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Call for Papers "Terror" 2nd Annual International Multidisciplinary Conference Georgian College, Laurentian University Barrie, ON (Canada) 9-10 May 2008 __________________________________________________ This conference is part of a larger series of ongoing conferences, run under the general banner of The Human Condition Series. The series is an international, multidisciplinary conference that seeks to address the current state of the human condition. It aims to bring together people from a variety of disciplines to assess a singular topic from artistic, cinematic, literary, moral, social, political, philosophical, psychological and religious perspectives. We encourage you to share innovative ideas and new theorization. Submissions will be considered on any related theme and we especially welcome papers, reports, works-in-progress, workshops and sessions. This years theme is Terror. The concept of Terror finds its safe haven in the various cultural and philosophical traditions and systems of thought from the religious and the mythical, to the divine and the super-rational world of contemporary events. Terror finds and resurrects its necessary logic as the principle order of things, acting as a mainstay technology for the founding and reformulation of modern nation-states. The various names that Terror is given disguise its actual force and conceal the architecture of its negativity in the name of the positive. Only the the hyper-rational and the absurd keep Terror intact. Terror is part of the aestheticization of the political. It entails the militarization of culture, from the ethos of the European Enlightenment project to current events. Terror as an historical force can no longer be seen as an aberration, or an event, during war time, but rather, it is relegated to a metaphysical hope of our present-future as the nirvana of human progress. Both Western theology and philosophy continue to perfect the perpetual bond between life and Terror and life in Terror as our necessary human condition. Terror has become the medium through which friends and enemies are constructed, thus Terror is at the forefront of all contemporary social, economic and political events. In the age of reason, Terror gets its life support not only from being part of our past memories, but it also partakes in our future events, that is, the techno-scientific rationalization of our everyday life helps sustain Terrors energy as an end in itself. Participants are encouraged to examine and explore issues related both directly and indirectly to the broad concept of Terror as both product and process; calculated goal and unlivable consequence. In particular, the conference is interested in investigating what role Terror has in maintaining the contemporary condition of humanity and what hope there is of envisioning a condition in which Terror is natural and organic rather than strategic and imposed. Possible topics include but are not limited to: - The Laws of State-Terror - Communications of Terror - The Manufacture and Management of Terror - Designating Terror - Terror and the Transformation of States and Nations - Spaces of Terror - Recreational Terror - Terror as Text - The Doxas of Terror The Organizing Committee welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by January 30th, 2008. Accepted presenters will be notified by February 25th. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, full registration and an 8-10 page draft paper are required by March 30th 2008. Please submit to: [email protected] All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be considered for inclusion in the THCS e-journal. In addition, some papers will also be considered for publication in a themed volume on Terror. Conference Website: http://humancondition.wordpress.com __________________________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: http://interphil.polylog.org Intercultural Philosophy Calendar: http://cal.polylog.org
