Philosophy and its Form (Duquesne Graduate Student Conference 2025)

Philosophy and its Form

Throughout its history, philosophy has appeared in myriad forms: Plato’s dialogues; Montaigne’s Essais; Nietzsche’s aphorisms; Rosa Luxemburg’s Lectures; Simone de Beauvoir’s journalism, travelogs, and novels; Aimé Césaire’s dramas; and Fred Moten’s poetry collections. This is before we recognize the variety of styles employed by philosophers within more traditional essay forms: Benjamin’s critical biographies of Beaudelaire, Deleuze’s Plateaus, and W. E. B. DuBois’ interpolation of musical passages in The Souls of Black Folk.

What are the forms of philosophy? What does it mean that so many of our canonical figures have been formally experimental, or supplemented their philosophical work with other disciplines? And what of non-canonical figures—could there be figures unfairly neglected due to irregular writing? How should we consider the form of philosophical writing to impact the content—or should we at all? And if form does influence content in such a way, is philosophy unfairly siloed when we limit it to the contemporary article and monograph?

Paper topics may include (but are not limited to) the following:

·        Philosophy’s relationship to creative writing

·        Reconsiderations of philosophers as writers

·        Reconsideration of writers as philosophers

·        Philosophical writing inside and outside the contemporary academy

·        Philosophy and poetry; philosophy and fiction; philosophy and theater; etc.

·        Non-written forms of philosophy; philosophy as performance; philosophy as dialogue; etc.

·        The relationship of form and canon-formation; especially unjust exclusions

We are especially interested in submissions dealing with underrepresented voices, and with the relationship of philosophical writing to other disciplines. To this end, we encourage submissions from graduate students both inside and outside of philosophy proper. We are open to approaches from Creative Writing, Literature and Languages, History, Sociology, Cultural Studies (broadly construed), and any other discipline willing to raise questions about philosophy and its forms. All applicants must be enrolled as graduate students at the time of the conference.

The conference will take place on Zoom, April 4-6, 2025. Please submit an anonymized abstract of no more than 300 words to [email protected] by January 15th, 2025, for consideration. Accepted papers will be notified by March 1st. We request that in the body of your email, you include the following: author’s name, university affiliation, department, contact information, and paper title. Submissions that do not anonymize the abstract or include the requested information may be rejected.

Any additional questions and inquiries may be directed to [email protected].