The Tennessee Value and Agency (TVA) conference ran annually for nearly a decade, from 2012 to 2020, at which time a pandemic struck. The TVA attracted some of the most active philosophers working on topics revolving around value and agency and featured as keynotes some of the most prominent philosophers of our time. In 2026, this storied conference will be revived. As in its most recent installment, the conference brings together participants and presenters from philosophy and a wide spectrum of psychological, social, and political sciences. The 2026 program features an interdisciplinary group of speakers whose work engages questions about value, agency, affect, social life, and human flourishing. The theme for the 2026 revival of the TVA conference is Grief, Trauma, Anger, and Resilience.

The conference will explore the conceptual, moral, and sociopolitical dimensions of a range of so-called negative affective experiences (e.g., grief, trauma, anger) alongside those counterparts routinely taken as constructive or life-affirming (e.g., joy, connection, resilience). The program considers how these phenomena shape—and in turn are shaped by—agency, embodiment, social reality, and human connection. While trauma and related concepts have received significant attention across the psychological and social scientific disciplines, there has been comparatively little sustained philosophical engagement with the concepts themselves, and even less with their broader implications for life among the hypersocial beings that we are. The conference brings philosophy into dialogue with psychology, psychiatry, literature, social theory, public health, and related fields.

Confirmed keynotes:

Michael Cholbi (Philosophy, University of Edinburgh)
Nancy Snow (Philosophy, University of Kansas)
Mariam Thalos (Philosophy, University of Tennessee, Knoxville)
Melissa Burchard (Philosophy, UNC Asheville)

Submissions are now closed.

The conference is open to anyone who is interested! Registration is required. There is no fee to register, but because we will be providing meals, registration helps us make sure we have enough food for everyone attending. Please register here: https://forms.gle/3oisdjL9VZHeq7t56

Any questions can be forwarded to [email protected]

Please find the schedule and abstracts on the conference website:

https://sites.google.com/utk.edu/tva2026/home