CFP: The Cost of Freedom: Debt and Slavery
A conference in the Ethyle R. Wolfe Series on Classical Studies and the Contemporary World, 19-20 May 2017

Brooklyn College, City University of New York

The rhetorics of freedom and liberty permeate contemporary and historical political discourse. This language and its associated symbols is invariably positively connoted from the perspective of the speaker and the presumed audience. However, the associated values and defining principles shift dramatically in each social context. In short we can all agree freedom is good, but we cannot agree what it means to be free. One of the key sites of contention in such discourse is what needs to be sacrificed in order to achieve liberty and what costs are associated with the preservation of freedom. The valuation of liberty is directly linked to whose freedom is prioritized and who is seen as bearing the associated costs. All of this is especially true any discussion of slavery.

The aim of this conference is to bring scholars from numerous disciplines into conversation across the historical timeline. Just as freedom and liberty are slippery concepts, so are ideas of debt, value, and payment. But rather than simply viewing these terms as rhetorical devices that make freedom seem worthwhile, we deploy debt, value,and payment as analytical tools for understanding how freedom works – while also keeping in mind that these are concepts that themselves demand investigation. These ideas unite the discourses of freedom and liberty, from ethical and economic discourses, which describe freedom as either physical labor or a mental activity, as well as the language of religion and science. Often our innumerable ways of assessing value bleed one into another, especially in conversations regarding individual and shared liberties.

By explicitly juxtaposing the different methodologies used in asking “what does freedom cost?” from Greco-Roman antiquity to the present, we hope to explore overlapping areas of research and help expand the existing conversations in each discipline. In addition to providing vocabularies, practices and theories of freedom that we still use today, Ancient Greece and Rome provide many examples of peoples who lacked freedom but strove to obtain it, including slaves, women and conquered peoples. By simultaneously examining the Greco-Roman antiquity and modernity, we bring to light recurrent historical patterns of the costs that people have and continue pay for freedom.

Our ultimate goal is to produce a rigorous edited volume of the most substantial and unified conference contributions for publication by a major university press.

Our confirmed keynote speakers include, Orlando Patterson (John Cowles Professor of Sociology, Harvard University), Saidiya Hartman (Professor, English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University) and Deborah Kamen (Associate Professor, Classics, University of Washington). We are seeking contributions for at least four panels of 3-4 participants each. We hope to attract participation from a wide range of academic disciplines and from scholars at all levels, and will try to reflect this diversity in our creation of each broad panel. Examples of possible panel titles might be: “Themes of Freedom and Payment in the Novel”, “The Economics of Emancipation”, “Cross-Cultural Political Theories of Sacrifices and Liberty”, “Comparative Histories of Debt-Bondage”, or “The Shifting Demographics of Civil Liberties”.

We will be offering a minimum of six bursaries of up to 500 dollars to be awarded on the basis of greatest need, taking into account access to institutional funding and the distance of the conference from the participant’s home institution.

31 October 2016 is the deadline for the submission of abstracts. Please include the following as separate files: (1) title, abstract of 300-500 words, a one page bibliography (no self identifying information please!); (2) your name, title of your proposed talk, institutional affiliation, short academic bio, and an indication of whether you’d like to be consider for a bursary, a budget for the amount requested, and any information we should take into consideration when making our bursary allocations.

These two files (PDF or MSWord preferred) should be sent to: c-f-p [at] debtandslavery [dot] com

General questions on this conference should be sent to: queries [at] debtandslavery [dot] com

We hope to notify successful applicants by 15 November.

31 March 2017 will be the deadline for submission of draft papers for pre-circulation among fellow panelists and organizers.

We will also invite poster submissions from undergraduates conducting research on related themes; the deadline for poster proposals will be 1 March 2017.

​Official site: https://debtandslavery.com/home/c-f-p/

First: after serving a three year term, Professor Sarah-Jane Leslie will be stepping down from her position as Chair of the Board of Academic Advisors. We heartily thank her for her invaluable leadership: having been with MAP since its inception, Professor Leslie has helped guide the organization into what it is today. 

We're equal parts happy and honored to announce that Professor Ernest Sosa (Rutgers) will be joining our Board as Chair. Welcome aboard, Professor Sosa!

