CFP: 3rd Annual Philosophers' Cocoon Philosophy Conference

I am pleased to (finally!) announce this call-for-papers for the 3rd Annual Philosophers' Cocoon Philosophy Conference (PCPC), which will be held at University of Tampa on Saturday November 7th and Sunday November 8th, 2015.

As was the case for the past two conferences, the 3rd Annual PCPC will be unique in several respects:

• Although attendance at the conference and participating as session chairs or commentators will be open to all members of the profession, paper presenters must be early-career philosophers -- basically, anyone who doesn't have tenure (e.g. graduate students, post-docs, VAP, TT Assistant Profs, independent scholars, etc.)
• Due to the kinds of travel-funding issues that early-career philosophers often face, several paper sessions (the exact number of which will be determined later) will be reserved for Skype presentations in which the author will be projected, and field audience questions, in real time over the internet (these went very well this year!).
• Although commentators and audience members are encouraged to present objections to papers, a guiding aim of the conference will be constructive criticism, i.e. helping authors to improve problems (e.g. by not only raising objections, but offering and discussing possible solutions).
• Because successfully navigating the publishing world is one of the most difficult capacities for early-career philosophers to develop, and typical conference-length papers are too short (3,000 words) to publish, we will welcome submissions the length of any typical journal article (20-30 pages double-spaced) -- the aim being to help early-career philosophers develop full-length papers into publishable quality. As a rule of thumb, the longer the paper, the higher the standards for acceptance to the conference. Extremely long papers are discouraged.
• In order to defray costs of attendance (once again out of concern for the needs of early-career scholars), there will be no registration fee, and consequently no official banquet, snacks, etc. Tampa is awesome, and there are many affordable places to meet, eat, and congregate around the university.
• Finally, please note that submission to the conference involves an agreement to serve as a commentator on another paper during the conference should your paper be accepted and you accept your invitation to attend.

To submit a paper to present at the PCPC, please email the following to me at [email protected] by August 1st, 2015:

1. A blinded (i.e. anonymized) paper,
2. A separate title page with the author's name, contract information, and brief paper abstract.
3. A statement concerning whether you intend to attend the conference in person or only via Skype.

We have had great lineups the past two years, with graduate students, post-docs, and early-career faculty presenting and commenting!

Decision emails indicating whether your paper has been accepted should be sent out around September 1st, 2014 (yes, papers will undergo peer-review!).  Finally, please bear the following in mind: In order to ensure that the conference is well-attended, there will be relatively few Skype sessions -- so the probability that your paper will be accepted is higher should you state in your submission email that you can attend in person.