CFP: Philosophy at Play

The two previous conferences and ensuing publications have opened up dialogue and paradigmatic bridge building between scholars of play and philosophers. This dialogue has extended taken-for-granted concepts of play as the innocent frolicking of children to more complex and challenging areas including aesthetics; alternative and virtual worlds; ideas of evil, of politics, of ethics and productive and non-productive labour. This conference hopes to continue this epistemological and paradigmatic bridge-building. 

We therefore seek proposals for papers to be presented at the conference. The Academic Committee will consider all proposals and are particularly interested in the following topics:

• The presence of play in the work of particular philosophers ancient, modern and contemporary
• Play, the arts and aesthetic practice
• Play and gaming
• Play and sport 
• Philosophical perspectives on play/playing, including ethics, morality, aesthetics, ontology, epistemology, political philosophy
• Play, power, freedom and ideology
• Philosophy as play/play as philosophy
• Play, space and time
• The dialectics of play
• Philosophy and playwork
• Play and pleasure
• Infant, childhood, adolescent, adult and senescent playing
• Animal play
• Play and spirituality
• The world at play and the play of things: posthuman perspectives and materialism

Proposals should be submitted to: [email protected] by Monday 26th February 2015 and should be approximately 400 words in English. The conference language will be English. The Academic Committee will review proposals during December and aims to advise of acceptance or otherwise by the middle of January. Those presenting papers will be eligible for the early bird conference fee.