CFP: 2017 PPJ Collaborative Writing Workshop: Collegiality and Public Life

2017 PPJ Collaborative Writing Workshop: Collegiality and Public Life

We are pleased to call for participation in the third annual Public Philosophy Journal Collaborative Writing Workshop, to be held May 16-17, 2017 at the Kellogg Biological Station. We invite proposals for collaborative projects that are focused on the question of Collegiality and Public Life.

All workshop participants will receive full funding, including coverage of travel expenses and three nights of accommodation (May 15-17) at the conference center. (http://conference.kbs.msu.edu)

If we attend to its Latin roots, to be collegial means to choose together with one another. Understood in this way, collegiality is the very heart of a democracy. It animates our attempts to choose together leaders who will advance the common good and empower us, diverse as we are, to pursue happiness. And yet, over the course of this Presidential election cycle, we have experienced a degradation of collegiality to a degree rarely witnessed in the history of the Republic.

Given the centrality of collegiality to the mission, design, and practice of the Public Philosophy Journal, we invite you to help us put collegiality into practice within the context of questions such as:

• Is it possible to cultivate habits of collegiality in broad public deliberation?
• How and why do various media outlets collude in impoverishing political discourse?
• Where are the models for enriching public, political conversations?
• Does a lack of collegiality dampen public opinion, or help draw more people with divergent perspectives and experiences into the conversation?
• Is collegiality possible without strict policies that turn into policing?              

These are just some of the questions that so many of us appear to be working through at this particular historical moment. Addressing them together in ways that are open and open-ended is part of the work that lies ahead for those of who don’t simply ‘like’ to live and work together, but who see doing so as a duty that we all share, whether we happen to like it or not, as long as we are willing to make claims concerning the rights that are guaranteed to us. 

Please submit one page abstracts, including names of project collaborators, to [email protected] no later than March 1st. Applicants will be notified of decisions by March 15th.