Philosophy Conferences and Calls for Papers

We invite submissions for a collection of essays on Emily Dickinson’s relationship to philosophy. This book is under contract with Cambridge Scholars Press and is edited by Jed Deppman and Marianne Noble.

Many readers see Emily Dickinson’s writing as intriguing but inexplicable, filled with the kind of emotions and mystic ecstasy that defy thought. Yet her poems can also be seen to reflect a lifelong philosophical seriousness that can be illuminated through comparison to systematic philosophical movements, both those she knew and those she anticipated. The goal of this book is to show why and how she used certain concepts and vocabularies rather than others, where she learned them, what kinds of questions she pursued, and how attention to philosophy can improve our understanding of her writing.

We invite proposals in three categories:

1. Dickinson’s Philosophical Contexts will place Dickinson in the philosophical cultures of her time (e.g. Transcendentalism, Darwinism, Scottish Common Sense, Moral philosophy, German speculative metaphysics.)
2. Dickinson’s Companion Thinkers will consider her writing in relation to selected individual philosophers (e.g. Plato, Locke, Kant, Reid, Emerson, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida.)
3. Dickinson and Contemporary Philosophy will place Dickinson in 20th and 21st-century philosophical movements or problematics (e.g. phenomonology, pragmatism, existentialism, deconstruction, virtue theory.)

Essays will be 5,000-6,000 words and aimed at an audience of educated readers.

Send 2-page proposals and 1-page cv via email to Jed Deppman (jdeppman@oberlin.edu) and Marianne Noble (mnoble@american.edu.) Queries welcome.

Deadline for Proposals: December 1, 2007.