Dear FEAST Colleagues,

I am writing to invite you to apply for the upcoming philoSOPHIA conference
I will be hosting at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), in sunny Boca
Raton. The 11th annual meeting of philoSOPHIA will run from Thursday night,
March 30th through Sunday morning, April 2nd, 2017, with keynote speaker
Sara Ahmed. Abstract, panel, and workshop submissions (500-700 words) are
due on Tuesday, November 15th by 11:59pm to [log in to unmask] I
have pasted the full Call For Papers below, but you can also find that and
more on the philoSOPHIA website: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.philosophiafeministsociety.com_&d=CwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=Oo4TCJF8pXcsWPDC7Sy8bdP2IJ6ZbST0v2xdYtuNH80&m=jTqAb-SH5mWbXu1OzCBpC7Q6EMsuVg1yXcu4sXar1vY&s=eqhrLaylUi9E04jHn-7gA50Tcv-EgJo2bqAjbJGil_8&e= 
.

For any questions about the conference, please feel free to contact me at
[log in to unmask] or at my gmail, [log in to unmask] (I check both).

All my best,
Lauren Guilmette
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Florida Atlantic University

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: Affect and Social Justice

*philoSOPHIA: Society for Continental Feminism*, 11th Annual Meeting

Thursday, March 30th through Sunday, April 2nd, 2017

Florida Atlantic University (FAU), Boca Raton, Florida

*EXTENDED Deadline for Abstract, Panel, and Workshop Proposals: Nov 15th,
2016*

[Coming Soon: hotel and registration info, plus more on accessibility to
and at the conference!]



The 11th annual meeting of *philo*SOPHIA will run from Thursday evening,
March 30th through Sunday morning, April 2nd, 2017, on FAU’s campus in Boca
Raton, FL. Our keynote speaker, Sara Ahmed, has written groundbreaking
books such as *Queer Phenomenology *(2006) and *The Promise of Happiness*
(2010), and regularly blogs on issues of social justice (
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__feministkilljoys.com&d=CwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=Oo4TCJF8pXcsWPDC7Sy8bdP2IJ6ZbST0v2xdYtuNH80&m=jTqAb-SH5mWbXu1OzCBpC7Q6EMsuVg1yXcu4sXar1vY&s=CYDb6GJGvWOdRIvrsHdYFwx_ef7BBEthsMP2-6HdcQw&e= ). In addition to traditional panel sessions,
we are excited to feature a closed-session workshop, “Queer Ethics: On
Vulnerability,” organized by Jana Sawicki, Falguni Sheth, and Diana Taylor,
as well as two plenary sessions on Teresa Brennan and on Affect, Injustice,
and Social Critique.

This year’s theme, Affect and Social Justice, honors the legacy of Teresa
Brennan, who was Schmidt Distinguished Professor of Humanities at FAU—and
founder of a groundbreaking PhD for Public Intellectuals—before her
untimely death early in 2003. Brennan’s early work, bridging psychodynamics
with physics, theorized oppression through the lens of energetics and
‘social pressure’; later, she would extend this to the ‘exhaustion’ of
global capitalism, especially to its draining force on people and places
marked as ‘resources’ in the global ‘South’. In *The Transmission of Affect
*(2004), published posthumously, Brennan claimed a “New Paradigm” for
understanding how the social shapes the biological. Since we are not, after
all, “self-contained” subjects, Brennan turns to the ethical stakes of this
paradigm shift: How can we educate our senses, resist ‘projection’, and
attune our reserves of ‘living attention’ to better discern those
relations—variously intimate, impersonal, institutional—in which we find
ourselves, with concern for justice and injustice in those relations?

While papers concerning aspects of feminist philosophy, feminist theory,
queer theory, critical philosophy of race, and continental philosophy are
all welcome, the philoSOPHIA program committee invites new work on
affective and emotive aspects of social justice, including those scripts
that keep oppressive conditions in place (e.g. fear of the ‘dangerous
individual,’ discomfort with queer, trans, and/or disabled bodies,
complacency toward climate change) and those disruptive feelings (e.g.
surprise, empathy, curiosity, and—arguably—shame) that might resist ‘stuck’
scripts.

Submissions may deal with any of the following questions (but are not
limited to them):

·      What is ‘affect’ and how does it differ from ‘emotion,’ ‘feeling,’
‘passion,’ etc.?

·      How does ‘affect’ impact philosophies of embodiment, health and
illness, and/or environmental and ecological relations?

·      What is the contemporary relevance of ‘affect’ as an ethical,
social-political, post-humanist, and/or psychological concept?

·      What—if anything—about theorizing ‘affect’ makes it a ‘feminist’ or
‘queer’ project?

·      To what extent can one ‘feel’ with others? What happens, ethically
and politically, when we view images of social suffering—to quote Susan
Sontag, when we “regard” the pain of others? Or, to invoke Judith Butler,
how are these affectively ‘framed’?

