***Extended Deadline: December 15, 2016***

Call for Papers

Aesthetics, Politics, and Ethics in Fractured Times

2017 ASPECT Graduate Conference - Friday, March 31st – Saturday, April 1st

The Alliance for Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought

Location TBA

Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA

www.aspect.vt.edu www.facebook.com/aspectvt aspect@vt.edu

Across disciplinary boundaries, the 2017 ASPECT graduate conference seeks to address articulations of aesthetics, politics, and ethics within contested temporalities. Graduate students of any level and irrespective of disciplinary affiliation are encouraged to submit abstracts of approximately 300 words based on papers that engage topics related to artistic, aesthetic,

social, political, philosophical, cultural, theoretical, ethical, and critical concerns.

Trajectories of inquiry may include theoretical, critical, empirical, policy-oriented, and performative explorations of the conference theme. Particularly, we invite papers that engageissues of interdisciplinarity.

Possible paper topics may include but are not limited to: the body and politics; critical approaches to technology and aesthetics; ecological and environmental issues; gender and sexuality; geopolitics and international relations; identity politics; time and the city; marginalized knowledges; moral and political philosophy; new materialities; writing and history;

postcolonialism; post-Marxism and ideology; race; religion and secularity; critical security studies; and violence and representation.

Confirmed Plenary Speaker:

Dr. Michael J. Shapiro, University of Hawaii, Manoa

Abstracts of 300 words are due by Friday, December 2, 2016. We are using the OCS system which will require you to create an account and upload your abstract to the following website:

http://ocs.sfu.ca/aspect/index.php/aspect/ASPECT2017

Please provide the following:

1. Paper title, abstract, and five keywords that best describe your paper.

2. Names, affiliations, and contact information for each author – please include an email address and contact phone number along with your home institution, the degree you are pursuing, and your area(s) of study.

Full drafts of conference papers must be submitted to the conference organizers (via http://ocs.sfu.ca/aspect/index.php/aspect/ASPECT2017) by no later than 5:00 p.m. EST on Friday, March 17, 2017. Conference organizers will circulate final papers to respondents.

Papers presented at the conference may be solicited for peer review and possible publication in an upcoming issue of SPECTRA, the ASPECT Journal (spectrajournal.org) Please forward questions concerning SPECTRA submissions to editor@spectrajournal.org.

Contact: Please direct all questions to aspectconferencevt@gmail.com

For urgent matters, please call ASPECT at: (540) 231-0698, Monday-Friday, 8-5, ET

About the ASPECT doctoral program:

ASPECT is a signature interdisciplinary and theoretically oriented doctoral  program located in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech. Doctoral Students in ASPECT conduct research at the intersection of the humanities, social sciences, and the arts, with an emphasis on social thought, political thought, ethical thought, and cultural thought. ASPECT

works closely with four core departments (History, Philosophy, Political Science, and Religion and Culture) and with the program in Government and International Affairs at Virginia Tech.

Dis/abilities

Virginia Tech is committed to a policy of non-discrimination in employment and education, and complies with the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities act of 1990 (ADA, Amendment Act of 2008, and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibit discrimination against individuals with disabilities. We are glad to assist and work to make the conference accessible to all. Please contact ASPECT if you foresee a need for arrangements.