Leadership/Followership

deadline for submissions: 
January 10, 2022
full name / name of organization: 
Wilson College Humanities Conference

Wilson College Humanities ConferenceConference Theme: Leadership/Followership

Saturday, February 26, 2022
9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Held in the Brooks Complex of Wilson College
Chambersburg, PA
sponsored by Wilson’s M.A. in Humanities Program

 

The theme of this year’s humanities conference is inspired by Wilson College’s new Master of Applied Leadership program.

Concepts of leadership and followership imply social and economic relationships between individuals, groups, and organizations united by a common purpose and common goals. Leaders are expected to inspire, encourage, and motivate their followers toward growth. Followers are expected to be dedicated to their own paths and to the organization in order to someday become leaders themselves.

But is this how it really works? Has it ever really worked this way? Do leaders inspire followers—or merely use them? Do followers even want to lead? Being described as a “natural leader” has long been seen as a positive (after all, we generally wouldn’t measure someone’s potential by describing them as a “natural follower”—at least not in a complimentary way). But is it really so? What do these concepts even mean?

The goal of this conference is to explore leaders and followers in society, in theory, in practice, and in common depiction in literature, film, television, art, and thought. We seek to interrogate how leaders and followers—whether fictional or actual, historical or contemporary, leaders in literature, art, thought, commerce, politics, etc.—have shaped the worlds around them and around us. We particularly want to explore the highly-charged and ever-fraught relationship between leaders and followers.

The conference seeks to bring together a group of humanities students and scholars from around the region to articulate, understand, and explore boldness and women from as many perceptions, epochs, and points of view as possible.

Faculty, graduate students, and independent scholars are all invited to submit.

Undergraduate students may also submit abstracts, but their submission must include a letter of support from a current faculty member at their institution.

To submit a presentation, please send an abstract of approximately 200 words to the email address below.

Send abstracts to:
Dr. Michael G. Cornelius
Program Director, MA in Humanities
Wilson College
humanitiesconference@wilson.edu

Submit the abstract as either a .rtf, .doc, or .docx file, or simply place it into the text of the email itself.

Please be sure that your abstract includes your full name, your affiliated institution (if there is none, simply note that), your email, and the full title of your presentation.

Individual presentations will last no more than 15 minutes; panels of up to 3 individuals may be submitted as well. Special panels or panels of creative approaches are happily considered; please contact the conference director for more information. Each conference participant may submit only one abstract.

 

Abstracts are due by JANUARY 10, 2022.

 

The conference is sponsored by Wilson’s M.A. in Humanities program, in conjunction with the Master of Applied Leadership Program.