The Good Life: An Undergraduate Conference in the Liberal Arts

The Good Life: An Undergraduate Conference in the Liberal Arts

Braniff Graduate School of Liberal Arts

University of Dallas, Irving, TX

October 6-7, 2018

Keynote Speaker: Susan Hanssen, University of Dallas

The Braniff Graduate Student Association of the University of Dallas is pleased to announce the first annual Braniff Undergraduate Conference in the Liberal Arts. This conference aims to recover and renew the Western heritage of liberal arts and the Christian intellectual tradition in pursuit of eudaimonia, the good life.

We invite juniors, seniors, and recent college graduates working in the liberal arts to submit abstracts of no more than 500 words. Preference will be given to papers and presentations conversant with the great texts of the Western tradition.

Examples of possible paper topics:

- The Role of “Perfectibility” in Rousseau’s Political Thought

- The Chiastic Structure of Habakkuk

- Hamlet and Beowulf Compared

- Dragon Imagery in Euripides’s Bacchae

- Chiaroscuro: Rembrandt and Caravaggio on Human Nature

- Fahrenheit 451, Air Conditioning, and the Decline of Front Porch Culture in America

- The American Economic Association and the German Idea of the State

- Do Teachers Stand In Loco Parentis?

- Aristophanes as Tragedian In Plato’s Symposium

We welcome presentations in liberal arts disciplines including—but not limited to—philosophy, literature, politics, theology, classics, fine art, history, education, psychology, and economics, and drawing from the classical, medieval, modern, or contemporary period.

Submit abstracts to [email protected]. Please include a separate cover letter with your name, presentation title, email address, and institutional affiliation. If you would like to present a work of fine art, please contact the conference organizers for specific guidelines. Abstracts are due no later than Wednesday, August 1, 2018. Presenters will be notified of their acceptance by Wednesday, August 15, and will be asked to submit their full papers or presentations, suitable for a 15 minute presentation (no more than 2500 words), by Monday, September 31, 2018.

This conference is for undergraduate scholars and recent graduates only, and as such no submissions by graduate students will be accepted. Conference is free of charge, but lodging is not provided.