• Who is African?
• Who is an intellectual?
• What do we mean by decolonization?
• Colonialism and decolonization in Africa
• Neocolonialism and (neo)decolonization in Africa
• Women and decolonization in Africa
• Decolonizing the (Westernized) Academy
• African philosophies and decolonization
• African indigenous knowledge systems and decolonization
• The Arts and African decolonization
• African literatures and decolonization
• The Sciences and decolonization in Africa
• Conservation of natural resources in Africa and decolonization

• Utopia, fiction and perspective: the unreal possibility and impossible reality of peace
• Dystopia, perversion and corruption: a dead peace as real impossibility
• Pantopia, omnipresence and modern metaphysics: the real possibility of living peace

The roundtable brings together philosophers of race, and those working in related fields in a small and congenial setting to share their work and to help further this sub-discipline. Papers are invited on any philosophical issue regarding race, ethnicity, or racism, and including those that take up race in the context of another topic, such as feminism, political philosophy, ethics, justice, culture, identity, biology, phenomenology, existentialism, psychoanalysis, metaphysics, or epistemology.

• The ethics of personal identity
• Social identity in Canada: What are the facts and issues?
• Who am I?: Social identity in Canada and why I see it this way
• Identity can be dangerous: Some Canadian examples
• Identity and poverty
• Polarization along religious lines – ›Religion in politics‹
• What are the building blocks of a healthy democracy in a diverse society?

• Conceptualizing the Field of Identity Politics
• Transnationalism and Ethnic Identity
• Ethnicity in/and Conflict

• How are »tipping points« in nature related to »tipping points« in culture?
• How can the study of values, visions, spiritualities and images of life contribute to a deeper understanding of the interplay of nature, culture and the environmental challenge obvious in global climate change?
• Do we need a renewed understanding of ritualisation in the context of global change, and how are aesthetics and ethics intertwined in religious practices with regard to the environment?
• What kind of culture/spirituality is powerful under global change (e.g. eco-spirituality as it appears in old and in new religious traditions and processes)?
• How are indigenous cultures responding to environmental change?
• What can we learn from environmental history, with regard to our own European history of civilisation, modernisation and globalisation?

• the interaction of Asian regions
• the influence of religion on the development of nationalism
• how cultural and national identity formation is negotiated among different actors
• the relationship between localization, nationalization, and globalization
• ethno-nationalism and the effects of colonialization on identity and culture

• Laws on ethnic relations
• Policies on ethnic relations
• Working with ethnic group(s)
• Ethnic minorities
• National intergration
• General and universal perspectives on ethnic groups
• Human rights
• National identity
• Political negotiations
• Linguistic perspectives
• Power and oppression
• Ethnic conflict

• Conquest and continuity
• Borders and Borderlands
• Intra-ethnic translations
• Representations of Otherness
• Historical stereotypes in the construction of the past and the present
• Gendered spaces
• Reinterpretations of History and Histories about colonialism and post-colonialism
• Memory and archives
• The interaction of categories like nation, gender, class, and religion
• Education and nation-building in post-colonial societies
• Identities in transition
• Historical memory
• Political memory
• Narrative and linguistics
• Narrative and myth
• Voice and reflexivity in oral and written records
• Story, dialogue and discourse
• Testimonial narratives
• Memory and written record
• Language, authority and silence

Although the poststructuralist critique of humanism has by now lost a good deal of its urgency and potency, it has left indelible traces in the reflection on who and what ›we‹ are as human beings, and it is far from having exhausted its potential for intellectual stimulation. Its heritage confronts us with a wide range of fascinating questions, which include: How is the concept of identity to be defined? How do identities come into being? What – which discourse(s) – does an individual or group identify with, and on what grounds does he or she do so? Is the subject colonized by the discourses identified with or is he/she capable of maintaining a degree of independence from them? Can one resist the pressures of hegemonic discourses? Has all reference to a universalist vision of man become suspect and/or lost its relevance? What are the political (democratic) conclusions to be drawn from this reflection?

