CFP: Feminist Accountability and Transformative Justice: Association for Feminist Ethics and Social Theory (FEAST) Conference

Feminist Accountability and Transformative Justice

Association for Feminist Ethics and Social Theory (FEAST) Conference 

October 16-19, 2025

At Sheraton Sand Key Resort in Clearwater, FL

Call for Papers

We are irrevocably implicated in systems of oppression we wish to dismantle. The impacts of those systems live with us and within us. In her 2018 book Feminist Accountability,Ann Russo writes: “Rather than inflicting shame and punishment, accountability calls us to take responsibility for our contribution to and/or complicity in the harms of systemic oppression” (19). Others have also theorized the practice of accountability as an alternative to carceral logic and as an integral part of practicing feminist solidarity (Razack 1998, Sharoni 1994). They suggest that accountability provides a better practice not only of solidarity, but also of community-building, communal healing, and transformative justice than models of power that propose a simplistic dichotomy between the oppressor and the oppressed. In light of these frameworks of accountability and transformative justice, how shall we, as feminists, rethink power and oppression today? What are the strengths and limitations of our practices of accountability in interpersonal and institutional settings? How can feminist scholars grapple with the tensions involved in bringing transformative justice and community accountability–forms of grassroots, abolitionist, wisdom developed by multiply-marginalized communities in activist communities–to academic settings? How may accountability serve as political practice? FEAST invites submissions that interrogate such questions by reflecting on how feminist accountability works today and how those practices are tied to a political framework of transformative justice. We also seek feminist responses to harm, violence, and abuse that center individual and collective healing. 

The FEAST program committee welcomes submissions (from within or outside of philosophy) that reflect on the conference theme “Feminist Accountability and Transformative Justice” and engage topics including but not limited to:

• Practicing accountability beyond carceral logic

• Moving from an ethics of accountability to a politics of transformative justice

• Forgiveness and assuming responsibility for wrongdoing

• Compassion, understanding, and healing

• Privilege and complicity

• Rethinking oppression from the framework of transformative justice

• Feminist pedagogies and practicing accountability in the classroom

• Holding each other accountable in feminist circles

• Coalition and solidarity building through differences

• The ethics and politics of citation and naming lineage

• Calling out vs. calling in

• Mutual aid, accountability, and transformative justice

• Abolition feminism 

• Disability justice and crip kinship

• Restorative justice and transformative justice

• Ethics and politics of care

• Feminist responses to genocide 

• Sexual violence and transformative justice

• Feminist responses to interpersonal violence and abuse

Keynote Speaker: Beth E. Richie (University of Illinois Chicago)

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

Please send your submission (as a Word or other text file) to [email protected] March 7, 2025. In the body of the email message, please include:
1) your full paper, panel, or workshop title;
2) your name;
3) your institutional affiliation;
4) your email address.

All submissions will be anonymously reviewed.

Individual Papers
Please submit an extended abstract (750 - 1000 words not including bibliography) and preliminary bibliography for anonymous review. Your document should include: paper title, extended abstract, and bibliography, with no identifying information. The word count should appear on the top of the first page of your submission.

Panels
Please clearly mark your submission as a panel submission both in the body of the e-mail and on the submission itself. Your submission should include the panel title and all three extended abstracts and word counts (no more than 1000 words for each proposed paper) in one document. Each paper within the panel should also have a preliminary bibliography.

Workshops
Keeping the theme of our conference in mind, we are committed to adapting a flexible conference structure and interspersing a range of interpretive forms of presentations, including but not limited to: yoga sessions, meditation sessions, consciousness raising sessions, poetry readings, interactive workshops, as well as more traditionally formatted workshops, roundtables, and discussions. We welcome proposals that are up to 1000 words.

Accessibility

This conference has extensive measures in place to ensure it is accessible and welcoming for all potential participants. While this is primarily an in-person conference, we have limited ability to accommodate virtual participation on a case-by-case basis.

Sheraton Sand Key Resort:

There are accessible hotel rooms with the following features:

•  Roll-in shower or bathtub with grab bars

•  Portable tub seats

•  Portable communications kits containing visual alarms & notification devices

•  Mobility-accessible doors with at least 32 inches of clear door width

•  TTY (Text Telephone Device)

•  Televisions with closed captioning

Bathrooms:

Wheelchair-accessible and gender-neutral bathrooms will be available.

Hotel restaurants:

There are two restaurants in the hotel as well as a poolside café and bar. Here is a link to the page that describes these options:https://www.sheratonsandkey.com/dining/

Conference rooms:

Lighting: There will be LED bulbs in the conference rooms where sessions will be held.

For more information about the conference, please contact Fulden İbrahimhakkıoğlu ([email protected]) or Alida Liberman ([email protected]).