Call for Papers: “The Good Life—Imagining Alternative Futures”

“Men form states to secure a bare subsistence, but the ultimate object of the state is the good life.” Aristotle, Politics

Historians and other chroniclers of the past have depicted the twentieth century in a variety of terms. Some refer to it as the ‘age of extremes’, others as the ‘age of anxiety’, and still others as ‘the age of science” or the age of ‘analysis’; but none have been foolish enough to call it the ‘age of the good life’ and compose eclogues in praise of it, and for very good reasons that need not be rehearsed here. There is growing public awareness, though it’s far from reaching any consensus on specific solutions, that the institutional structures of the present are not providing “the good life” for too many people. And the global ecological crisis is compelling evidence that the Enlightenment project of the “perfection of humanity” has utterly failed to produce even a shadow image of the “good life”.

This conference is a forum to discuss competing but ecologically grounded conceptions of “the good life.” We are calling for panels, papers, and posters from those who find value in collaboration and view the biophysical world as a unifying element in that collaboration. Preference will be given to contributions that represent interdisciplinary approaches to defining “the good life” in environmental terms from the widest range of disciplines, including environmental studies, philosophy, theology, history, geography, anthropology, sociology, political science, economics, psychology, cultural studies, urban studies, women’s studies, ecofeminism, eco-socialism, etc.

Email registration form and abstract as MS Word attachment to Dr. Robert Chapman, Department of Philosophy & Environmental Studies, and Dr. Judith Pajo, Department of Anthropology & Sociology (piers@pace.edu). And register on our website (www.pace.edu/piers).

Deadline for submission is February 15th, 2010. Abstracts will be reviewed anonymously; please omit personal information from the abstract. Notices will be sent mid-March, 2010.