CFP: Embodiment: Bodies and Embodied Experience

Submission deadline: January 9, 2017

Conference date(s):
May 8, 2017 - May 9, 2017

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Conference Venue:

Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto
Toronto, Canada

Topic areas

Details

17th Annual University of Toronto Graduate Conference

Embodiment: Bodies and Embodied Experience

Keynote Speakers: Kristie Dotson and Evan Thompson

Including Panel on Disability, Illness, and Madness


Discussions of embodiment span many areas of philosophy. Early modern metaphysicians discuss the relationship between body and mind. Buddhist and continental phenomenologists explore the limitations on conscious experience that arise from our embodiment. Bioethicists and disability scholars raise issues of autonomy and end of life care. Feminists and critical race theorists draw attention to the important role that our embodied experience plays in our philosophical intuitions. Philosophers of language debate the protected status of pornography and hate speech. Epistemologists consider the problems of privileged knowledge, implicit bias, and epistemic injustice. Philosophers of mind turn to methodological questions and empirical studies of embodied cognition.

Accordingly, we conceive of the conference’s theme very broadly, and we welcome submissions from all areas in philosophy that relate to the conference’s main themes. Interdisciplinary submissions, submissions from underrepresented areas of philosophy, and submissions from underrepresented identity groups are particularly encouraged. Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

  • Perspectives on embodiment from particular thinkers,traditions, and historical periods

  • Bodies and (in)justice, oppression, hate speech, pornography

  • Reliability of perceptual knowledge, phenomenology, proprioception

  • Bodies in political space, Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock, Occupy

  • Metaphysics of gender, embodied experience of time, space, and causation

  • Experiences of disembodiment and dissociation, body dysphoria, anorexia

  • Social bodies, epistemologies of race and ignorance, standpoint epistemology

  • Embodied experiences of pregnancy, abortion, sex, and sexualities

  • Comparisons of Eastern and Western approaches to embodiment and phenomenology

  • Interdisciplinary research and methodologies: cogsci, history, religion, sociology

  • Other papers intersecting with the research of Kristie Dotson and/or Evan Thompson

Panel on Disability, Illness, and Madness: In collaboration with UP, our local chapter of Minorities and Philosophy, we will be holding a panel on philosophical engagements with disability, illness, and madness. We hope for a range of approaches to these topics, and we encourage any authors who feel their work addresses some aspect of philosophy and disability to apply. Each panelist will have 15 or 20 minutes to present. Authors who would like to be considered for the panel should submit a 300 word abstract. Authors submitting to the main conference program who would also like their abstract considered for the panel should indicate so in their submission email.

Accessibility: We are committed to having an accessible and inclusive conference. We will arrange teleconferencing for those who may experience barriers to physical attendance; we will reimburse childcare expenses; we will have private rooms available for quiet spaces, breastfeeding, prayer, etc; and we are currently looking into the possibility of ASL interpretation. The Centre for Ethics has accessible single-user gender neutral bathrooms, priority bluespace parking, and is step-free accessible from the parking lot. Limited travel stipends are available. For information on access, including venue location and physical accessibility, visit our conference website at https://torontophilgradconf.wordpress.com or email [email protected].

Submissions: Please send submissions to [email protected]. All submissions must be in PDF format and prepared for anonymous review. Conference papers should not exceed 3500 words, and should include an abstract not exceeding 300 words. Submissions to the panel should not exceed 300 words. In your email, please include your name, paper title, and institutional affiliation. Authors may submit to both the paper sessions and the panel, but only one submission per category. Submissions are due by January 9th, 2017. Authors will be notified of decisions on or before March 1st, 2017.

All are welcome to attend, but submissions are only open to graduate students.

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