2020-21
11-13 August 2021 | SKC Annual Conference 2021: Kierkegaard and the Question of Identity, Gender, and Sexuality. With a contribution by Prof Alison Assiter on "Kierkegaard on Process, Paradox and Gender"
The conference will be held online. You can sign up for the conference here.
1 July 2021 | "We need to talk about data" — DRAGoN Launch Event. With a talk by Dr Francesco Tava on data ethics and privacy.
The conference will be held online. You can sign up for the conference here.
1 July 2021 | "We need to talk about data" — DRAGoN Launch Event. With a talk by Dr Francesco Tava on data ethics and privacy.
2019-20
4 February 2020 | Who's Afraid of Social Media? - Social Sciences Student Symposium
ECC, Frenchay Campus, 10:00-17:00
11 December 2019 | Social Science Research Group - Seminar
Frenchay Campus, 0J11, 12:00-13:00. With a paper by Katrina Mitcheson: "Self-Construction Beyond Narrative". Paul Ricoeur refers to the stubbornness of pronouns. It is hard to eliminate ‘I’, ‘mine’, ‘me’ from our language. I talk about ‘my’ feelings and what ‘I’ intend to do. In doing so I operate with a sense of myself as a self with a past and a projected future that I can hope and plan for. Yet when we try to fix on this ‘I’ or point to a self it eludes us, there is no bare thing to which our experiences, feelings, and memories attach to. Thinkers such as Nietzsche, Freud, Foucault and Ricoeur have instead argued that the self is constructed. We have a sense of self as continuing through time, as having a particular character, as identifying with particular groups, as capable of interpretation- but only because we actively form and interpret ourselves in this way. One way of understanding this self-construction is in terms of narrative: the self is then equated with the character in a plot. To reduce the interpretative processes that contribute to self-construction to emplotment or storytelling, and the self to a character, however, is an impoverished account of self-construction. I suggest, therefore, turning to art forms beyond the novel to help expand our understanding of the ways in which we become selves, and in particular better recognise that this process is corporeal.
ECC, Frenchay Campus, 10:00-17:00
11 December 2019 | Social Science Research Group - Seminar
Frenchay Campus, 0J11, 12:00-13:00. With a paper by Katrina Mitcheson: "Self-Construction Beyond Narrative". Paul Ricoeur refers to the stubbornness of pronouns. It is hard to eliminate ‘I’, ‘mine’, ‘me’ from our language. I talk about ‘my’ feelings and what ‘I’ intend to do. In doing so I operate with a sense of myself as a self with a past and a projected future that I can hope and plan for. Yet when we try to fix on this ‘I’ or point to a self it eludes us, there is no bare thing to which our experiences, feelings, and memories attach to. Thinkers such as Nietzsche, Freud, Foucault and Ricoeur have instead argued that the self is constructed. We have a sense of self as continuing through time, as having a particular character, as identifying with particular groups, as capable of interpretation- but only because we actively form and interpret ourselves in this way. One way of understanding this self-construction is in terms of narrative: the self is then equated with the character in a plot. To reduce the interpretative processes that contribute to self-construction to emplotment or storytelling, and the self to a character, however, is an impoverished account of self-construction. I suggest, therefore, turning to art forms beyond the novel to help expand our understanding of the ways in which we become selves, and in particular better recognise that this process is corporeal.
2018-19
15 April 2018 | Philosophy for the Modern World - Public Debate for World Philosophy day
Watershed, Bristol, 19:30-22:00 With generous support from the Royal Institute for Philosophy
A celebration of World Philosophy Day with an evening of debate and discussion. UWE students and staff will lead a series of discussions on some of the most important philosophical issues facing us in the modern world, such as: Europe; solidarity in difference; human rights; universalism; the ethics of AI; and environmental issues. This is a discussion event open to all so please come down and get involved.
20 November 2018 | Foundations and Futures of Responsible Innovation, Bristol Aquarium, 1-5pm
We will focus specifically on contested concepts in political philosophy that are also important to RRI/RI in both its theoretical and practical dimensions. These include: deliberation, democracy, agency, sovereignty, solidarity, openness, responsibility, public/private distinction. Sessions will be themed by a concept (e.g. responsibility, agency) that will be briefly introduced in the context of RRI by a speaker. A structured discussion of the session theme will follow each introduction, during which all workshop participants are welcome and encouraged to contribute.
