Category: Conferences

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Call for Papers: Decentering ethics: Challenging privileges, building solidarities. University of Ottawa, Ontario (Canada).

Local organizers: Sophie Bourgault (University of Ottawa) and Fiona Robinson (Carleton University)

Care ethics first emerged as an attempt to ‘decenter’ ethics; feminist philosophers like Carol Gilligan argued that women’s moral experiences were not reflected in the dominant, masculinist approaches to ethics, which were centered on a rational, disembodied, atomistic moral subject, able to self-legislate or engage in moral calculus to determine principles of right action.  Care ethics challenged this model by positing ethics as relational, contextualized, embodied and realized through practices, rather than principles.  Over the past decades, many care ethics scholars have sought to further this project by considering care politically, in relation to the various intersecting hierarchies of power and privilege that inhere in the context of modernity.  At this time of political and ecological crisis, there is an even more urgent demand to reflect on this project of decentering ethics and to ask what further work there is to be done.  To what extent has care ethics been (un)successful in decentering ethics, challenging privilege and building solidarities?  How can ethics – and care ethics in particular – address questions of race, indigeneity, class and gender?  How can a care ethics approach help us to reflect on the question of privilege – of moral subjects and of moral/political theorists – while also creating spaces to build solidarities?

Scholars from all disciplines are invited to submit an abstract (between 250-300 words) for a 20-minute presentation (firm time limit) on the theme of Decentering Ethics.  We are seeking presentations that explore how an ethic of care has addressed or can address the issues of privilege, hierarchy and solidarity in the contemporary context.  All scholarly approaches are welcome including those that address or employ theory, empirical data, applications, policy, aesthetics, etc. Please note that the organizing committee encourages presentations that are not read.

Abstract submission

Please send your abstract for peer review to abstractsCERC2020@gmail.com by Friday January 31st, 2020.  In the subject line, please type ‘CERC proposal’ and your last name.  Individuals may only submit one proposal. In your email, please include a brief biographical note (250 words max) with main research interests and institutional affiliation (if applicable).

Attach a Word document to the e-mail that is anonymous and ready for peer review.  The Word document should contain:

  • the title of the presentation
  • the abstract (250-300 words max), which should outline the main arguments of the paper, as well as its theoretical and/or empirical contribution(s) to the existing literature (and a few words on methodology, if applicable)
  • presentation equipment requirements (if applicable)

Criteria for selection include: effective and explicit engagement with the conference theme; clarity of the abstract; contribution to the diversity of presentations, and potential significance for advancement of the field of care ethics. Panel proposals will also be considered (please include a brief description of the panel, the abstracts of three papers, as well as the name of a chair and discussant). Poster presentations may also be proposed to the organizing committee of the conference.

Decisions on the abstracts will be communicated before March 1st, 2020. Please note that the abstracts selected for our conference will be posted (as received) on our website prior to the conference.

All conference presenters will need to register for the event prior to the conference program’s official release date. Detailed information concerning accommodation in Ottawa and registration costs will be offered on the CERC website in the late spring of 2020.  For questions about the conference or abstract submissions, please write to abstractsCERC2020@gmail.com.

CERC 2020 organizing & scientific committees: Sophie Bourgault, Monique Lanoix, Stéphanie Mayer, Inge van Nistelrooij, Fiona Robinson, Joan Tronto, Merel Visse

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The Hidden World of Care: MH Symposium, 11/2/19

Together with professor Joan Tronto, on November 2nd, graduate students, prospective students, faculty, and others attended the Medical Humanities Symposium to discuss “The Hidden World of Care”.

At a moment of political discord in our country, it is no secret that we face a care deficit. To adequately care for our children, older people, and for ourselves has become a challenge. Care impacts us all, no matter where we live or where we were born. Although political life and institutions should help us to care better, many caregivers see organizations as hindrances to care. ‘Care’ is also narrowed to care work and a commodity, professor Joan Tronto argued, rather than seeing the full practice of care. Care holds our lives together, but it is still hidden from public space and that needs to change. During this afternoon, we grappled with questions such as: what would it mean if we would rethink our private and public commitments from the perspective of care? How should care be distributed, or who should care, for whom and why? How can we tell which institutions provide good care? And what would a caring institution look like?

