BGSA Conference

4th Annual Braniff Conference in the Liberal Arts:  | Jan. 26-27, 2018
What is the Imagination? 

Eva Brann

Keynote Speaker: Eva Brann, Ph.D. | St. John's College 

Eva T.H. Brann (1929-) is a former dean (1990–1997) and the longest-serving tutor (1957–) at St. John’s College, Annapolis. In 2005, she received the National Humanities Medal. Born to a Jewish family in Berlin, Brann immigrated to the United States in 1941. She holds a B.A. from Brooklyn College as well as an M.A. in Classics and a Ph.D. in Archaeology from Yale.  
Read Eva Brann's Lecture for the Conference »

Dennis - SepperPlenary Speaker: Dennis Sepper, Ph.D. | University of Dallas

Dennis Sepper, is chair of the department of human sciences and professor of philosophy at the University of Dallas. His scholarly work is focused on the philosophy of language and science as well as recent French and German thought. He holds a B.A. from Harvard as well as an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. 
 

 

About the Conference

Each year the Braniff Graduate Student Association organizes a conference that reflects the unique interdisciplinary nature of the Braniff Graduate School and its emphases on the Western tradition, classical education and contemporary scholarship. This year's conference will explore the nature of the imagination as it has been discussed in the Western tradition and will take place at the University of Dallas, located in Irving, TX. 

Call for Papers

We welcome papers in liberal arts disciplines including—but not limited to—philosophy, literature, politics, theology, history, and psychology, and drawing from the classical, medieval, modern, or contemporary period.

Relevant topics include but are not limited to:

  • What is the imagination?
  • Imagination as it functions in art: artist, artifact, and audience.
  • Imagination and self-fashioning; imagination and identity.
  • Literary depictions and explorations of the imagination
  • The imagination as a political battleground: propaganda, advertisement, rhetoric, etc.
  • Philosophic inquiry and the imagination
  • Imagination and child development; imagination and education.
  • The image and the word: imagination in the context of language and language arts.
  • Imagination and psychology.
  • Ethics and imagination.
  • Imagination and dystopian literature/post-apocalyptic film.
  • Imagination and the real.

We invite scholars working in the liberal arts to submit abstracts of no more than 500 words that consider the theme of imagination from the perspective of their discipline, a particular author, or through an interdisciplinary approach. Preference will be given to papers conversant with the great texts of the Western tradition. The conference committee will invite select authors to publish their essays in a special edition of Ramify: The Journal of the Braniff Graduate School of Liberal Arts.

Submit abstracts to udbgsaconference@gmail.com. Abstracts should be prepared for blind review. Please include a separate cover letter with your name, paper title, email address, and institutional affiliation.

Abstracts are due no later than November 10, 2017. Presenters will be notified of their acceptance by Tuesday, November 21 and will be asked to submit their full papers, suitable for a 15 minute presentation (no more than 2500 words), by December 31, 2017.

Conference Program

Previous Conferences

  • 2017 BCLA: On Friendship | Keynote speaker: Ronna Burger, Philosophy, Tulane University 
  • 2016 BCLA: On Philosophy and Poetry | Keynote speaker: Ron Smith, Poet Laureate of Virginia.
  • Proceedings from the 2015 BCLA: On Reason and Revelation, were published by Ramify. The keynote speaker was Khalil Habib, Philosophy, Salve Regina University.

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