8th Global Conference
Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness

Monday 19th March - Friday 23rd March 2007
Salzburg, Austria

Conference Programme, Abstracts & Papers

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

The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 24th November 2006. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 2nd March 2007.

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

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

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 2007