Watch professor’ Tronto’s lecture here.

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Call for abstracts Digital Health Care

EACME

Workshop Data and Stories in Digital Health Care. Mixed Methods for Medical Humanities

The workshop “Data and Stories in Digital Healthcare” examines the mutual entanglements of the humanities with medicine and data science. It focuses on the variety of forms in which information about health and illness travel between different stakeholders, such as patients and health care professionals. 

Call for abstracts

We invite contributions that explore the following – or related – issues:

  • the problem of scale in data and stories (big data, singular stories)
  • data and stories as chronotopes
  • reading images: data visualization, coding and aesthetics
  • medical documentation and the coding of data and stories
  • seriality and casuistic approaches to data and stories
  • negotiating uncertainty and ambiguity through practices of quantification

We particularly invite early career researchers (postdocs, PhD-students, Master students) from the humanities, data sciences and medicine who are working at the intersections of stories and data and have a pronounced research interest in mixed methods.

Please send an abstract of max. 300 words of your proposed presentation along with your contact details and a short academic bio to: susanne.michl@charite.de and wohlmann@uni-mainz.de by October 1, 2019. Applicants will be notified by October 15, 2019.

The workshop is funded by the Volkswagen Stiftung (program: “Mixed Methods in the Humanities”). Travel expenses, accommodation and meals will be reimbursed for invited participants. A number of pre-selected speakers have confirmed their participation in the workshop; among them are Kirsten Ostherr, Fritz Breithaupt, and Arthur Frank.

www.eacmeweb.com

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Call for papers: Asymmetrical Ethics

asymmetrical ethics

Toward an Asymmetrical Ethics: Power, Relations, and the Diversity of Subjectivities

International conference organised November 13 to 15 by the Centre for Studies in Practical Knowledge at the School of Culture and Education, Södertörn University.

Intersubjective relations

In Western societies and philosophical traditions, the egalitarian relation between rational subjects has since long been understood as an ethical ideal for intersubjective relations. This ethics presupposes a relation between two independent subjects of the same kind: autonomous, rational, and (self-)transparent subjects. And even when this understanding of subjectivity is not applicable, the ideal remains the same.

When this egalitarian ethic is applied to, for example, relations between children and adults, humans and animals, care-giver and patients with dementia, teachers and pupils, there is a risk that the variety of subjectivities involved in these relations will not be acknowledged, and thus opens up for a hidden abuse of power. These problems are also relevant for empirical research where asymmetrical relations are at the center, for example research that aims at giving voice to other subjectivities, which also turns this into it a question of methodology and research ethics.

Asymmetrical relations

But are not all relations asymmetrical? Human life itself begins as an asymmetrical relation between a pregnant mother and her fetus. And perhaps, as is the case in this relation, asymmetrical relations need not be based in injustice. We can even ask ourselves if anyone in fact lives up to the ideal of rational subjectivity presupposed by egalitarian ethics. Instead, a description of asymmetries might reach an intrinsic dimension of intersubjective life and an understanding of such asymmetries that would make our understanding of different kinds of subjectivities and relations richer.

But how are we to formulate an ethics of asymmetry that moves away from the long-standing influence of “symmetrical ethics,” which permeates contemporary life? Where, and how, is it needed? How would it be possible to develop an asymmetrical ethics that is not caught up in power abuse, static and rigid relations, or locked in fixed hierarchies? And how can we formulate
an ethics of asymmetry in which the meaning of equality, integrity, power, freedom, etc., can be thought anew?

Questions and topics

We invite researchers from all human and social sciences, as well as artistic researchers and artistic practitioners, to investigate these questions further. Questions and topics may include philosophical issues of asymmetrical ethics, for example the asymmetrical nature of life, asymmetry and power, and asymmetrical relations within an egalitarian ideal. We also invite submissions from broader research areas that may include human-animal studies, disability studies, studies on elderly care, educational relations, childhood studies, theory and methodology of science, etc.

