Project Leader: Rob Fisher

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6th Global Conference
Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness

Friday 18th - Wednesday 23rd March 2005
CERGE-EI,
Prague, Czech Republic

Conference Programme, Abstracts & Papers

Food and Drink Map


This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary conference seeks to examine and explore issues surrounding evil and human wickedness. Perspectives are sought from those engaged in the fields of anthropology, criminology, cultural studies, legal studies, literature, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and theology. Perspectives are sought from those working in the caring professions, the media, prison services, politics, psychiatry and other work-related and vocational areas.

Papers, reports, work-in-progress and workshops are invited on issues related to any of the following themes;

  • the concept and language of ‘evil’ and ‘wickedness’
  • the nature and sources of evil and human wickedness
  • moral intuitions about dreadful crimes
  • psychopathic behaviour - mad or bad?
  • choice, responsibility, and diminished responsibility
  • social and cultural reactions to evil and human wickedness
  • the portrayal of evil and human wickedness in the media and popular culture
  • suffering in literature and film
  • individual acts of evil, group violence, holocaust and genocide; obligations of bystanders
  • terrorism, war, ethnic cleansing; the evils of terrorism, fear of terrorism, international relations especially with regard to the modern nation state, superpower interventionist strategies, post-war reorganisation following the evils of war
  • the search for meaning and sense in evil and human wickedness
  • the nature and tasks of theodicy
  • religious understandings of evil and human wickedness
  • postmodern approaches to evil and human wickedness
  • ecocriticism, evil and suffering
  • gender and evil
  • evil and the use/abuse of technology; evil in cyberspace

Papers will be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Monday 22nd November 2004. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 11th February 2005.

300 word abstracts should be submitted to the Organising Joint Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, PDF or RTF formats.

Organising Committee
Margaret Breen
Department of English, University of Connecticut, Groton, CT, USA
Rob Fisher
Inter-Disciplinary.Net,
Freeland, Oxfordshire, UK
Stephen Morris
Independent Scholar,
New York, USA

Seven themed volumes have and are in the process of being published. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will appear in an ISBN eBook. In addition, selected papers accepted for and presented at this conference will also be published in themed volumes.

The conference is part of a larger series of ongoing conferences, run under the general banner ‘At the Interface’. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.

© Wickedness.Net 2005