[Contact: [email protected]]
21 November 2018 | Tables Turned: Have a Say, Your Way, We The Curious, 6-8pm
Should we use engineered stem cells in therapy? When is it OK to release an engineered organism into the environment? Researchers working at the cutting edge of biological design need your help to decide how they work and what they make in the future. Join researchers from BrisSynBio in a discussion event exploring the ethical and societal issues related to research that is taking place at the University of Bristol on genetic engineering. Researchers will share some of the challenges they are facing and will work with you to find potential solutions.
[Contact: [email protected]]
1-2 February 2019 | Vulnerability, Exclusion and domination, Arnolfini, 10:00-17:30 / 18:00-19:30
A conference in conjunction with a performance of "Woman One". The play examines different conceptions of vulnerability that Beauvoir considers. While these conceptions show an acute insight into vulnerabilities experiences by some women and are thus valuable, they are also - as has been widely argued - somewhat restrictive and limited to the experience of dependency and domination of white upper middle class heterosexual cis-women.The talks and panels of the conference allude to this restrictiveness and possible implications of such an exclusionary view of vulnerability and so also pose the question of the relation between our conceptions of vulnerability and their relation to domination by exclusion. The conference also aims to distinguish those elements of vulnerability that are normatively desirable from those that are not. There is a difference between the desirable fact of vulnerability in the sense of corporeal and psychological openness to others, and forms of vulnerability, on the other hand, such as corporeal or psychological forms - eg rape and domestic violence - that are detrimental to the interests of certain social groups. The conference will pick up on these themes. A mix of (mostly) academic philosophers and some activists/artists will examine the notion of vulnerability and the relation to exclusion and domination from different feminist perspectives, including transnational, racial, lesbian, transgender, queer and disability perspectives.
[Contact: [email protected]]
12 April 2019 | How Could We Keep Hoping for a Future?, Arnolfini, 18:00-20:00
A meeting chaired by Luce Irigaray and Katrina Mitcheson. There is no doubt that many of us fear that there will be no future for our planet and all the living beings which live on it without a radical evolution of our current world. This cannot happen without changes in our way of bringing up and educating children, of envisaging our natural and cultural environment, and of conceiving of theory and culture.Some contributors, spanning a range of disciplines, to 'Towards a New Human Being' (Palgrave 2019) - Katrina Mitcheson (UWE Bristol), Maria Fannin (University of Bristol), Harry Bregazzi (University of Bristol), Andrew Bevan (Kingston University London), will briefly expound their own proposals for the dawn of a new humanity and a new world. First, Luce Irigaray, the main editor of the volume, will present the intention behind this cultural and political project, which arose from 'To Be Born', her most recent book (Palgrave, 2017). Then, we anticipate an intense panel discussion with the public, and perhaps some new suggestions.
26-28 April 2019 |Space, Sound, Sensation, St Paul's Crypt, Coronation Road, Bristol
The third in a series of public events on Philosophy, Art and Society conveyed by David Roden, Katrina Mitcheson, and Iain Hamilton Grant. This interdisciplinary event, co-organised with Miguel Prado Casonova, combines a site specific sound installation (by Fidel Meraz and Merate Barakat), a panel discussion, talks by Cecile Malaspina and Ingo Wilkins and a music performance by Kostis Kilymus. The installation and discussion will explores questions such as how does intelligence emerge as a response to an abstract stimulus? Under what conditions can individual experience become collective? Are sounds in the objects that sound or in our minds? How do we experience the spatial negotiation of our own bodies in space with that of others? How does sound affect our experience of space? How does a particular space affect our interaction with others? All welcome, but please register to attend the discussion and performance.
3-5 May 2019 | Critical Theory Feminism Conference, Future Inn, Bond St South, Bristol
This conference brings together philosophers working in Critical Theory and Feminism with political theorists and professional psychoanalysts, to develop compelling new perspectives on gendered oppression in an interdisciplinary context. Critical Theory (Frankfurt School) seems especially well-suited for approaching gendered injustice in all its different and complex manifestations, because it is committed to exposing mechanisms of oppression with the aim of emancipatory social transformation. Its (traditionally) interdisciplinary nature offers different but complementing perspectives and approaches to a variety of phenomena and issues. By combining (Frankfurt School) Critical Theory and feminist concerns and applying both to the different feminist approaches themselves, such new perspectives can offer compelling normative frameworks and/or comprehensive ways to conceptualise problems of gendered injustice, mechanisms of oppression, and productive ways to understand and navigate internal conflicts between the different approaches within feminism. Such perspectives might also inform Critical Theory methodology itself.
