PG Work in Progress Seminar
About the WiPThe Postgraduate Work in Progress (WiP) Seminar is a student-organised session intended to provide all philosophy graduate students, and occasionally graduate students undertaking philosophy projects in other departments, with the platform to present and discuss their ongoing research. All philosophy PGs, whether MA, MPhil, or PhD, are encouraged to attend, and faculty members and visitors to the department are very welcome. No extensive knowledge of the week’s topic is necessary. The seminar offers an invaluable opportunity for graduates to present their work in a friendly, supportive, unassessed setting, and receive vital peer-review feedback and tips, allowing them to improve and practise defence of their work, as well as to get to know and socialise with fellow students and members of the wider department. Seminars normally take place on Thursdays, from 5:00pm until 6:15pm in S2.77, and can also be attended online on via Teams. The title and abstract for each talk along with a Teams link is circulated to all PG students on a Monday.The format will consist of a roughly 30-minute presentation of a paper, followed by a roughly 30-minute open discussion and Q&A. Current term scheduleA list of seminars occurring in the current academic term can be found below. Term 2 (2023-2024) Schedule
Thursday 11th January - Aurian De Briey - 'From Heidegger's social ontology to his answer to the technological challenge' Thursday 18th January - Emily Boocock - 'Some Characteristic Features of Extremist Ideology' Thursday 25th January - Chris Hall - 'Knowing What We're Doing' Thursday 1st February - Sara Gorea - 'Sideways music and sideways obligations' Thursday 8th February - Gustavo Ruiz da Silva - 'Paul Veyne: Elegiac Storiography' Thursday 15th February - Lumeng Liu Thursday 22nd February - Simon Gansinger Thursday 29th February - Efan Owen Thursday 7th March - Harland Cossons Thursday 14th March - Oscar North-Concar Previous term scheduleTerm 1 (2023-2024) Schedule
Friday 6th October - Clarissa Mueller - 'A Phenomenology of Neurodivergence' Thursday 12th October - Eve Poirier - 'Plausible Abstractions: The role of fiction, truth and history in Genealogy and State of Nature Philosophy' Thursday 19th October - Aurian de Briey - 'The Articulation between Liberty and Happiness' Thursday 26th October - Ben Campion - 'Videogame Photography Returns: Photography versus ‘the Photographic’ Thursday 2nd November - Elias Girma Wondimu - 'Mixed-Raced Inclusion: Revising Existing Definitions of Race' Thursday 9th November - Johan Heemskerk Thursday 16th November - Haley Burke Thursday 23rd November - Fridolin Neumann Thursday 30th November - Oscar North-Concar - 'A Problem For Objectivism in Ethics' Thursday 7th December - Marco Rienzi Notes for presentersThere is no strict minimum or maximum limit on paper length, and you may present an entire paper, a chapter of a thesis, an article, or outline the scope of a project, etc. The general recommendation is 3000-5000 words, as your work should be amenable to summation within 30 minutes. Please provide your title and abstract to the WiP organisers by the end of the Sunday on the week you are presenting.Please keep in mind that the seminar is best used to gather valuable suggestions with which to improve to your work, and to gain experience in presenting your work. As such, your work does not need to be a watertight, polished piece, but may be a draft or substantial set of notes. You are welcome to share work at all stages of the writing process. Contact the organisersIf you would like to present at the WiP or have any questions about it, please email both Chris Hall (Chris.Hall.1@warwick.ac.uk) and Grainne O'Shea (Grainne.O-Shea@warwick.ac.uk). |
Next talk: Thursday 8th February 2024, 5pm, S2.77Gustavo Ruiz da Silva: 'Paul Veyne: Elegiac Storiography'WiP Organisers 23/24: Chris Hall (Chris.Hall.1@warwick.ac.uk) Grainne O'Shea (Grainne.O-Shea@warwick.ac.uk) |
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PG Work in Progress Seminar
Speaker: Zak Stinchcombe
Title: 'This Moral Vision: Martha Nussbaum and the Novel'
ABSTRACT:
This talk is interested in examining the relations that hold between ethical and literary value with a particular focus on whether they are in tension, do not neatly complement one another, perhaps violently disagree, and so on. Initially we will look at two competing accounts of this tension, namely Ethicism (wherein ethical deficiency, or merit, corresponds to literary deficiency or merit) and Aestheticism (there is no real tension to discuss - aesthetic value and ethical value do not occupy the same space, have nothing to do with one another, that ethical considerations are irrelevant to aesthetic judgements, and so on). Neither account is satisfactory, treating the relationship too superficially. Martha Nussbaum's account of the novel, particularly in the Jamesian novel, points to a deeper, more textured account of the relationship. Quite apart from the ethical and literary value covarying. or else standing independently of one another, Nussbaum argues: 1) novels are themselves works of moral philosophy. 2) it is in novels that one finds the most appropriate articulation of the, or this, moral vision. 3) we can find in novels a paradigm of moral activity. I shall assess the plausibility of these claims, taking into consideration some interpretative ambiguities that exist in her account. I will then be in a position to say something of how this might be applied to the tension we began with. Nussbaum says that there exists a 'dynamic tension between two possible irreconcilable visions...' I agree that this tension exists. Moreover, though, I intend to claim something stronger. The dynamic tension is not merely present; it is an essential component of the relationship between ethical and aesthetic value.