We invite individual papers or panels. Please submit your abstract of maximum 300 words for papers and 600 words for panels to maria.prockl@sh.se, latest August 30, 2019.

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10 reasons to attend Global Carework Summit

Global Carework Summit

The Carework Network is organizing a three-day conference to bring together carework researchers from across disciplines and across the globe; June 9-11, 2019, Toronto, Ontario.

Top ten reasons to attend the Global Carework Summit in Toronto

  1. Be inspired and challenged by Juliana Martinez-Franzoni, a leading scholar of care in Latin America, whose innovative work draws links between policy regimes and care.
  2. Hear Pat Armstrong’s latest thinking about care work and the intersections of scholarship and communities based on her groundbreaking international collaborations.
  3. Engage with authors at one of our ‘Big Book Ideas’ sessions and bring your own book to share at our informal book exchange.
  4. Dialogue with care scholars from the UK, Australia, Costa Rica, Singapore, New Zealand, Chile, Poland and many other countries (add yours here by coming to join us!!).
  5. Attend panels that combine academic and activist knowledge and help us think about how to change the world one project at a time.
  6. Enjoy the affordability of the conference registration fee (and free lunch!) while visiting a vibrant, diverse, urban setting with endless possibilities to try unique food.
  7. Contribute to a special issue of the International Journal of Care and Caring on “The Changing Character of Carework: New Risks and Responses.”
  8. Stay an extra day or two to visit the renowned collections at the Royal Ontario Museum and cutting edge exhibits at the Art Gallery of Ontario, or to explore Toronto’s beautiful neighborhoods and green spaces.
  9. Learn about the pioneering work of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in making the care economy front and center in multinational policy conversations.
  10. Connect with a dynamic and passionate group of scholars, opening up pathways for ongoing networking, innovative collaborations, and fun.[pullquote]Carework Summit 2017[/pullquote]

Call for abstracts and papers

Abstracts are due December 1st, 2018 to be considered for participation in the second Global Carework Summit to be held in Toronto on June 9-11, 2019.

When submitting your abstract for the Global Summit, please indicate in your email if you would like your paper to be considered for the special issue of the International Journal of Care and Caring. We will be inviting authors to submit a full paper for consideration in the special issue based on abstracts submitted to the Global Summit.

International Journal of Care and Caring special issue: Call for Papers

The changing character of carework: New risks and responses.

The world in the early 21st century is one characterized by rapid change, increasing risk (Beck 1992) and growing inequality and insecurity for many (Milanovic 2016). This special issue will analyze both formal and informal carework in the context of the political, social, and economic changes and displacements that have produced the insecurities and risks that mark this period of late modernity.University of Toronto

We are focusing on four streams within the special issue, all related to our broader topic.

  1. The growth in precarious and low-wage work (Kalleberg 2011) as it relates to informal and formal carework
    • Growth in the low-wage and precarious work and the ability of families to provide care
    • The impact of changes in the economy and labor market on who is providing care, both formally and informally
    • Low-wage work and formal careworkers
    • The expansion of the health care / care sector in today’s economy
  2. Technology and carework
    • The impact of technology on how care is provided, both informally in the home and formally
    • Depersonalization and technology
    • Technology and job quality/job availability for careworkers
  3. Immigration and carework
    • Migration of careworkers around the globe
    • Immigrant care economies (immigrants providing elder, disability or child care to other immigrant communities)
    • Informal multigenerational care in immigrant families
  4. The changing family and carework
    • Changes in the structure of the family and the provision of care – single motherhood, dual-earner families, same-sex marriage, etc.
    • The political context of the family – policy and support (or lack thereof) for families in the provision of care

Visit for further information and registration the Summit homepage.

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Caring democracy: current topics in the political theory of care

Caring democracy: current topics

Introduction

In 2013, political care ethicist Joan Tronto((Joan C. Tronto is Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota, Professor Emerita at the City University of New York and initiator of the Care Ethics Research Consortium www.care-ethics.org.)) applied a care-ethical view to democratic theory in her book Caring democracy: Markets, equality and justice, and invited scholars from all over the world to think about democracy from a care-ethical perspective.

