The BSPR’s Tenth Conference: Atheisms

11th-13th September 2013 

Oriel College, University of Oxford

Keynote Speakers:

Dr. Pamela Anderson (Oxford)

Professor Stephen R. L. Clark (Liverpool)

Professor Owen Flanagan (Duke)

Professor Robin Le Poidevin (Leeds)

Call for Papers:

Buddhists, Epicureans, Christians, Pantheists, Materialists, Liberal Humanists, Transhumanists, Nietszcheans and Idolaters have all at different times been content to be called “atheists”, and even the most ardent of “New Atheists” will insist that they need have no “positive” beliefs, except to reject whatever God or notion of God it is that they oppose. There need therefore be no one doctrine or way of life identified as “Atheism”. The question is rather what forms of life and thought are to be reckoned “atheistical” and why they might (or might not) seem attractive. 

Nor need the rejection of whatever God or Gods are in question always be a matter of intellectual conviction rather than politics (as anti-clericalism) or broadly “spiritual” practice (requiring the rejection of any authority superior to the individual’s own will, or to the State’s judgement).

If you would like to present a paper, please send an abstract of a maximum of 250 words to me (andrew.moore@theology.ox.ac.uk) by the end of March, 2013. Unfortunately, it will not be possible to consider abstracts that exceed the word limit or that are submitted after the closing date (allowance being made to colleagues in other time zones). The plural form “ATHEISMS” is to be noted: papers solely directed to refutations of (and refutations of those refutations of) “the Five Ways” (for example) are discouraged, as are papers directed solely to proving the non-existence of one particular deity, without regard to the alternatives.

Papers need not be on the theme of the conference, although a preference may be shown towards selecting those that are, other things being equal. Time and space at the conference will be limited, so we shall have to be selective, even allowing for the fact that we plan to run parallel sessions and request people presenting papers to keep to half-hour slots.

In order to keep to the tight timetabling required to permit participants to hear (the whole of) as many papers as possible, papers should take ideally fifteen minutes and an absolute maximum twenty minutes to deliver, leaving ten minutes or so for discussion.

Andrew Moore
Hon. Sec. BSPR

Registration Information: TBA