“NONHUMANS & POLITICS” - INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON NON-ANTHROPOCENTRIC PERSPECTIVES ON POLITICS
CALL FOR PAPERS:
In the last two decades non-anthropocentric theories – whether
posthumanist, neo-materialist or transhumanist – have attracted growing
attention from scholars in a wide range of fields. Despite their
interdisciplinary output, the question of the relation between
non-anthropocentric theories and the concept of politics has been to a
large extent evaded. This is somewhat understandable considering that the
concept of politics is a highly anthropocentric term that sits uneasily
with non-anthropocentric ontologies.
The conference’s aim is to investigate the juncture of nonhumans and
politics. What does it mean to talk about politics in respect to
nonhumans? Who/what is the ‘subject’ of posthumanism, of animal rights, of
environmental politics, of technological advancement (particularly in case
of Artificial Intelligence)? If the path in thinking ‘nonhuman politics’
through ‘subject’ and thus through ‘political subject’ is
counterproductive then what are the alternatives? One of the key interests
of this conference is then to investigate if the notion of ‘nonhuman
politics’ – whether viewed from ecological, animal studies,
neo-materialist, transhumanist or posthumanist perspective – is
conceptually possible and what would this imply on a practical level. What
would the conditions of possibility of such ‘nonhuman politics’ be? What
theoretical requirements would need to be fulfilled in order to be able to
propose such a concept and fully explore its potential? Perhaps a certain
amount of anthropocentrism is in this case unavoidable. And if that is the
case then the question to be posed is to what extent are we willing to
accept a limited form of anthropocentrism and basing on what grounds. This
conference does not expect to come up with definitive answers to these
questions but rather explore these issues in more detail.
That is also why the conference welcomes contributions from scholars
working in various fields of non-anthropocentric theories that wish to
engage with the juncture of politics and nonhumans: Ecology, Environmental
Studies, Animal Studies, Transhumanism, Posthumanism, Neo-materialism,
Philosophy of Technology, Cybernetics, Artificial Intelligence, Literary
Theory, Literature, Visual and Performative Arts etc. It wishes to
consider how ‘politics’ and ‘political subjects’ are conceptualized across
different non-anthropocentric fields. The main purpose of this conference
is then to bring together scholars interested in investigating the diverse
ways of conceptualizing politics.
Please send your proposals (of no more than 500 words) as well as a brief
biographical note (100 words) to Dr. Iwona Janicka at
iwona.janicka[at]cantab.net by 15th October 2015 with the subject line:
Nonhumans and Politics_Abstract_Your Name. Notifications will be sent out
by 1st November 2015. The conference will take place on 22–23 January 2016
at the Forschungsinstitut für Philosophie Hannover, Germany.
Papers should not exceed 20 minutes in length and should be held in English.
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Dr Alicia Spencer-Hall
Department of French,
UCL,
Gower St,
London
WC1E 6BT
https://twitter.com/aspencerhall
https://qmul.academia.edu/AliciaSpencerHall
http://medievalshewrote.com/
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Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite
http://www.ScreenSite.org
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