Petr Urban((Petr Urban, PhD, is Head of the Department of Contemporary Continental Philosophy at the Czech Academy of Sciences)) took up this invitation by organising the ‘Caring Democracy’ conference, with the aim of discussing current topics in the political theory of care in order to contribute to a more caring democracy. Hosted by the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences, the conference was held at the Karolinum, a historical building located in Prague’s Old Town.

The conference programme consisted of a keynote talk by Tronto and work presented by 16 experts from 11 countries. The conference attracted an international audience who actively participated in the discussions. The well-arranged coffee breaks and lunches were excellent moments for attendees to get to know each other and to exchange information.

Keynote

Professor Joan Tronto delivered the keynote address on ‘Neopopulists and exclusionary discourses of care: towards a new politics of inclusion’. She started by stating that we should no longer see care as just a ‘practice’ and a ‘disposition’; we need to think of care as a discursive practice and as ‘an idea that functions in powerful ways’. In the first edition of the International Journal of Care and Caring (IJCC) in 2017, Tronto offered a critique of, and an alternative to, the political discourse of neoliberalism, noting that it is important to rethink the allocation of care responsibilities, but within a democratic framework. In her keynote address, Tronto paid attention to the discourse of neopopulism now evident in the US and Europe as new problems arise, and explained why it is a problematic framework while proposing an alternative one. Tronto explained that neopopulists can be characterised by their shared concerns, for instance, people who feel threatened by immigrants and call for additional security to protect society. She argued that we could not offer an alternative until we understand these beliefs within a discourse of care. To do that, we first have to look at those who vote for neopopulists, and why.

Recent research indicates that especially men, less educated people, those with religious affiliations and majority ethnic groups opt to vote for neopopulists, seeking security and economic protection, with neopopulist leaders responding to these concerns within a context of care: ‘Take care of yourself, blame others’. Tronto associates this discourse with a traditional breadwinner–caregiver model, that is, vulnerable women are protected by strong men who feel good about carrying the responsibility to protect their families. She stressed that we have to understand that neopopulists cling to familiar traditions out of fear. However, this traditional model of caring no longer works in an increasingly diverse society in which women and men have become more equal. Most importantly, this model creates greater levels of economic inequality and endangers democracy. Tronto posed the following question: ‘How can we offer an alternative to this old-fashioned model of caring and formulate a better argument from the political Left to challenge the neopopulists’ framework?’.

Tronto underlined that she does not yet have a precise answer to the question, but she does know that good practices of care and governmental change towards a more caring democracy will help. According to Tronto, care generates more care. She shared some examples showing how new spaces and conditions have created opportunities for strangers to connect and care for each other across racial, age and economic lines: senior citizens spending time in a childcare facility with the children of working parents; and people asked to invite their previously unknown neighbour to share a meal. In Tronto’s words: ‘We don’t need to be afraid, we need to be more caring’. Tronto’s keynote address encouraged us to think about a caring democracy as an alternative political framework to neopopulism, and showed how opportunities to create a more democratic society can be centred around care.

In celebration of the first ever annual CERC conference in Portland, USA this week the latest International Journal Care & Caring special issue is free to access until 30 September.

Contributions

The two-day programme included papers on a range of topics addressing areas related to the political theory of care. At the end of the conference, Tronto summarised the contributions of the papers in three categories: (1) the conceptualisation and meaning of ‘caring democracy’; (2) ‘democratic practices’; and (3) ‘appropriate methods’ for researching topics in care ethics.

In the first category, Elizabeth Conradi’s (DE) paper reflected on conceptualisations of ‘care’ and showed that these often refer to either an ethical-political dimension or a welfare-resourcing dimension, with a tension emerging between these two dimensions. Conradi proposed to separate the dimensions analytically because they translate into different kinds of practical questions, and are sub-structed by different political goals. Brunella Casalini (IT) addressed another conceptual gap, that is, between two different feminist traditions on the meaning of care: one with a vocabulary of care; the other with a feminist vocabulary. She compared both vocabularies by analysing the differences and similarities, and showed how they could be merged. Using a more philosophical language, including Nussbaum’s notion of ‘compassion’, Justin Leonard Cardy (US) presented his work on a philosophy of love, titled ‘Civic tenderness: love’s role in achieving justice’.

