Call for papers: The '9/11' Decade: Rethinking Reality

6th International Interdisciplinary Conference

The "9/11" Decade: Rethinking Reality

Wednesday 31 August – Friday 2 September 2011

Invited Keynote Speaker: Geoffrey Robertson QC

Joint conference organisers:

• Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics & Ethics, University of Brighton
• Centre for Ethics and Value Inquiry, University of Ghent
• Centre for Research Ethics & Ethical Deliberation, Edge Hill University
• Centre for Research in Ethics and Globalisation, University of Groningen

Having now accepted around 45 proposals, we would particularly welcome contributions in the following areas, while nevertheless not excluding others:

• Art, aesthetics and architecture
• Commemoration and memorialisation
• Historical perspectives
• American Studies
• Sociology
• Law.

Final Call for Papers

It is no exaggeration to claim that the politics of the last decade have their origin in one event: the hijacking and flying of passenger aircraft into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. Since then wars, putatively justified as responses to this attack, have raged in Iraq and in Afghanistan. These wars have resulted in the growth of violent opposition to a perceived US imperial polity; have been used to justify the rewriting of long established legal frameworks protecting the people’s rights have led to neurosis about the protection of borders which the age of global capital was supposed to bring to an end; and have seen the crippling of active leftist opposition to the opportunistic furtherance of the neo-liberal revolution.

This interdisciplinary conference seeks critically to rethink this last decade and to put into question the nostrums it would have us take for granted. We call for papers that:

• challenge dominant paradigms for understanding terror, war, rights, citizenship, legitimacy, politics and the person
• address the shifts in our cultural landscapes that the securitisation of everyday life has created
• rethink the architecture of Empire, the literature of "9/11” and the geography of the unending “war on terror”.

Proposals are invited on any relevant topic and should be addressed to an interdisciplinary audience. Likely themes may include be the following, although the conference is by no means limited to these:

• The architecture of terror: cities “at war”; designing the security society
• “Just” war and asymmetrical warfare: aerial bombing; “suicide” bombing; drones
• The politics of 2001-2011: the “war on terror”; rethinking empire, globalisation and sovereignty after “9/11”; the re-articulation of Capital; the “shock doctrine”
• Rethinking ourselves: torture; identity; Islamophobia; immigration, asylum and refugees
• Culture after “9/11”: art, literature, film and popular culture
• The politics of death after “9/11”: “remembrance” and memorialisation; counting the dead
• Philosophy and its limits: the language of terror and the terror of language; sincerity and conviction
• Theorising resistance: rethinking the law; rethinking the political.

Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be emailed to Nicola Clewer by 16 May 2011: nc95@brighton.ac.uk

Decisions will be communicated by 31 May 2011.

The conference fee is £210. This includes refreshments; lunch on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday; and a buffet dinner on the Thursday evening.

There are a limited number of places available for graduate students and for people who have no institutional affiliation at the reduced price of £105. Please indicate if you wish to be considered for one of these places when sending your abstract; or contact Nicola Clewer atnc95@brighton.ac.uk as soon as possible.

Organising Committee

Vivienne Boon (University of Groningen); Bob Brecher (University of Brighton); Tom Claes (University of Ghent); Nicola Clewer (University of Brighton); Mark Devenney (University of Brighton); Tarik Kochi (University of Sussex); Vicky Margree (University of Brighton); Mark McGovern (Edge Hill University); Aaron Winter (University of Abertay Dundee)