Co-sponsored by the Center for Thomistic Studies and the John Paul II Forum, the First US conference of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Thomas Aquinas: Teacher of Humanity:

Explores the significance for the 21st century of Thomas Aquinas’ teaching on humanity. Is it still meaningful to talk about “humanity” or “inhumanity”? What challenges do evolution, eugenics and the trans-humanist movement present for a concept of “humanity”? Is the “human” a viable standard in a world with many cultures and traditions? Papers are solicited on these and related topics.

Deadline for receipt of papers: July 1, 2013

Please see the website for additional information.

Deadline for paper submissions: April 2, 2013

With Richard Swinburne as this year’s EPS plenary speaker.

Come be part of an exciting movement that is making a difference in the academy, the church, and the world! Mingle with like-minded thoughtful Christians and interact with leading Christian scholars.

Every year since 2001, the EPS has brought some of the brightest Christian thinkers and spokespersons to a local city of the U.S. in order to help people think Christianly about challenges to their faith. Joining us for this year’s conference will be Lee Strobel, Dr. Gary Habermas, Dr. William Lane Craig, Mark Mittelberg, Greg Koukl and many more.

Thirty speakers in keynote and multiple breakout sessions will present not only on standard topics in apologetics—arguments for God’s existence or evidences for Jesus’ resurrection. Our speakers not only cover “conventional” areas in apologetics, such as arguments for the existence of God or evidences for Jesus’ resurrection. They will also be addressing a diverse range of cutting-edge topics on the reasonableness and defensibility of Christianity.

Postcolonial theory is one of the most influential theoretical strands of our time and it has a profound impact on the study of various fields within Jewish Studies. Yet—with a few exceptions—its relevance for the study of Jewish thought has not been sufficiently addressed in scholarship. We would like to organize a panel around possible connections between Jewish thought and postcolonial theory for the upcoming AJS conference in Boston (December 2013).

The proposed panel will bring Jewish thought into dialogue with postcolonial theory: How does Jewish philosophy serve as the colonized other of general philosophy? What are the power-relations involved in different modes of dialogical thinking? To what extent do colonial fantasies, and critique of them, shape Jewish political theory? Can Jewish thinkers be considered as writing from a subaltern position? What is the meaning of debates on Jewish essence in a post-essentialist age?

We invite submissions that deal with these and other questions related to the theme. Please send 350 words abstract and a short biographical paragraph by April 21st to Yaniv Feller (yaniv.feller@mail.utoronto.ca).

Free Will: 2nd Annual Conference

We have an intuitive sense of ourselves as free agents, capable of effectively controlling ourselves and altering the external world. We typically view ourselves as the cause of our actions, our thoughts, and our decisions. Yet, what reasons do we have to believe that we are free, or that at any moment we have the capacity to be free? The more we learn from physics, neurosciences, biology, medicine and psychology about how we and the world operate, the more it seems there is no room for a genuinely free will.

The theme should be interpreted broadly. Proposal topics may include, but are not limited to (for others, please see the website):

• What is a free will—is it a capacity, a “trying,” a choice, a decision, or something else?
• Does having a free will give meaning to human life, to human existence, or can a human life be meaningful without believing in free will?
• Is a capacity for a free will the reason humans have moral agency (assuming they do—which is, itself, a questionable assumption)? If a human lacks the capacity to will freely, does she lack moral agency? lack moral worth? lack moral personhood?
• What are the social and cultural costs of assuming that moral culpability necessitates having free will?
• Can neurological studies of decision-making processes provide insight into the notion of free will–why or why not?
• Do all humans have free will at all moments of their life? What are the social, moral and/or legal implications if they do not? What policies do we have in place, or what policies should we have in place, to recognize and accommodate individuals with a temporarily or permanently diminished capacity to will freely?
• Assuming that there is free will, do children have free will? Is free will a capacity that develops slowly (matures)? If so, what exactly is the nature of a partially developed or incompletely developed capacity for free will?

Submission guidelines:

Submissions of abstracts (not exceeding 800 words) are invited for presentation of papers (not exceeding 3000 words). Please email your abstract as a Word.doc prepared for anonymous review. Please include your full contact information in the email only, including institutional affiliation. We welcome proposals for panels; if you wish to submit a panel proposal, send all the abstracts of the panel participants and biographical information in one email and clearly indicate your preference for participating in a panel. All submissions, either for papers or for panel presentations should be of previously non-published work.

We welcome submissions from a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, the social sciences, critical studies (including gender and sexuality studies, disability studies, race studies, and critical legal theory…), law, education, linguistics, the neurosciences, and the pharmaceutical and medical sciences as well as other relevant disciplines and fields.