CFP: The Philosophical Legacy of Dorothy Grover

The Philosophical Legacy of Dorothy Grover

University of Waikato, Aotearoa New Zealand

8-9 September 2023

CALL FOR PAPERS

Keynote speakers (in-person):

María José Frápolli (University of Granada, Spain)

Chase Wrenn (University of Alabama)

Keynote speakers (virtual):

Elijah Millgram (University of Utah)

Mark Wilson (University of Pittsburgh)

Dorothy Grover (1936-2017) was raised and educated in Aotearoa New Zealand.  She earned a BA and MA in Philosophy from Victoria University of Wellington and then went on to earn a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh. Following a long career at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, Grover spent the last twenty years of her life in Christchurch, as an adjunct professor of philosophy, engaging with students and staff at the University of Canterbury.

Dorothy Grover’s corpus contains some of the most inventive and penetrating, but underappreciated philosophical work of the 20thcentury. Grover was a pioneer of prosententialism, the theory of truth for which she is best known, and was known for her work in philosophical logic. However, her corpus contains a wealth of ideas that bear on current debates in philosophy of language, metaphysics, philosophy of logic, experimental philosophy, and ethics. An investigation into Grover's philosophical legacy is timely, given the ongoing conversations among analytic philosophers about the disproportionately large role that women have played in the rise of analytic philosophy.   

On what would have been her 87th birthday, we will convene a conference in Dorothy Grover's honour. The aim of this event is to celebrate her philosophical contributions, and we welcome submissions from new and emerging, as well as more established, scholars whose research intersects with the central topics of Grover's corpus.

For those who are interested in presenting at the conference, please submit a 200-250 word abstract prepared for blind review (no identifying material) in an MS Word or PDF attachment by 1 August 2023 to [email protected] with the subject line: “Submission: The Philosophical Legacy of Dorothy Grover”. In the email please let us know your full name, institutional affiliation, academic status (academic staff, postgraduate, undergraduate), and indicate whether you will be attending the event in-person or virtually. Decisions concerning submissions will be made by 15 August 2023. 

The in-person event will be held at the University of Waikato, but interested participants are welcome to present or attend via Zoom. The virtual portion of the conference will be hosted by the University of Canterbury. Please contact the conference convenors for a Zoom link.

The conference is partially funded by an Australasian Association of Philosophy Centenary Grant and the University of Waikato’s Division of Arts, Law, Psychology, and Social Sciences. Thus, no registration fee will be required.

Conference convenors: Joseph Ulatowski (Waikato), Jeremy Wyatt (Waikato), and Diane Proudfoot (Canterbury)