The existence of communities and the threat of conflict have been central features of thought since humanity began reflecting on the forms of its organisation. How can you maintain a community divided by conflict? Does humanity naturally tend towards harmony? Is conflict necessary for societies to flourish? While these sorts of questions are legion, this year’s Cambridge Graduate Conference in Political Thought and Intellectual History will examine them with an additional focus on how the realities of community and the threat of conflict have been contexts for, and not simply the contents of, thought.
For our keynote speaker, Professor Andrew Fitzmaurice (Queen Mary, University of London), the existence of communities and the inevitable presence of conflict, as both ideas and contexts, have formed the basis of his wide-ranging research on international law, theories of empire and colonisation, non-state entities, and theories of sovereignty.
In considering this theme, participants are encouraged to draw from all aspects, traditions, and periods of intellectual history and political thought. In looking to welcome a broader selection of papers, we are particularly interested in receiving submissions on, but not limited to, the following themes:
– Confessional religion and philosophical religion
– Intellectual communities
– Legal communities
– Natural law, human consent, and political resistance
– State, surveillance, and governmentality
– Community, conflict, and the method of intellectual history
Interested doctoral students should send proposals, consisting of a short abstract (max. 500 words) and a brief CV (max. 2 pages), to chptconference@gmail.com, with “PTIH Conference Submission” as the subject.
The deadline for proposals is 18 March 2022.
For further information and the full call for papers please click here.