In the second category, Helena Olofsdotter Stensöta’s (SE) presentation defended the welfare state as a historical institution that can, under certain circumstances, be seen as a caring institution. Petr Urban (CZ) also stressed the possibility that state institutions care, arguing that, ‘Oftentimes, the tension between bureaucratic and caring values in the practice of public administration is healthy and productive’. However, there were also presentations about state-oriented practices that are not so caring: Lizzie Ward described a disturbing situation concerning elder-care in the UK, which showed the risks and responsibilities inherent in self-funded care; she stressed that intense vulnerability is not a good bargaining position. From the viewpoint of poor women in Japan, Yayo Okano and Satomi Maruyama presented examples that made clear that these women do not have a voice. The lack of care and of the opportunity to participate in political debates on poverty conceals the poverty of these women.

There were three presentations on the problematic role of the state in the field of education. Pokorný indicated that the Czech government shows little interest in education, especially in the school as a niche of positive deviation. Adriana Jesenková presented examples of practices in Slovakia that show the deficits of democratic care, as well as the importance of diversity and pluralism. In a presentation on caring, education and democracy, Tammy Shel pleaded for more philosophy classes in Israel in order to teach students how to debate in a proper way. In the long term, this should benefit democracy in her country. Furthermore, there were presentations that provided alternative ways of developing democratic practices: Jorma Heier (DE) postulated that democratic care starts from social movements, rather than from politics; Anne Cress (DE) explored the critical and transformative potential of care ethics; and Kanchana Mahedevan (IN) raised a global postcolonial concern, namely, that care goes beyond the boundaries of nation-states and causes new care inequalities. Concerning caring practices, Veerle Draulans and Wouter de Tavernier (BE) presented their research on culturally diverse elder-care and the complexity of the intersubjective relations of recognition in this field.

In the third category, the focus was more on the question of how to conduct research on care. The research presented included a variety of methods: Pokorný promoted phenomenology; Jesenková argued for pragmatism; Clardy defended the use of cognitive science; and others used philosophical analyses in various forms (eg Casalini and Cress). Research by Okano and Maruyama (JP), as well as Draulans and De Tavernier (BE), focused empirically on social science data, and Lizzy Ward showed an example of how co-production might be a way to think methodologically about care.

Tronto’s keynote address and the papers presented show that it is a challenging (But not impossible!) task to move from a neopopulist to a democratic framework in which care should be central in our society. Tronto closed the conference with an urgent call to continue to refine the feminist arguments of care and to engage in broader public discussions on care as a research community, and invited participants to become a member of the Care Ethics Research Consortium (CERC) (see: www.care-ethics.org).

  • Honsbeek, K. (2018) Caring democracy: current topics in the political theory of care (23–24 November 2017, Prague, Czech Republic), International Journal of Care and Caring, 2(3): 449–52, DOI: 10.1332/239788218X15355318754221

Krystel Honsbeek

Krystel Honsbeek MA

Krystel Honsbeek has a background in social work, and received her Master’s degrees in philosophy (Tilburg University) and care ethics (University of Humanistic Studies). Currently, she is a PhD student at the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment at the Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. Using a care ethical perspective, her research focuses on meeting care needs of older LGBT people in changing local care landscapes. Also, she is a social worker at autism organization Leermakers Zorggroep, and is a member of the editorial board of the Care Ethics Research Consortium.

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Call for Papers: Second Global Carework Summit

Global Carework Summit

The Carework Network is organizing a three-day conference to bring together carework researchers from across disciplines and across the globe; June 9-11, 2019, Toronto, Ontario.

Carework Network

The Carework Network is an international organization of scholars and advocates who focus on the caring work of individuals, families, communities, paid caregivers, social service agencies and state bureaucracies. Care needs are shifting globally with changing demographics, disability movements, and climate change driven environmental crises.

