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Call for Papers Theme: Critical Philosophy of Race Type: International Conference Institution: Wits Centre for Diversity Studies (WiCDS), University of the Witwatersrand Rock Ethics Institute, Pennsylvania State University Location: Johannesburg (South Africa) Date: 13.–14.1.2014 Deadline: 30.11.2013 __________________________________________________ We invite submissions on the topic of “Critical Philosophy of Race” for a symposium to be held on 13 and 14 January 2014 at the WITS Club, West Campus, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. The 21st century is increasingly described as “post-race.” Yet the signs and effects of “race trouble” are everywhere in evidence. The gradually diminishing hold of biological notions of race seems not to have significantly lessened the grip that the racial has on how society gets to be imagined and organized. How are we to understand this enduring power of “race?” How may our understandings have to shift in order to keep track with the apparent elasticity of “race” in the everyday world? What might not have been understood about “race” within the dominant epistemological traditions of the Western academy? Where are the conceptual blind spots? How might “race” be understood differently if the perspective from which it is theorized is not the prevailing world view within academia? How does the entry of scholarly interventions, and ways of knowing and being, that are not driven by elite, white, and male bodies and interests change the field? The Critical Philosophy of Race consists in the philosophical examination of issues raised by the concept of race, the practices and mechanisms of racialization, and the persistence of various forms of racism across the world. Critical Philosophy of Race is a critical enterprise in three respects: it opposes racism in all its forms; it rejects the pseudosciences of old-fashioned biological racialism; and it denies that anti-racism and anti-racialism summarily eliminate race as a meaningful category of analysis. This symposium aims to explore philosophical and conceptual questions related to race, racism, and racialization in contemporary society. While the conference is expected to concentrate on how questions related to race arise within the South African/African context and include comparative analyses of race/racism in the U.S. and the South African/African context, the deliberations are by no means limited geographically. Papers with different disciplinary and interdisciplinary and philosophical orientations are welcome, provided they - focus on the conceptual/philosophical underpinnings pertaining to racialised dynamics; - employ what can broadly be understood to be a critical perspective, cognisant of the operations of power in constructing epistemologies, social dynamics and subjectivities. We particularly welcome papers that engage with some of the current concerns within social theory, such as affect, space, and intersectionality, as well as the various complexities of postcolonial contexts. We also seek papers that present challenges to some of the thinking on these issues that are not often questioned. This symposium will be a platform in which U.S. and South African race scholars can engage one another on the ways in which race and racialised ways of knowing and being shape our social world. As the symposium is also intended to be an incubation forum for publications, participants whose abstracts are accepted and who are interested in publishing should submit a working draft of their papers for circulation by December 15, 2013. The papers will be circulated to all symposium participants who will be asked to read papers beforehand so that meaningful conversation can take place and feedback can be used to refine the paper. Selected papers will be published in a special edition of Critical Philosophy of Race: http://www.psupress.org/Journals/jnls_CPR.html Please submit a short abstract by November 30, 2013. Submit abstracts simultaneously to Melissa Steyn [melissa.st...@wits.ac.za] and Nancy Tuana [ntu...@psu.edu]. Contact: Prof. Melissa Steyn, Director Wits Centre for Diversity Studies Sociology Department University of the Witwatersrand Private Bag 3, Wits, 2050 Johannesburg, 2000 South Africa Tel/Fax: +27 (0)11 7174418 Email: melissa.st...@wits.ac.za Web: http://incudisa.wordpress.com __________________________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: http://interphil.polylog.org Intercultural Philosophy Calendar: http://cal.polylog.org __________________________________________________
