred. In light of this question, the liberal answer to the problem of the role of religion in politics is seemingly simple: new age, new order, a new secular approach to the political. But is the answer really this simple? This is the question we wish to explore.

At this year’s NSSR philosophy student conference, we wish to consider the role of religion in politics and all of the tensions and consequences this role entails specifically in relation to movements toward secularization. By bringing politics, religion, and philosophy into conversation with one another, one will be able to more clearly understand the causes, consequences, and meanings of secularization. At this conference we will think both with and against theology, politics, and philosophy in order to think more deeply about the secular.

We invite the submission of papers no longer than 4000 words prepared for a 30 minute presentation. Papers should be submitted as .pdf files and formatted for blind review. Please include as a separate document a cover letter including your name, paper title, institutional affiliation, and contact information.

Submissions should be sent to secularismanditsdiscontents@gmail.com by January 21st, 2017.

Possible Paper Topics Include:

• ·         Political Theology
• ·         Radical Orthodoxy
• ·         Politics and the Problem of Ontotheology
• ·         The Lowtich-Blumenberg Debate
• ·         Theological Materialism
• ·         Political Myth
• ·         Politics and a Phenomenology of Religious Experience
• ·         Silence and the Political
• ·         Feminism and Religious Experience
• ·         Presence and Absence in the Political
• ·         The Politics of Religion
• ·         When Religion Becomes Law
• ·         Mystical Anarchism
• ·         Political Revolution and Religious Revelation
• ·         Liberation Theology
• ·         Race and Philosophy of Religion
• ·         The Doctrine of Religious Restraint
• ·         Religious Existentialism
• ·         Violence and Religion
• ·         Neoliberalism and Religion

We invite the submission of papers no longer than 3,000 words prepared for a 20-25 minute presentation. Papers should be submitted as .pdf files and formatted for blind review. Please include as a separate document a cover letter including your name, paper title, institution and contact information.

Submissions should be sent to futuresofqueertheory@gmail.com by January 31, 2017

Possible Topics:
 Queer phenomenology
 The ethics of queer theory
 Queer theory and the philosophy of race
 Queer theory and intersectional feminism
 Deconstruction and queer theory
 Speech act theory and queer theory
 Queer theory and disability studies
 Queer thought and Black Lives Matter
 The teaching of queer theory
 The status of queers in philosophy
 De-subjugated knowledge
 Queer theory outside academia
 The place of experience in queer theory
 Philosophy, science, and queer theory
 Queer theory in relation to postcolonial and decolonial theory
 Queer theory and transgender studies
 Queer theory and Marxism
 Queer theory and French Feminism

The last two decades have seen a significant outpouring of criminal law reform efforts throughout the English-speaking world and beyond – including in the U.S., England  and Wales, Scotland, Australia, the Balkans, Georgia, Germany, Norway, Poland, and Rwanda. Despite, or possibly because of, all this activity, there has been relatively little consideration of the underlying theoretical issues that such reform raises. And there has been even less dialogue among criminal law reformers across jurisdictions. This project will seek to fill these voids by bringing together some of the leading figures in contemporary criminal law reform, as well as younger scholars and law reformers, to participate in an international workshop on the subject.

The idea of “criminal law reform,” as we conceive of it, entails not just any change to the criminal law, but rather an intentional process of revising, reordering, and reformulating a substantial area of the criminal law in some systematic way. Our interest here is not in the particular reforms one might think worthy in, say, the law of homicide in Argentina or the insanity defense in Greece. Rather, we are interested in the possibility of identifying and analyzing the kinds of general principles that underlie, or should underlie, the process of criminal law (or criminal procedure) reform across jurisdictions and subject matters.

Among the issues that we hope to see addressed are the following:

• How should a given jurisdiction determine that reform is needed? What kinds of concerns – whether arising from perceived social problems, international obligations, regime change or political revolution, structural inconsistencies and formal defects in the law, or short-term political ends – constitute appropriate justifications for reform?

• What makes for successful (or unsuccessful) criminal law or procedure reform? What are the formal attributes of good criminal law reform? Is reform best achieved in a comprehensive code, or in a more piecemeal manner? What is the proper scope of a criminal code? How does the process of criminal law reform differ depending on the part of the criminal law being considered, whether general principles or particular offenses? How accessible should criminal codes be to the general public? How should criminal law reformers deal with gaps and redundancies? How important is comprehensiveness?

