PAL is pleased to announce the 2022 Stanford-Duke Graduate Conference in Philosophy and Literature. The conference will be held on September 15-16at Duke University. Our keynote speakers are Nancy Bauer (Tufts) and Martin Hägglund (Yale). Please submit abstracts of 250 words, and a short bio, to dukestanford2022@gmail.com. Applicants will hear back about their submissions in early July.

This conference will investigate the stakes of the concept of freedom, ask what work this concept can do (if any), in the humanistic disciplines today. How can literary and philosophical scholars bring a vision of freedom to bear on their objects of study? How do philosophical texts or works of art shape individual and collective visions of freedom, past and present? What does freedom mean for philosophical and aesthetic practices today? We especially invite papers that reflect on the following topics:

The very idea of Freedom
Freedom and finitude
Freedom and necessity
Freedom and responsibility
Freedom and system
Freedom and individuality
Freedom and sociality
Freedom in non-Western thought

We encourage both conceptual and object-based papers. We are interested in how philosophers conceptualize freedom, but we are also curious about how art thinks through questions of freedom, constraint, and agency. We invite papers brining a philosophical perspective to bear on paintings, novels, films, opera, scripture, music, theater, or architecture. We are also interested in methodological reflections on these issues. We welcome participants from media and cultural studies as well.