Second: we are thrilled to announce that Simona Capisani, Olufemi O. Taiwo, and Elise Woodard, will be coming on board this Fall to serve as the new MAP Organizers. The primary role of the Organizers is to maintain the MAP network and support individual chapters, and we are confident that MAP will be in excellent hands.

This means that we, Yena Lee, Maegan Fairchild, and Liam Kofi Bright, will be stepping down from our current roles. Having cobbled together the group with little more than some luck and guesswork three years ago, we've been hugely impressed and inspired to see where enthusiastic Cartographers have brought MAP to today. From the dedication, creativity, and success we've seen in their work around the world, we trust that MAP will continue as part of a wider effort in philosophy over the coming years.

We're excited to see MAP continue to develop and grow, and we'll be sticking around as a Board of Trustees to serve in an advisory capacity for the new leadership team. But as our more active role in the organization comes to an end, we want to say: it has been a pleasure working with all of you, thank you for your trust in us, and we are incredibly proud to have been a part of this team.

​The Philosophy of Science Governing Board has invited MAP to sponsor a session at their upcoming biennial meeting in Atlanta (November 3 – 5, 2016). If you'd like to submit a proposal within the philosophy of science broadly construed, please email us (mapforthegap@gmail.com) with your interest but not a full proposal by 7/17. A full proposal will be due to the PSA by early August. 


From the PSA: 


The idea is to seek a broader representation of work in philosophy of science than has traditionally been represented on the regular program of our conference. We experimented with this at our 2014 conference, and based on the number of cognate societies that organized sessions (see list below), audience sizes, and feedback on surveys, we have concluded that it was very successful. We are planning to improve upon this success in 2016.


We have set aside half a day of programming for cognate societies. The surveys from our last biennial conference indicated that Sunday morning might not have been the best time for the cognate sessions. So this year, we have set aside the first morning of our conference, Thursday morning (November 3), for cognate society sessions. We plan to schedule two ninety minute periods for these sessions (starting at 9 am and 10:45 am). Each period will have approximately eight to ten parallel sessions (we will schedule ten parallel sessions during the main conference program). PSA will provide meeting rooms and AV equipment (as we do for our main conference program). Sessions and participants will be listed on the official conference program and on-line schedules. Of course participants must register for the conference.


Proposals should include information as described below. We will consider detailed proposals for sessions with structures different than those of traditional PSA symposia (e.g. panels):


Proposals must include:
·      The title of the proposed session
·      A short descriptive summary of the proposal (100-200 words)
·      A description of the topic and a justification of its current importance to the discipline (up to 1000 words)
·      Titles and abstracts of all papers, with up to 500 words for the title and abstract of each paper (or equivalent information for alternative formats)
·      A list of participants and either an abbreviated curriculum vitae or short biographical description (not to exceed 1 page) for each participant, including any non-presenting co-authors.
·      Institutional affiliation and e-mail addresses for all participants, including any non-presenting co-authors.
Please note that in accordance with current PSA policy:
·      No previously published paper may be presented at the PSA meeting.
·      No one will be permitted to present more than once at PSA2016. Thus, if a symposium proposal in which you are a presenting author is accepted, you cannot submit a contributed paper for which you are the presenting author. A scholar may appear as co-author on more than one paper or symposium talk, but may present at PSA2016 only once (excluding presentations at the poster forum).
·      Any individual can be part of only one symposium proposal in which he or she is a presenting author.
·      If an approved symposium subsequently loses participants, the cognate society should inform the PSA and send alternates to maintain the quality and coherence of the session and adherence to PSA policies including the once on the program.

The Brown Philosophy Department is now accepting applications for the Summer Immersion Program in Philosophy at Brown University. SIPP@Brown is a two-week undergraduate program for members of groups that are underrepresented in philosophy departments, including women and students of color. 

The 2016 program will run from July 17 to July 30 and will feature seminars taught by Brown faculty and the SIPP@Brown research conference. Each student will receive free lodging on Brown's campus, a $500 stipend, and reimbursement of up to $500 of travel expenses. 

To learn more about the program and the application procedure, visit www.sippatbrown.com. The application deadline is March 15.


Questions about SIPP@Brown or about the application process should be sent to sipp@brown.edu

See after the jump for a call for papers for the 1st Latin@ Philosophers Conference at Columbia, sponsored by their MAP chapter. 

The program for MAP-Penn's 2nd Annual Non-western Philosophy Conference is out! Click the post to find a downloadable PDF.