Our mission is to address critical issues related to carework, such as how identities influence carework; how inequality structures carework; how caring work is recognized and compensated; how state policies influence the distribution of care; working conditions of care; and whether and to what extent citizens have a right to receive, and a right to provide, care.  Scholars and advocates working on issues related to elder care, child care, health care, social work, education, political theory of care, social reproduction, work/family, disability studies, careworker health and safety, and related issues are encouraged to submit proposals.

The Carework Network welcomes submissions from all academic disciplines, advocacy and non-profit organizations, and public and private sector organizations. We also encourage participation by undergraduate and graduate students. We invite proposals for papers, fully-constituted panels, or workshops.[pullquote]Different perspectives on care work – Global Carework Summit 2017[/pullquote]

Proposal

Authors and organizers should submit a proposal of their paper, panel, or workshop to carework.network@gmail.com (by e-mail only) no later than December 1, 2018.

  1. Individual paper submissions should include title, names and contact information for author(s), and an abstract of 300 words maximum;
  2. Fully constituted panel proposals should include a general title/theme, contact information for the organizer, and title, author, contact information, and abstract (300 words maximum) for each paper.
  3. Workshop proposals should include a title/theme, 300 word abstract, and names and contact information for all participants.

Decisions regarding acceptances should be made by January 31, 2019.

Questions about the Global Summit may be directed to carework.network@gmail.com

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Call for abstracts: Ethics in action

Ethics in Action EACME

EACME annual conference, September 2018 Amsterdam

Ethics in Action

The significance of ethics in clinical practice, education & research

Doing ethics consists of reflecting, reasoning and contributing to a good life: in practice, with practice and for practice. Ethics is about thinking what it means to realize a better practice and which moral competences are needed in order to do so. More and more, doing ethics requires acknowledging different perspectives on what is morally right and justified. Truly meeting other perspectives requires a participatory, systematic and critical dialogue with various stakeholders. Stakeholders are not merely objects of study but are partners in research and contributing to a good life. At this conference we will continue to do so, together with you and other stakeholders.

The Department of Medical Humanities at the VU University Medical Center Amsterdam (VUmc) welcomes you to the 35th conference of the European Association of Centres of Medical Ethics (EACME) in beautiful Amsterdam. In addition, the European Clinical Ethics Network (ECEN) and the Cambridge Consortium on Bioethics Education will organise satellite pre-conference meetings on the 5th of September 2018.

Themes

The conference ‘Ethics in action’ will focus on the following four themes:

  • Towards a further professionalization of Clinical Ethics Support (CES)
  • Rethinking the ethics of ageing and the end of life
  • Chances and challenges of participation and diversity
  • Resilience and recovery in psychiatry

Submission

Interested in sharing your experiences and research at EACME conference 2018 in Amsterdam?
Please submit your abstract form for your oral paper, poster presentation, workshop or panel session (symposia).
To submit your abstract and read further details about this conference please click here.

If you have questions about abstracts you can mail them to: EACME2018@vumc.nl.
Deadline for submission of abstracts is 15th of April, 2018.

www.EACME2018.amsterdam

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Call for Papers: Why Care?

Why Care?

July 2018 the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICI Berlin) organizes the symposium Why Care? This symposium will explore aesthetic and political practices of care in their historical dimensions and contemporary manifestations across critical disability studies, crip, queer, feminist theories, political theory, and literary studies.

Call for Papers

From care for the environment to care for the young and elderly, from mental health care to humanitarian care, from care understood as an obligation, as a gift, or as an affect, from the intimacy of care among loved ones, to the work of care giving in institutional settings, to the responsibility to care for those one does not know, the notion of ‘care’ encompasses a proliferating field of diverse relations. The question of care presents a central ethical and political challenge that is bound up with the increasing regulation and management of care relations by governmental institutions as well as its privatization, quantification, and commodification on the global market. As a result, certain kinds of care – for certain people, animals, things, or the environment – are dismissed or ignored in the name of ostensibly more urgent, more practical, and often more profitable concerns.