24-25 June 2019 | Interdisciplinary Perspectives on European Solidarity, UWE's City Campus at Arnolfini
20th-century European history can be understood as a progressive crisis and transformation of core institutions and ideas (such as democracy, the nation state, civil society) that continue shaping the framework of contemporary political life. The defining experiences of European transformation – World Wars, the Cold War, the collapse of Communist regimes, post-1989 – placed a theoretical and practical strain on well-established institutional and conceptual structures. Through-out these transformations, the search for new, or renewed, institutions and ideas defined the course of Europe, as an idea as well as a reality. Among those indispensable ideas belonging to the project of Europe is the concept of solidarity. Solidarity is not only the theoretical lynch-pin within the constellation of contemporary political concepts. It is equally central for political movements and the public discourse of European institutions. Recent events (Brexit, revived xenophobia, the immigration crisis), however, have further amplified the profound challenge in theoretically stabilising the concept of solidarity as well as in mobilising political and social movements in the name of solidarity. Despite various attempts by European institutions to foster solidarity, both legally (as stated in the “Solidarity Clause” of the Lisbon Treaty) and practically (with initiatives such as the European Solidarity Corps), a deficit of solidarity is becoming more and more apparent whenever Europe is faced with humanitarian and political crises which require an appeal to concrete solidarity. Given the increasing lack of mutual trust and apparent breakdown of solidarity across the European political spectrum, one might ask whether solidarity, understood as a moral, political, legal, and economic principle, is still imaginable within European borders. No political or religious principle of identity seems today to be capable of generating such a trust; no institution appears to foster the kind of solidarity required for such trust. Despite the abundance of bibliographic sources on this topic, there is a substantial lack of interdisciplinary investigations of solidarity, a gap this conference aims to fill. Which moral obligations and political agenda can foster the establishment of European solidarity? Does a ‘right to solidarity’ exist, and which legal validity and legitimate application could this right have? What is the meaning and impact of solidarity on EU people?
Watershed, Bristol, 19:30-22:00 With generous support from the Royal Institute for Philosophy
A celebration of World Philosophy Day with an evening of debate and discussion. UWE students and staff will lead a series of discussions on some of the most important philosophical issues facing us in the modern world, such as: Europe; solidarity in difference; human rights; universalism; the ethics of AI; and environmental issues. This is a discussion event open to all so please come down and get involved.
20 November 2018 | Foundations and Futures of Responsible Innovation, Bristol Aquarium, 1-5pm
We will focus specifically on contested concepts in political philosophy that are also important to RRI/RI in both its theoretical and practical dimensions. These include: deliberation, democracy, agency, sovereignty, solidarity, openness, responsibility, public/private distinction. Sessions will be themed by a concept (e.g. responsibility, agency) that will be briefly introduced in the context of RRI by a speaker. A structured discussion of the session theme will follow each introduction, during which all workshop participants are welcome and encouraged to contribute.
[Contact: [email protected]]
21 November 2018 | Tables Turned: Have a Say, Your Way, We The Curious, 6-8pm
Should we use engineered stem cells in therapy? When is it OK to release an engineered organism into the environment? Researchers working at the cutting edge of biological design need your help to decide how they work and what they make in the future. Join researchers from BrisSynBio in a discussion event exploring the ethical and societal issues related to research that is taking place at the University of Bristol on genetic engineering. Researchers will share some of the challenges they are facing and will work with you to find potential solutions.
[Contact: [email protected]]
1-2 February 2019 | Vulnerability, Exclusion and domination, Arnolfini, 10:00-17:30 / 18:00-19:30
A conference in conjunction with a performance of "Woman One". The play examines different conceptions of vulnerability that Beauvoir considers. While these conceptions show an acute insight into vulnerabilities experiences by some women and are thus valuable, they are also - as has been widely argued - somewhat restrictive and limited to the experience of dependency and domination of white upper middle class heterosexual cis-women.The talks and panels of the conference allude to this restrictiveness and possible implications of such an exclusionary view of vulnerability and so also pose the question of the relation between our conceptions of vulnerability and their relation to domination by exclusion. The conference also aims to distinguish those elements of vulnerability that are normatively desirable from those that are not. There is a difference between the desirable fact of vulnerability in the sense of corporeal and psychological openness to others, and forms of vulnerability, on the other hand, such as corporeal or psychological forms - eg rape and domestic violence - that are detrimental to the interests of certain social groups. The conference will pick up on these themes. A mix of (mostly) academic philosophers and some activists/artists will examine the notion of vulnerability and the relation to exclusion and domination from different feminist perspectives, including transnational, racial, lesbian, transgender, queer and disability perspectives.
