Call for Papers

University of New Mexico’s Annual Graduate Student Conference:

(The current conference schedule may be found here.)

Erōs and Philosophy

March 28th and 29th, 2014

Keynote Speaker: Cynthia Willett, Emory University

Faculty Address: Ann V. Murphy, University of New Mexico

Submission deadline: February 3rd, 2013

Erōs has been of interest to philosophy since the pre-Socratics. Empedocles’ cosmogony featured love as one of two primal forces at work in creation of the universe. For Plato, the erotic played a crucial role in development of the philosopher as well as the development of ethics.  Nietzsche claimed that “whatever is done out of love takes place beyond good and evil.” Recently, work in phenomenology has privileged love as a site of questioning. We intend for this conference to be a gathering of ideas about, and reflections on, the role of erōs in our encounters with ourselves, with others, and with/in our worlds.

We invite contributions to this topic from a variety of perspectives. Questions that may be addressed include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Do we love the good or desire the good, as Plato says we must? Is it possible to perform good actions without desiring the good?

• What is the relationship between erōs and philia,agape, and/or storge?

• Do love and desire operate within or beyond the domain of the ethical? Is there a unique morality of the erotic, or do we judge the morality of erotic acts by means of an application of more general criteria?

• Is it possible - or desirable - to extend feelings of love to all forms of sentient life?

• Is there a telos of love other than one aimed solely at the satisfaction of desire?

• What is at stake in recent interest in love in phenomenology?

• How has psychoanalysis informed philosophical accounts of love?

• How might a philosophy of love appear within a framework of gender theory?

• What is the role of erōs within Tantra and other Eastern Philosophies?

We welcome submissions of no longer than 3,000 words from graduate students as well as advanced undergraduates. Please prepare submissions for blind review, and include name, title, and institutional affiliation on a cover page. Submissions and inquiries should be sent to: pgsa2014@gmail.com