With apologies for cross-posting:


Sunderland Business School and the Centre for Studies in
Contemporary Approaches to Philosophy, University of Sunderland,UK

Announce a Preliminary Call for Papers for:

Bergson and the Social Sciences

A Multi-disciplinary Conference on Practical Philosophy

To be hosted in collaboration with the Department of OR and HRM, University 
of Northumbria, at Longhirst Hall, Morpeth, Northumberland, UK
from Sunday evening April 16th to 5 p.m. Tuesday April 18th 2000.

To declare the need for a return to the work of Henri Bergson may well seem 
premature in the face of philosophy's singular resolve to ignore the 
enormous significance and influence of this man's thought at the beginning 
of the Twentieth-century. Yet no philosopher has been as important to our 
age as Bergson.  At the threshold of the twentieth century, he reset the 
agenda for both philosophy and its relationship with the natural and human 
sciences.  Concerned with examining and extolling the phenomena of time, 
change, and difference, he was at one point held as both 'the greatest 
thinker in the world' and 'the most dangerous man in the world'. Yet the 
impact of his ideas was so all-pervasive that, by the end of the  Great War, 
it had become impossibly diffuse. In a manner imitating his own cult of
change, the Bergsonian school seemed to depart from the scene almost as 
quickly as it had arrived on it.
As part of the current resurgence of interest in Bergsonism both in Europe 
and North America, this conference will address the particular significance 
of his work for the social sciences. Bergson's writing lends itself to such 
a dialogue in that it addressed issues, like bodily intentionality and the 
radical indeterminacy of time, that have recently taken a leading 
theoretical role in the social sciences. While his ability to straddle 
theoretical boundaries originally left Bergson himself in an intellectual 
no-man's land, perhaps it is the social sciences today which can act in 
favour of his work: in particular, recent developments in organisation and 
cultural theory can allow his thought to speak to us again with the same 
exciting force and vitality that met its first appearance one hundred years 
ago.

Harwood Publications, who feature critical studies of Bergson in their 
catalogue, are co-operating with the conference with a view to publishing a 
book from the submissions.

Papers accordingly are invited that address any aspect of Bergson's 
relationship to and relevance for the social and organisational sciences, 
including his impact on other thinkers who followed him, his relation to the 
postmodern, and the broader movement of "process philosophy" with which he 
is associated.

Speakers confirmed include:

Prof. Pierre Guillet de Monthoux (University of Stockholm)
Prof. Robert Chia (University of Essex)
Prof. Keith Ansell Pearson (University of  Warwick)
Frederic Worms (University of Lille)

The conference is being organised by Prof Stephen Linstead (SBS) and Dr. 
John Mullarkey (Philosophy) at Sunderland, and hosted by Prof Heather Höpfl 
(Northumbria).

Abstracts of 500 words should be submitted by November 1st 1999 to:

Dr. John Mullarkey, Philosophy, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, 
University of Sunderland
Priestman Building, Green Terrace, Sunderland SR1 3PZ
Tel: 0191 515 2171
Fax: 0191 515 2229
Email: [log in to unmask]



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