• Interkultureller Dialog
• Philosophie der Menschenrechte
• Transkulturalität und Transdisziplinarität
• Pluralistische Dimensionen der Kinderphilosophie
• Kultur, Integration und Erziehung
• Das Konzept der (multiplen) Identität(en)
• Citizenship und Demokratie
• Lebenslanges Lernen

• The role of multi-national and trans-national corporations in world business and their effect on states
• How states encourage businesses to invest where they do
• Obligations and responsibilities that states and businesses have to respect human rights and international law
• The relationship between business and the environment
• The role of human rights, the environment, health, wages, and/or work conditions in attracting international companies to states
• How knowledge of the local culture, language, and political system help businesses to be successful
• The effect of businesses and economic growth on indigenous communities
• The effect of inter- and intra-state conflicts on business
• The relationship of multilateral organizations and economic development
• Conflicts that businesses or states may have regarding any of the above topics

Terrorism is a complex phenomenon open to subjective interpretations. Since the essence of terrorist action involves the intentional killing of innocent people, then any self-serving interpretation of the justifiability and permissibility of killing leads to dangerous convictions. Viewed from this perspective, the questions raised as to the ethical wrongfulness of terrorist actions are countless. However, some of the most critical questions are: Why are terrorist actions ethically wrong? What kind of moral principles serve in the condemnation of terrorism? How can we distinguish between terrorist actions and morally acceptable violence such as a war of self-defense?

The conference theme allows for papers and panels on varied aspects of African life, culture, history, thought and practice within an Afrocentric framework. Submissions are encouraged that address intellectual and social problematics, and historical and current issues. Preference will be given to session proposals and papers that address the Conference theme of addressing the work of Diop and Asante, although submissions of panel proposals and papers which address other topics will be considered also.

Globalisation and multicultural trends, as well as claims from religious groups for increased political influence or autonomy and the uncertain and varying responses to these from society, have made us aware that the secularist ideal has been realised through the process of secularisation in radically different ways in different settings. As a result, an identity crisis is presently afflicting secular societies. It is no longer as clear what secularism is supposed to amount to, why secularisation is desirable and where its proper limits are.

• What is customary law in the 21st Century?
• »Procedural« aspects of customary law / Venues to enforce customary law
• Substantive areas of customary law
• Gender and customary law
• Customary law and international law

• Conceptions of global justice
• Global justice/justice within state boundaries
• Justice between nations
• Principles of global justice and the world order
• Global justice, national cultures, cultural diversity
• Principles of justice and national, international, and supranational policies

Setting out from existing transformations, diversities (experienced as difference), varieties (perceived as absence of sameness, of routine and monotony), alterities (through a continuous transgressing of borders), transmodernity foregrounds the new phenomenon of the »network world«. The increased cultural complexity of the global(izing/ized) world, which seems to be the raison d’être for »trans-«prefixed domains of action has turned into fertile ground for cross-breeding between several areas of research, such as management, communication studies, marketing and semiotics. How can transborder exchanges come to terms with processes within borders, how do international power relations influence structures mapped within frontiers, how can differences, varieties etc. be decoded and understood, how can communication be conducted in a »networld« where everything is produced and interpreted at a global level? How can the »relational dynamism« of this new (transcultural) »netocracy« be communicated and controlled? What is its new rhetoric like?

• Science and Climate
• Equity and Sustainability
• Communication and Society
• Cities and Climate Change
• Health and Adaptation Strategies

• What are the contemporary understandings that Turkey has of itself?
• What is the role of Europe in such an understanding?
• What are the tension points in this understanding?
• How can Germany understand itself now, since a big part of its population is originally from Turkey?
• What can a national identity mean, in Germany or Turkey, at the European epoch?
• What can Europe mean for both Germany and Turkey?
• What could it mean for Europe as well as for Turkey to get closer?