To ask: Why care? is an attempt to critically explore the massive mobilization of care in modern life. It interrogates the biopolitical ambivalences of the modern institutionalization of care as well as the prevailing economies and economics of
care regarding what counts as care, the value of care, and its differential allocation. [pullquote]Download the full Call for Papers.[/pullquote]

Submission

Participants are welcome to submit formal academic-style papers or to experiment with the form of presentation. We ask that participants be prepared to pre-circulate a short piece of writing (8-10 pages) among participants, which will then form the basis of discussion at the symposium. Please email an abstract (300 words max.) and a short bio-bibliographical profile (100 words max.) to why.care@ici-berlin.org by 30 March 2018.

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Call for Papers: Societas Ethica’s Annual Conference

societas ethica

Call for Papers: Feminist Ethics and the Question of Gender
Societas Ethica’s 55th Annual Conference, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium — 23-26 August 2018

Why should feminist ethics and gender be a central focus in the work of philosophical and theological ethics? While this question has been discussed within the fields of feminist and gender theory, philosophers and theologians have often overlooked the category of gender in their work.

Is feminist ethics a distinct ethical theory, or rather a category of inquiry in any approach to ethics? How does the feminist perspective enrich our ability to address such subjects as power, social, cultural, and political participation, poverty, racism, misogyny, homo/transphobia, economic inequality, and healthcare? And how does this lens sharpen the reinterpretation of
normative understandings of moral, ethical, and religious traditions? To what degree is the rise of nationalism connected with normative imageries of masculinity and femininity, which now require ethical interrogation, especially against the backdrop of social disintegration?

At our conference, we want to strike a balance between theoretical inquiries and historical or contemporary case studies.
We welcome contributions from philosophical, theological, and applied ethics, as well as from political and social theory, history, psychology, and the sciences. The conference languages will be English, French and German. The deadline for submitting proposals is 03 April 2018.

Proposals

Proposals may be submitted for concurrent sessions addressing the following areas:

  • Feminist ethics, gender, and the traditions of ethics
  • Gender roles, gender identity, and gender justice
  • Concepts of autonomy and care
  • Concepts of masculinity, femininity, and gender fluidity
  • Gendered representations of the Divine
  • Embodiment and gender
  • Nature and freedom in relation to gender
  • The pandemic of sexual violence
  • Responses to sexual violence, such as #MeToo
  • Poverty, racism, structural injustice
  • Faces of misogyny and homo/transphobia
  • Sexual difference and “gender ideology”
  • Political, economic and healthcare inequalities
  • Aging and ageism
  • Nationalism and populism in relation to gender

Paper proposals should contain no more than 800 words (excluding bibliography), and clearly present a moral question or argument addressing one of the aforementioned topics. The deadline is 03 April 2018.

Please send in the following two documents as Word attachments to Dr. Silas Morgan at smorgan2@luc.edu, using the subject line “Societas Ethica 2018 Conference.”

  • Document 1: Your name, first name, email address, institutional address, the title of your abstract, the topic under which your paper proposal falls, and, if eligible, your application to participate in the Young Scholars’ Award competition.
  • Document 2: Your paper proposal including bibliography (max. 10 references), keywords and title with all identifying references removed. Please use Times New Roman 12 pt for body, references and keywords, and Ariel (bold) 16 pt for headline.

The abstract of the conference papers will be published in the conference proceedings.
Selected papers (voluntary) will be published in a special issue of the journal De Ethica; A Journal of Philosophical, Theological and Applied Ethics.

Societas Ethica Young Scholars’ Award is awarded to the best presentation by a young scholar. Young scholars for the purpose of this competition are doctoral students and researchers who earned their degree less than two years ago and do not have a tenure-track academic position. For more information about Societas Ethica Young Scholars’ Award, please visit the website at
www.societasethica.info

Societas Ethica – the European Society for Research in Ethics – has more than 270 members from approximately 35 countries. Led by the current president Dr. Hille Haker (Loyola University Chicago), Societas Ethica endeavors to stimulate contacts between scholars in different countries, surpassing political, ideological and religious curtains. We welcome papers from non-members and members.

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