Puget Sound Philosophy

The panel discussion features the work of 3 Puget Sound Philosophy seniors and is part of the Race and Pedagogy National Conference taking place on campus.

“Agency, Narrativity, and Oppression”
Friday 9/26 from 12-1:15pm in McIntyre 203.

Ariela Tubert (Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Puget Sound), chair of the session
Maia Bernick ’15 (Philosophy major and Economics minor)
Austen Harrison ’15 (Philosophy/Political Theory/Classics major)
Si-Won Song ’15 (Philosophy major and Studio Art minor)

What effects does oppression have on a person’s identity and possibility for agency? On the one hand, it would seem that oppression has deep effects on a person’s identity and is ultimately limiting of a person’s agency. On the other hand, such a view may seem to leave the person who is subject to oppression without a possibility for liberation. If the agency of the oppressed is limited, then there seems to be little chance of self-liberation. But if agency under oppression is not limited, it would seem to be up to the oppressed to liberate themselves making it unclear why it seems so difficult and who is responsible for the continuing oppression. In this panel, we investigate the issue of agency and identity under oppression within the conceptual framework provided by the narrative view of personal identity. The narrative view of personal identity holds that a person’s identity is self-constituted by a narrative. We focus on this view because of its potential for both explaining oppression’s deep effect on a person’s identity (oppressive narratives are internalized) and the possibility of liberation through counter-narratives. Education’s liberatory role can also be understood within this framework as one of its roles would be to enable those who are subject to oppression to develop counter-narratives that allow for liberation.

The Puget Sound Undergraduate Philosophy Conference is taking place on campus this coming Thursday and Friday 9/18 and 9/19 thanks to the effort of a lot of philosophy students!

The keynote address for the conference “Moments of a Life: Some Similarities Between Life and Literature” will be delivered by Professor Marya Schechtman from the University of Illinois at Chicago at 5:30pm on Friday 9/19 in the Tahoma Room, Commencement Hall.  You can read more about the keynote address and the conference here.

Philosophy students from various other schools will be coming to campus to present their papers and receive commentary from University of Puget Sound students.  The talks will be taking place on Thursday and Friday in Trimble Forum.  You can find the full schedule here.

 

Pacific Lutheran University
October 17-18, 2014
Submissions due June 15, 2014
Email Submissions and Questions to: nuace@plu.edu

The students of the Philosophy B.A. program at Pacific Lutheran University are excited to host their first annual undergraduate applied ethics conference in the fall. Pacific Lutheran University’s Department of Philosophy has an emphasis in applied ethics, and this conference offers undergraduate philosophy students a unique opportunity to present work in applied ethics to fellow undergraduates.

Paper submissions to the National Undergraduate Applied Ethics Conference can be on any topic in applied ethics. All papers will go through a double-blind peer-review process, ensuring an unbiased review.

Submission Guidelines:
*Submissions may be on any topic in applied ethics
*Papers should be a maximum of 3500 words
*Please submit papers, prepared for blind review, by June 15, 2014, to nuace@plu.edu. Please include a cover sheet with the title of your paper, your name, contact information (email and phone), the name of your institution, and a 100 word abstract
*Notification of acceptance or rejection will occur by August 15, 2014