• The historic successes and failures in dialogue across communities and nations within and outside of Canada
• Historic successes and failures in combating racism and discrimination through dialogue
• Examples of how dialogue serves to enhance Canadians knowledge about diversity in Canada and what should they know
• Best practices in cross-cultural dialogue and the policies and programs in place in Canada in support of it
• The Canadian challenge of peace-keeping and bridge-building overseas
• Social networking and the role of new technologies in facilitating dialogue
• Hybridity, multiple identities and metissage and their impact on intercultural dialogue
• Dialogue between aboriginals and non-aboriginals; language communities; interfaith, interethnic and interracial

The conference will focus on the concept, theories, principles and values of good governance and their application in Chinese or in other contexts. The conference will also discuss proposals of improving governance in China or other Asian countries. During the Conference free exchange of opinions and viewpoints and mutual understanding between participants from different cultures and countries on good governance will be promoted.

1. Philosophical Prospects
• What makes Asia?
• Being Asian
• Common Characteristics of Asian Philosophies
• Philosophers' Role in the Formation of Asian Community
• Asian Philosophers: Past and Present
2. Historical, Psychological and Cultural Prospects
• Asian History
• Asian History as Part of World History
• Asian Identity
• Asian Cultures and Civilizations
• Globalization and Asia
3. Economical and Socio-Political Prospects
• Prospects of an Asian Community
• Asian Contributions to World Peace
• Asian Contributions to Universal Civilization
• Socio-Economical Aspects of Asian Dialogue
• Inter-Asian Relations and Cooperation
• The Role of International Institutions in Asian Integration
• World Politics and Asia
• The Development of Human Rights and Democracy in Asia

• Diálogo entre las disciplinas del conocimiento, tanto básicos como aplicado
• Investigación y avance de la calidad en la educación
• Fortalecimiento de la intelectualidad y sociedad civil intelectual
• Desarrollo de las fuerzas productivas intelectuales: postgrados, publicaciones
• Papel de la intelectualidad en la sociedad del conocimiento
• Afirmación de la transparencia en el quehacer académico, científico y tecnológico y promoción de ésta en toda la sociedad
• La cultura académica en América Latina y el Caribe: limitaciones, potencialidades y el rezago del conocimiento en la región
• Creación y coordinación de redes, instituciones, núcleos de pesquisa y sociedades científicas
• Coordinación de diversos agentes sociales para el desarrollo de la investigación, la ciencia, la tecnología y el conocimiento
• Aportes del conocimiento a nuestras sociedades: bienestar, calidad de vida, poder, proyección mundial, desarrollo, democracia y demás tareas progresistas

• the imbalance and relations of dominance in international communication
• routines and disturbances in trans-border crisis and conflict communication
• (dysfunctional) influences of international Public Relations on nations and cultures
• the complex and often contradictory development of transnational and transcultural spheres of communication
• factors of success in intercultural dialogue

• Welches Verhältnis besteht zwischen Kulturphilosophie und Kulturwissenschaft(en)?
• Welches Verhältnis besteht zwischen Kulturphilosophie im Besonderen und Philosophie im Allgemeinen?
• Wie kann ein Kulturbegriff bestimmt werden, der nicht ein weiteres Spezialgebiet der Philosophie abgrenzt, sondern den Philosophiebegriff selbst so weiter entwickelt, dass die kulturelle Selbstreflexion des Denkens zu einem integralen Bestandteil des Philosophierens wird?

• Challenging Old Concepts of Citizen and Alien
• Nations, Fluid Boundaries and Citizenship
• Institutions, Organizations and Social Movements
• Persons, Personhood and the Inter-Personal
• Media and Artistic Representations
• Transnational Political Interlacing of Contemporary Life
• New Concepts, New Forms of Inclusion

• Colonialism and Imperialism: A Middle Eastern Context
• Transnationalism and Reflections on Exile
• Overlapping Territories and Imaginative Geographies
• Language, History and the Production of Knowledge
• The Arab World: States, Territories and Refugees
• Gender, Class and Orientalism
• Criticism and French Philosophy
• Otherness in the Arts
• Representations of the Secular
• Power, Politics and Truth