[Contact: [email protected]]
12 April 2019 | How Could We Keep Hoping for a Future?, Arnolfini, 18:00-20:00
A meeting chaired by Luce Irigaray and Katrina Mitcheson. There is no doubt that many of us fear that there will be no future for our planet and all the living beings which live on it without a radical evolution of our current world. This cannot happen without changes in our way of bringing up and educating children, of envisaging our natural and cultural environment, and of conceiving of theory and culture.Some contributors, spanning a range of disciplines, to 'Towards a New Human Being' (Palgrave 2019) - Katrina Mitcheson (UWE Bristol), Maria Fannin (University of Bristol), Harry Bregazzi (University of Bristol), Andrew Bevan (Kingston University London), will briefly expound their own proposals for the dawn of a new humanity and a new world. First, Luce Irigaray, the main editor of the volume, will present the intention behind this cultural and political project, which arose from 'To Be Born', her most recent book (Palgrave, 2017). Then, we anticipate an intense panel discussion with the public, and perhaps some new suggestions.
26-28 April 2019 |Space, Sound, Sensation, St Paul's Crypt, Coronation Road, Bristol
The third in a series of public events on Philosophy, Art and Society conveyed by David Roden, Katrina Mitcheson, and Iain Hamilton Grant. This interdisciplinary event, co-organised with Miguel Prado Casonova, combines a site specific sound installation (by Fidel Meraz and Merate Barakat), a panel discussion, talks by Cecile Malaspina and Ingo Wilkins and a music performance by Kostis Kilymus. The installation and discussion will explores questions such as how does intelligence emerge as a response to an abstract stimulus? Under what conditions can individual experience become collective? Are sounds in the objects that sound or in our minds? How do we experience the spatial negotiation of our own bodies in space with that of others? How does sound affect our experience of space? How does a particular space affect our interaction with others? All welcome, but please register to attend the discussion and performance.
3-5 May 2019 | Critical Theory Feminism Conference, Future Inn, Bond St South, Bristol
This conference brings together philosophers working in Critical Theory and Feminism with political theorists and professional psychoanalysts, to develop compelling new perspectives on gendered oppression in an interdisciplinary context. Critical Theory (Frankfurt School) seems especially well-suited for approaching gendered injustice in all its different and complex manifestations, because it is committed to exposing mechanisms of oppression with the aim of emancipatory social transformation. Its (traditionally) interdisciplinary nature offers different but complementing perspectives and approaches to a variety of phenomena and issues. By combining (Frankfurt School) Critical Theory and feminist concerns and applying both to the different feminist approaches themselves, such new perspectives can offer compelling normative frameworks and/or comprehensive ways to conceptualise problems of gendered injustice, mechanisms of oppression, and productive ways to understand and navigate internal conflicts between the different approaches within feminism. Such perspectives might also inform Critical Theory methodology itself.
24-25 June 2019 | Interdisciplinary Perspectives on European Solidarity, UWE's City Campus at Arnolfini
20th-century European history can be understood as a progressive crisis and transformation of core institutions and ideas (such as democracy, the nation state, civil society) that continue shaping the framework of contemporary political life. The defining experiences of European transformation – World Wars, the Cold War, the collapse of Communist regimes, post-1989 – placed a theoretical and practical strain on well-established institutional and conceptual structures. Through-out these transformations, the search for new, or renewed, institutions and ideas defined the course of Europe, as an idea as well as a reality. Among those indispensable ideas belonging to the project of Europe is the concept of solidarity. Solidarity is not only the theoretical lynch-pin within the constellation of contemporary political concepts. It is equally central for political movements and the public discourse of European institutions. Recent events (Brexit, revived xenophobia, the immigration crisis), however, have further amplified the profound challenge in theoretically stabilising the concept of solidarity as well as in mobilising political and social movements in the name of solidarity. Despite various attempts by European institutions to foster solidarity, both legally (as stated in the “Solidarity Clause” of the Lisbon Treaty) and practically (with initiatives such as the European Solidarity Corps), a deficit of solidarity is becoming more and more apparent whenever Europe is faced with humanitarian and political crises which require an appeal to concrete solidarity. Given the increasing lack of mutual trust and apparent breakdown of solidarity across the European political spectrum, one might ask whether solidarity, understood as a moral, political, legal, and economic principle, is still imaginable within European borders. No political or religious principle of identity seems today to be capable of generating such a trust; no institution appears to foster the kind of solidarity required for such trust. Despite the abundance of bibliographic sources on this topic, there is a substantial lack of interdisciplinary investigations of solidarity, a gap this conference aims to fill. Which moral obligations and political agenda can foster the establishment of European solidarity? Does a ‘right to solidarity’ exist, and which legal validity and legitimate application could this right have? What is the meaning and impact of solidarity on EU people?