2019 Concordia Graduate Philosophy Call for Papers

The Concordia Graduate Philosophy Students’ Association (GPSA) invites papers from graduate students (and high-quality papers from undergraduate students and independent scholars) from all areas of philosophy, and from other disciplines that engage with and explore the theme Liberating the Future. The submission deadline is Saturday, January 5th, 2019.

Liberating the Future

Conference Date and Location: March 29 & 30, 2019 at Concordia University, Montreal

“Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity….Let us delve deeper; perhaps this passion and rage are nurtured or at least guided by the secret hope of discovering beyond the present wretchedness, beyond this self-hatred, this abdication and denial, some magnificent shining era that redeems us in our own eyes and those of others….to rule out and reject attitudes of inertia or defeat…the world no longer seems doomed. Conditions are ripe for the inevitable confrontation.” (Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth)

“The major enemy, the strategic adversary is fascism. And not only historical fascism, the fascism of Hitler and Mussolini—which was able to mobilize and use the desire of the masses so effectively—but also the fascism in us all, in our heads and everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us….How does one keep from being fascist, even (especially) when one believes oneself to be a revolutionary militant? How do we rid our speech and our acts, our hearts and our pleasures, of fascism? How do we ferret out the fascism that is ingrained in our behavior?” (Michel Foucault, Anti-Oedipus)

Philosophers and other thinkers have often concerned themselves with developing and shaping possible futures. Given the current global resurgence of fascism, frequency and increasing visibility of violence against humanity and hate emboldened by our political conditions as well as the imminent threat of climate genocide posed by our warming planet, how do we ground political practice in order to create legacies that will contribute to the liberation and flourishing of not just our species but our planet as a whole? How do we orient our thought and action to subvert oppressive contexts and mitigate the effects of past harms in the present and moving forward? In light of these considerations and the ways in which they bear upon our present trajectories and collective futures, we welcome submissions pertaining to the theme “Liberating the Future” for our 2019 annual graduate conference to be held on March 29th and 30th in Montreal, Quebec at Concordia University (Sir George Williams Campus/Downton).

Possible topics include:

Philosophies of Liberation and Abolition

• Prison Abolition Studies, prison conditions, solitary confinement.
• Decolonizing and de-westernizing notions of freedom. 
• Afrofuturism.
• Social and political theory; power, domination, and oppression.

Assemblages and Entanglement

• Retrieving lost & forgotten voices and alternative ways of living and thinking.
• Returning to the communal systems where all forms of knowing and doing are bound up in the communal ways of being.
• Micro-narratives, multiplicity, and collage; Local and cosmopolitical trajectories.


Reframing Future Discourse

• Radically reframing philosophical discourses to reveal through contextualization our philosophical origins/development/situatedness/epistemic constraints so other values, ideas, ways of thinking/acting/being become visible through their absence.
• Trans-disciplinary arguments; discourse analysis; transcending imposed boundaries of academic disciplines; deconstructing the University.
• Understanding genealogies of thought; knowledge as geopolitical & often/historically geo-hierarchical.
• Liberating academic thought from the boundaries of written work.


Transcending Binaries and Borders

• Anthropocene-related studies; de-colonizing environmental discourse and decoding environmentalism from a particular white and able-body.
• Gender and Queer studies.
• New topologies and architectures, understanding and mapping global futures.
• Critical approaches for framing and understanding disability/ability.

We welcome both papers and abstracts for submission, but will give priority to completed papers. Abstracts should be 300-400 words. Papers should be no more than 3000 words, and should be prepared for a 20 minute presentation followed by 15 minutes of questions and discussion. We highly encourage submissions from all philosophic traditions, as well as other disciplines or critical frameworks including the Arts, Sciences, and Humanities. Submissions in English and French are both welcome.

Inclusive Language: Submissions should be attentive to issues of inclusivity and diversity. As such, submissions should use inclusive language that is gender neutral and attentive to human difference regarding race, class, gender, sexuality and ability. Accepted presenters will be provided with instructions for improving the inclusivity of their presentations.

Accessibility: The Concordia GPSA is committed to improving the accessibility of our annual conference. The conference will be held in a physically accessible location with access to gender neutral bathrooms. Those with accessibility requests or needs who would like to apply to or attend the conference are encouraged to email us regarding accommodations at their earliest convenience. While we are unable to provide funding or booking services to presenters, we can assist in locating accommodations or transportation according to budgetary or accessibility needs. The Concordia GPSA is committed to hosting a conference that promotes diversity and consideration in both the content and facilitation of presentations, and requires respectful engagement from all participants.

Please send submissions to concordiaugpsa@gmail.com, in .pdf, .doc or .docx format by Saturday, January 5, 2019. Each submission should be prepared for anonymous review. Please include your name, pronouns, the title of your presentation, and your institutional affiliation in your email.