• Theoretical, Conceptual and Methodological Issues
• Poverty and Good Governance
• Developing Countries and the Debt Trap
• Development, Underdevelopment and Child Mortality
• Gender, Equality and Women Empowerment
• Health Challenges and the MDGs
• Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development
• Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) / New Partnerships for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the MDGs
• Fundamental Human Rights Perspectives and the MDGs
• The MDGs and Information Gathering, Storage and Retrieval
• Youth Empowerment and the MDGs (Emerging Trends)

• Modernidad pluritópica
• Modernidades y filosofías
• Sujeto heterogéneo y modernidad
• Narraciones y modernidades
• La Modernidad vista desde los pueblos originarios
• Modernidad, represión y movimientos sociales

• Can a myth of Afrocentrism ever be a useful narrative in contemporary culture?
• How do Africanizing and classicizing cultures interface and interpenetrate in the arts and lives of Africans, Europeans, Caribbeans and Americans?
• Does Black Athena offer new possibilities for comparison between African and Jewish diasporas, cultures and struggles?
• How do we deal with the difficult collusion of essentialist and poststructuralist discourses in postcolonial thought?

The conference features prominent Anglo-American and Russian scholars from the disciplines of Philosophy, Theology, and the Natural Sciences.

1. Teoría convivencial de la sociedad
2. Perspectivas convivenciales en el pensamiento latinoamericano
3. Convivencia y cultura de la paz
4. Ética y axiología para la convivencia
5. Relación con el medio ambiente
6. Educación para la armonía social
7. El compromiso con la democracia
8. Justicia social
9. La unidad en la diversidad
10. Identidad, migración e integración social
11. Derechos humanos y libertades fundamentales
12. La autodeterminación de los pueblos
13. Comunicación e interacción social
14. Modernidad, globalización y diálogo interreligioso
15. Inclusiones y exclusiones sociales

• Does the re-examination of the past contribute to the cohesion or fragmentation of a community?
• How important is the recovery of the past for postcolonial and post-totalitarian societies?
• Is reckoning with the past conducive to cultural pluralism?
• Can renegotiation of the past contribute to the inclusion of cultural, racial and political Others in Europe?
• What ethical considerations does this enterprise raise for the project of multicultural Europe?
• In what ways does immigration influence our relationship with the national past?

The conference seeks to address race in world societies and history from multiple disciplinary perspectives and posits the question: What will be the future of race or will we as a human community consider race no more? Historically, race as a moniker of human difference has been conflated as color, culture, and biology. With the emergence of the modern world, race as a justification for European expansion and imperialism through the nineteenth century precipitated a vociferous discourse from the colonized as represented in post-colonial theory.
The science of genetics is having a profound influence in terms of our understanding of social and historical relationships within and between human groups amid the rise of global socio-political multiracial »movements.« Does race have a future or is race an illusion? Can we even use the word race or has it become obselete? Will the future of race be the same as it has been in the past?

• the degree to which the production of knowledge about India and the generation of policies in education and reform were more or less continuous or at variance with one another across time
• conceptual, methodological and stylistic differences between various strands of colonial scholarship as they impinged upon the development of pedagogical realities
• the potentially diverse relations between schools, museums, and centres of higher learning; the importance of Indian elites in the production and pedagogic implementation of this knowledge about India
• how we might approach the wider dissemination of orientalist pedagogies beyond the realm of colonial institutions

The conference intends to discuss both papers examining Fethullah Gülen's thought directly as well as those relating tangentially to issues central to his approach to Islam in the modern world as an instrument of peace. We also seek articles that consider the impact the Gülen Movement's approach to global issues.

• Ethnic Enclaves and Economic Integration
• Social Capital, Gender and Differential Educational and Economic Outcomes
• National Identity, Citizenship and Religious ›Difference‹
• Majoritarian Identities and Resentment of Multiculturalism

The aim of the conference is to open a space in which the ethics of the East Asian and South Asian philosophical traditions can be brought into dialogue with the ethics of the 19th century to contemporary Continental and American philosophical traditions. We welcome the submission of any paper that brings together at least one thinker from either the East or South Asian philosophical traditions and at least one thinker from the 19th century to contemporary Continental or American traditions, which deals with an issue in ethics from a comparative perspective.