We also invite proposals for our closed-session workshop, “Queer Ethics: On
Vulnerability,” which presents an exciting opportunity for junior scholars
and graduate students to dialogue with prominent feminist voices in queer
theory, critical philosophy of race, postcolonial theory, and Foucault
studies on the place of ‘vulnerability’ in a poststructuralist ethics.
Please see p. 3 of the CFP for an extended description.

*Guidelines for Submission:*

Abstracts and panel proposals should be submitted in an email attachment
suitable for anonymous review. You may submit one of the following:

1.     An individual abstract (500-700 words).

2.     A panel proposal (500 words) with individual abstracts (500-700
words each).

3.     A closed-session workshop abstract (500-700 words) for our
philoSOPHIA Workshop on Queer Ethics and Vulnerability, sponsored by Jana
Sawicki, Falguni Sheth, and Dianna Taylor (please see p. 3 for an extended
description).

In a separate document (attached to the same email), please include your
name and contact information along with your proposal title. Please list
audio/visual requests, but bear in mind that these will be approved on a
case-by-case basis, giving priority to accessibility for all conference
participants. More information will be available soon on conference
accessibility, building from the 2016 philoSOPHIA accessibility guidelines
<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__static1.squarespace.com_static_53fa3922e4b02e1724aeb888_t_56773e79a128e6372fab559e_1450655353548_Presenter-2BAccessibility-2BGuidelines-2BphiloSOPHIA.pdf&d=CwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=Oo4TCJF8pXcsWPDC7Sy8bdP2IJ6ZbST0v2xdYtuNH80&m=jTqAb-SH5mWbXu1OzCBpC7Q6EMsuVg1yXcu4sXar1vY&s=eTdQPy7fItw6_Bzme2F6rxsouFa8TkMEdUsJGk7Q05U&e= >
and the invaluable resources of the Society for Disability Studies, SDS
<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.disstudies.org_conferences_accessible-2Dpresentations&d=CwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=Oo4TCJF8pXcsWPDC7Sy8bdP2IJ6ZbST0v2xdYtuNH80&m=jTqAb-SH5mWbXu1OzCBpC7Q6EMsuVg1yXcu4sXar1vY&s=08vqs0naWCamTKT9JYduQ8oG4p_XfznLOGDXcpLhmMY&e= >. The
program committee encourages and prioritizes conference submissions
engaging the works of people of color, gender non-conforming persons,
and/or disabled persons.

*Please submit proposals electronically to [log in to unmask]
<[log in to unmask]> by 11:59pm on Tuesday, November 15th, 2016.**
For all inquiries related to the 2017 conference, please contact conference
organizer Lauren Guilmette directly at [log in to unmask]
<[log in to unmask]>.*



*Closed Session Workshop, sponsored by Jana Sawicki, Falguni Sheth, Dianna
Taylor*

*Queer Ethics:  On Vulnerability*

In *Precarious Life*, Judith Butler develops themes found in her earlier
writings on human dependency, loss, attachment, and social death.  She
draws upon the work of Foucault and Deleuze in order to envision a
community of biopolitical subjects and posit an ethics based upon shared
vulnerability to pain and loss – in short, on the precariousness of life (
*bios*).  At the same time, like Agamben, Butler describes a resurgence of
sovereign power that reduces subjects to bare life (*zoe*).  In a creative
revision of psychoanalytic discourses, she analyzes the affective dynamics
occluding structures that produce unequal access to the means of securing
life.  Finally, she appeals to Foucault’s understanding of critique as
virtue—a form of critical engagement in which ethical subjects must act
“without guarantees,” and thereby risk themselves by positing values that
are without foundation (*desujetissement*)

In this workshop we invite papers that engage questions within
poststructuralist ethics more generally concerning the viability of shared
vulnerability as a touchstone for ethics, political philosophy and legal
institutions. Do such approaches, however revised, necessarily rely upon an
implicit universalistic account of human nature? On problematic Hegelian
dynamics of self and other? Upon colonialism and racism? Might we turn
instead to a more affirmative Spinozist ontology for rethinking ethics and
politics? Is it possible to reconcile notions of shared vulnerability with
(legal, social, communal, political) productions of vulnerability? Could we
reconsider the prospect of a revised liberalism found within dominant
strands of 20th Century continental ethics?

Papers should be no longer than 8-10 pages and must be submitted to Jana
Sawicki ([log in to unmask]) no later than Monday, March 13, 2017.
Selected papers will be pre-circulated 10 days before the conference to
enable participants to read them ahead of time. Closed session(s) will be
devoted to discussing the papers and the issues they raise.  We will run
more than one closed session if necessary to enable maximum participation.

############################

To unsubscribe from the FEAST-L list:
write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
or click the following link:
http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=FEAST-L&A=1