CALL FOR PAPERS: Literature and Philosophy 1500-1700

A Postgraduate Conference at the University of Sussex

Plenary speakers: Katrin Ettenhuber (Pembroke, University of Cambridge); Neil Rhodes (University of St Andrews); Christopher Tilmouth (Peterhouse, University of Cambridge).

The Centre for Early Modern and Medieval Studies (CEMMS: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/cemms/) at the University of Sussex is pleased to announce its forthcoming Postgraduate Conference on the theme of ‘Literature and Philosophy 1500-1700’, which will take place on the 14th-16th July 2015.

This conference will explore the relationship between early modern literature and philosophical thought, theories and issues. How philosophical was literature in this period? Did literature and philosophy work in symbiosis or discordantly? How are philosophical ideas approached in early modern literary texts? In what ways could literature function to promote or critique philosophical ideas? What was the role of commercial literature in disseminating philosophical thought? How did circulation of courtly literature influence contemporary political and philosophical thinking? What was the role of different textual mediums (such as codices, pamphlets or newsbooks) in disseminating philosophical ideas? How were philosophical theories engaged with in poetry, prose or drama? Did the genre or medium matter?

We welcome abstracts of 200-300 words for individual papers of 20 minutes or of 600 words for panels of three related papers. These could be on topics including but not limited to:

Aristotelianism

Atheism

Augustinism

Averroism

Casuistry

Epicurianism

Equivocation

Ethics/ Moral philosophy

Figures of Space

Humanism

Logic

Machiavellianism

Philosophy of Nature

Philosophy of Religion

Platonism/Neo-Platonism

Political philosophy

Rationalism

Scepticism

Scholasticism

Stoicism

Thomism

Toleration


Please submit your abstract along with your institution, paper title and a brief biography to litphilconference@sussex.ac.uk by 16th February 2015.