Determinism vs. Indeterminism · Chaos and Necessity · Ethics of Choice · Social, Political and Religious Freedom Sovereignty · Democracy and Freedom · Fragile Democracy · Anarchy · Transcending Social and Political Laws · Enlightened Anarchy · Rights and Obligations · Locke, Hobbes and Rousseau · Dictatorship, Totalitarianism · Separation of State and Church · Freedom to Kill · Suicide Bombing · Freedom of Speech · Freedom of Press, Media · Censorship and Government · Freedom in Workplace · Whistle Blowing · Sexual Freedom, Celibacy and Sexual Harassment · Freedom to Use Nature and Environment · Bio Engineering and Genetic Engineering · Freedom and Privacy of Citizen · Globalization and Religion · Politics of Globalization · Imperialism and Globalization · Colonization and Poverty · Free Trade Policy · Colonization, Power and Identity · Transnationalism · Globalization and Patriotism · Global Citizen · Globalization of »Nuclear Proliferation« · Anti-globalization Movements · Small Industry and Big Corporation · Gandhi's View on Globalization

• international codes of business conduct
• respecting cultural assumptions and practices
• defining and coping with corruption
• reconciling relationship-based practices with Western-style transparency
• marketing of harmful products
• substandard labor practices
• arms manufacture
• intellectual property
• gene prospecting
• environmental issues
• gender issues
• human rights issues
• the meaning and consequences of economic development
• the global AIDS epidemic and other health issues
• the role of the World Trade Organization and similar bodies
• impact of international business on local cultures
• instability of the global financial system
• Western domination of media and popular culture

• Clarify the conceptual content of the notion of intercultural dialogue by comparing the definitions used in Europe
• Highlight the role of intercultural dialogue in deepening citizenship locally, nationally and at the European level
• Compare strategies and measures that meet the objectives of intercultural dialogue (culture and communication; education and training; social cohesion; linguistic diversity; exchanges and sustainable development)

• What are the epistemological features of free speech and free inquiry? Under what conditions will free speech and free inquiry promote truth and justified belief?
• How should one should one alter one’s beliefs in the light of disagreement?
• Under what circumstances will voting be truth-conducive?
• What are reasonable ways to aggregate different factual judgements?
• How should public policy take into account widespread disagrement over important factual matters?
• When should one trust experts, in particular when purported experts disagree?
• Applied issues, basic epistemological issues, as well metodologial issues concerning these questions: How should questions such as these be studied? How can philosophy contribute?

• Ethos of Antiquity and the moral prepositions of Christianity: changes in the philosophical paradigms and strategies of daily conduct
• Athens' Agora and the Medieval monastery: transformations of social Institutions
• Freedom of Spirit and Freedom of Body: speech and silence
• Citizen and ascetic: models of corporal practices
• Philosophical and Christian Ascetics in Medieval and Byzantine Philosophy and Theology
• Monastic Canons in the East and the West

• Meta-Normative Ethics
• Bio/Medical Ethics
• Engineering Ethics
• Ethics of Science and Technology
• Information Ethics
• Environmental Ethics
• Business Ethics
• International/Global Ethics

• Dialectics of identity and diversity
• Multiculturalism and integration
• Diversity and assimilation
• Diversity and affirmative action
• Ethnic diversity and requirements of urban policy
• Education in a multicultural polity and civil society
• Educational policies for managing diversity
• Responding to challenges of diversity in a class room
• Rethinking multiculturalism
• Challenges of cultural diversity in Canadian literature
• Social cohesion and religious diversities
• Economic disparity and diversity
• Security and religious diversity
• Celebration of diversity in literary texts
• Media and diversity
• Managing cultural and religious diversity in films

The conference tries to meet the international discussion on environmental and earth-healing to avert an impending repetition of a long past semi-mythical, semi-prehistorical event – great floods, lost lands, drowned continents, causing massive dispersals and migrations of people around the world. This mythical event might likely become a reality, once again, given the human-caused global warming phenomenon, resulting climate. To answer this problem, a new myth has to be discovered, or an old one re-discovered and re-invented to heal the divided consciousness of the people of the earth that is causing this great peril to the world. A healed consciousness might lead to a healed earth. To this end, the contemporary significance of ancient myths and symbols in healing might be re-discovered.

