[Ailist] 1st Global Conference: Forgiveness: Probing the Boundaries

[Stephanie West Allen]

1st Global Conference
Forgiveness: Probing the Boundaries

Friday 14th March - Sunday 16th March 2008
Salzburg, Austria

This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary
conference project seeks to investigate and
explore the nature, significance, and
practices of forgiveness. Asking for or granting
forgiveness can often be a routine part of
everyday life, but the nature of forgiveness as a
personal, social and even international practice
can be quite complex. It raises a wide variety of
questions that touch on a vast array of
academic disciplines. In cases of significant
transgressions, social tensions, and even
international conflicts the questions of what
counts as forgiveness and how granting or
withholding it can fundamentally change individual
or international relationships becomes both more
difficult and important to assess. This conference
will look at the full range of this complexity. To
encourage innovative trans-disciplinary dialogues,
we warmly welcome papers from all disciplines,
professions and vocations.

Papers, presentations, reports and workshops are
invited on issues on or broadly related to any of
the following themes:

1. Questions of Definition
* What is forgiveness?
* What sorts of behaviour require people to seek
forgiveness?
* Who can grant forgiveness? Can there be
meaningful third party forgiveness?
* Who benefits from forgiveness and how?
* Can forgiveness be required of someone? Can it
ever be wrong to offer forgiveness?

2. Psychological Perspectives
* The emotional effect of victimization and the
role forgiveness can play in either exacerbating
or mitigating such feelings
* The nature of self-forgiveness
* Barriers to people's ability to forgive
transgressors
* How a willingness (or unwillingness) to forgive
can be a measure of self-worth or self-respect
* Issues related to the psychological burden of
not forgiving

3. Legal and Political Perspectives
* Forgiveness for past crimes of individuals -
rehabilitation, second chances, and pardons
* How forgiveness can play a role in criminal
legal proceedings
* Forgiveness as a part of social reconstruction
following civil wars or systematic social injustices
* How forgiveness can be required or granted in
relationships between nations
* Seeking forgiveness on behalf of others:
righting historic wrongs

4. Social, Cultural and Literary Perspectives
* The role forgiveness plays in different cultures
* Differences in perceptions of the importance of
forgiveness in different societies
* Forgiveness ceremonies as important cultural
practices
* How questions of forgiveness are used in literature
* Forgiveness in cinema, film, tv, radio and theatre
* The role of the arts as catalyst or hindrance
for actual cases of forgiveness
* Forgiveness and the media

5. Religion and Forgiveness
* Distinctions between secular and religious
notions of forgiveness
* The role of forgiveness in religious practices
* How religious beliefs can promote forgiveness
* How religions can be barriers to forgiveness
* Rituals of forgiveness and their importance

6. Issues, Connections and Relations
* The relationship between forgiveness and restitution
* The relationship between forgiveness and retribution
* The relationship between forgiveness and
compassion, mercy or pity
* The relationship between forgiveness and
reconciliation
* The relationship between forgiveness and
personal growth

Papers on any other topic related to the theme
will also be considered.

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday
2nd November 2007. If an abstract is accepted for
the conference, a full draft paper should
be submitted by Friday 22nd February 2008.

300 word abstracts should be submitted to both
Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word,
WordPerfect, or RTF formats, following this
order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d)
title of abstract, e) body of abstract

We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper
proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply
from us in a week you should assume we did
not receive your proposal; it might be lost in
cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an
alternative electronic route or resend.

Joint Organising Chairs

David White
Department of Philosophy
University of Calgary,
Calgary
Canada
E-Mail: whitedm at ucalgary.ca

Rob Fisher
Network Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net,
Freeland, Oxfordshire,
United Kingdom
E-Mail: for at inter-disciplinary.net

The conference is part of the 'Probing the
Boundaries' programme of research projects. It
aims to bring together people from different
areas and interests to share ideas and explore
various discussions which are innovative and exciting.

All papers accepted for and presented at this
conference will be eligible for publication in an
ISBN eBook. Selected papers will be
developed for publication in a themed hard copy
volume.

For further details about the project please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/ptb/Forgiveness/forgiveness.html

For further details about the conference please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/ptb/Forgiveness/f1/cfp.html