Philosophy Conferences and Calls for Papers

This conference aims to bring together scholars in literary studies and philosophy, asking them to show, and compare the ways in which those two areas “read” —interpret, evaluate, remember— their own and other texts.

We have designed the format of the conference to encourage the exchange of ideas at the levels of both practice and theory by setting out from what philosophers and literary scholars do when they interpret a text, rather than from the more common design of what the disciplines should do or be in principle.

Thus we have planned a morning session in each of the two days in which a literary scholar and a philosopher will tackle the same text, each from his or her perspective. On May 9th, Susan Suleiman and Arthur Danto will present talks on Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener” and on May 10th, Rebecca Goldstein and David Konstan will speak on Descartes’s Meditations.

Each afternoon, faculty workgroups will explore specific aspects of the general topic of the conference, drawing on themes or questions generated by the morning sessions.