• Future of human civilization: Trends and paradigms
• Role of worldviews in the future of identities, cultures and traditions
• Role of the Islamic worldview in shaping the future of human civilization
• Worldviews and socio-political and economic problems
• Worldviews and ecological problems
• Worldviews and civilizational and cultural dialogue
• Worldviews: Peace, justice, equality and co-existence

• Factors and actors in transformation
• Forces of transformation
• Objects and subjects of transformation
• Evaluations of transformation

• The current state of religions in the Asia-Pacific
• Manifestations of religion and culture – religion and identity
• Religious and cultural fundamentalisms
• Religion, violence and state policies
• Islamic thinking at the grassroots
• The spread of religions within and from the Asia-Pacific
• Missionaries to and from Asia
• Popular religions, little traditions and cults
• The Asianisation of Western traditions
• Asian religions and the shaping of popular culture in Asia and around the world

• Indigenous perspectives on whiteness
• The politics of apology/ assimilation/ sovereignty/ restitution/ power
• Whiteness in the colonial/settler colonial encounter
• Whiteness in non-colonial contexts
• The gendered privileges of whiteness
• The chronology of whiteness: visibility/invisibility
• Cultures, representations, borderlands, bodies, transformations
• Refugees, asylum, immigration, inclusion/exclusion
• Does whiteness even matter?

The workshop intends to initiate a discussion on topics of field research and ethical challenges in post-conflict environments. Contributions may explore the array of methodological challenges, ethical issues, or practical impediments inherent in this set of conditions. Both theoretical investigations and proposed remedies, as well as reflections on personal research experiences are welcome.

• Hermeneutics of freedom and democracy in modern Europe
• Treaties of the European Union: political and philosophical aspects
• EU institutions (courts, parliaments, executives, bureaucracies) and the understandings of freedom, responsibility and/or democracy in their respective contexts
• Eastern Europe (1989-91) and political philosophy
• Southeast Europe, Turkey and the European Union
• A European ethos and the concept of European civil society
• Social solidarity, integration and conceptions of European citizenship
• The European Union as a liberal legal order
• Freedom, justice, democracy and capitalism(s) in Europe
• Migration, borders and the new territories of multiculturalism: political, legal and social aspects
• Comparative issues (for example, the EU and the USA)

• Evaluation of 60 years of the UDHR as a living document
• Opportunity for scholars and human rights practitioners to expound their findings and concerns over contemporary human rights issues, particularly (but not exclusively) as they affect New Zealand
• Opportunity to identify the key human rights challenges confronting the global community into the immediate and longer term future

• The Effects of the Universal Declaration and its Progeny on Human Rights Implementation
• Institutions and Human Rights
• Realistic Expectations from the International Law Human Rights Treaties

• Equitable access to health care
• Organ transplantation
• Clinical trials
• Patients' rights
• Genetics and health care rights
• Bioethics in post-communist countries
• Bioethics: a feminist view

The conference will bring together postgraduate students from a variety of disciplines working within the multiple intersections of Law and Philosophy

• Philosophical Aspects of Democracy
• The Intellectual History of Democracy in the West and in India
• Democracy and Culture: Indian Traditions (includes specialists from literature, music, the visual arts, and cinema)
• Democracy and Culture (Western Traditions)
• The Political Sociology of Democracy
• Religion, Secularism, and Democracy
• Democracy and Identity Politics

• the social and psychological structure of diplomacy
• the demise of the West as a center of cultural diplomacy
• the role of NGOs and private individuals in the making of an international order
• long-term strategies and developments of cultural relations
• alternative visions of modernity
• rooted cosmopolitanism