• Who should be engaged in the process of law reform? What kinds of pre-legislative bodies should be created to assess needs for reform and to propose reforms, and with what kind of remit? To what kind of scrutiny, by what kind of body, should proposed reforms be subjected? How should criminal law reform bodies be constituted? What relationship should they have to legislatures, courts, prosecutors, and other constituencies?

Different jurisdictions approach criminal law reform in different ways: Some use  government-appointed law reform bodies; others rely on private, self-appointed expert bodies. Some rely on a “civilian”-type approach to codification; others on a common law-inspired one. By drawing on the experience conference attendees might have had participating in, or observing, the process of criminal law reform in their own or other jurisdictions, we hope to be able to find what general lessons (if any) can be learned about the principles, methods, and problems of systematic criminal law  reform.

Participating in the conference will be a collection of leading authorities in criminal law reform and criminal law theory, some of whom will present papers, and others of whom will serve as commentators. Confirmed participants (so far) include Vera Bergelson, Roger Clark, Antony Duff, Lindsay Farmer, Pamela Ferguson, Stuart Green, Adil Haque, Jeremy Horder, Tatjana Hörnle, Douglas Husak, Jørn Jacobsen, Margo Kaplan, Karl Laird, Paul Robinson, Alec Walen, and Gideon Yaffe.

Submission of abstracts and papers

Our aim is to feature a total of twelve short papers of approximately 5,000 words each. Approximately half of these will come from invited participants. The other half will come from this Call for Papers.

Interested parties are invited to submit an abstract of approximately 500 words describing the paper they would like to write and have discussed at the conference, along with a CV. Abstracts and CVs are due by May 15, 2016, and should be sent, in Word or PDF format, to Ms. Mimi Moore (mmoore@kinoy.rutgers.edu).

Applicants will be advised by June 30, 2016 whether their abstract has been accepted.

Successful applicants will then have until February 15, 2017 to submit a full, original draft of approximately 5,000 words. We hope you will consider publishing your contribution in a book of journal symposium that would come out of the conference, though you would not be obligated to do so, and we will not decide what the next steps in the process should be until we have had a chance to confer with attendees and to work out how the project can best be developed.

Each draft will have a commentator assigned to it. Workshop attendees will be expected to read the drafts in advance.

We invite submissions from both younger and older scholars and law reformers from diverse backgrounds and with diverse perspectives on, and experience, in the field.

Funding

We have secured initial funding sufficient to pay hotel and other local costs for all  participants whose papers are selected. We hope that participants will be able to find their own funding for travel, but we will do what we can to help with the travel costs of those who cannot find funding themselves.

Stuart Green (Rutgers Law) – sgreen@kinoy.rutgers.edu
Alec Walen (Rutgers Law and Philosophy) — awalen@law.rutgers.edu
Antony Duff (Stirling Philosophy) – r.a.duff@stir.ac.uk
Jeremy Horder (LSE Law) — J.Horder@lse.ac.uk

Over the course of his 49 year career (48 years of which were spent at Rutgers), Peter established himself as a giant in the field of aesthetics, especially in the philosophy of music. Sadly, Peter passed away in 2017.  To honor his memory, the Rutgers Philosophy Department is hosting a one-day conference on October 26, 2018, celebrating his life’s philosophical work.

The Conference will include talks by Christy Mag Uidhir (Houston), Jenefer Robinson (Cincinnati), Jerrold Levinson  (Maryland), and David Davies (McGill).  In addition, Aaron Meskin (Leeds) will introduce and read Peter Kivy’s unpublished ‘The Case of (Digital) Wagner.’ Finally, there will be a time set aside for remembrances from Peter’s friends and colleagues.

All are welcome to attend the conference. There is no registration fee; however, attendees are encouraged to pre-register (so that we have an accurate headcount for the lunch and reception). To pre-register, please email us at kivymemorial@philosophy.rutgers.edu

Conference Information
October 26, 2018
9:30 am – 5:00 pm – Conference
5:00 am – 6:15 pm – Reception

The conference and reception will take place at the Teleconference Room on the 4th Floor of Alexander Library (169 College Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ).  In addition to the reception at the close of the conference, a catered lunch will be served.

The exact conference schedule will be posted soon.
Questions can be directed to kivymemorial@philosophy.rutgers.edu