This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary conference project seeks to investigate and explore the nature, significance, and practices of forgiveness. Asking for or granting forgiveness can often be a routine part of everyday life, but the nature of forgiveness as a personal, social and even international practice can be quite complex. It raises a wide variety of questions that touch on a vast array of academic disciplines. In cases of significant transgressions, social tensions, and even international conflicts the questions of what counts as forgiveness and how granting or withholding it can fundamentally change individual or international relationships becomes both more difficult and important to assess. This conference will look at the full range of this complexity. To encourage innovative trans-disciplinary dialogues, we warmly welcome papers from all disciplines, professions and vocations.

Papers, presentations, reports and workshops are invited on issues on or broadly related to any of the following themes:

1. Questions of Definition
~ What is forgiveness?
~ What sorts of behaviour require people to seek forgiveness?
~ Who can grant forgiveness? Can there be meaningful third party forgiveness?
~ Who benefits from forgiveness and how?
~ Can forgiveness be required of someone? Can it ever be wrong to offer forgiveness?

2. Psychological Perspectives
~ The emotional effect of victimization and the role forgiveness can play in either exacerbating or mitigating such feelings
~ The nature of self-forgiveness
~ Barriers to people's ability to forgive transgressors
~ How a willingness (or unwillingness) to forgive can be a measure of self-worth or self-respect
~ Issues related to the psychological burden of not forgiving

3. Legal and Political Perspectives
~ Forgiveness for past crimes of individuals - rehabilitation, second chances, and pardons
~ How forgiveness can play a role in criminal legal proceedings
~ Forgiveness as a part of social reconstruction following civil wars or systematic social injustices
~ How forgiveness can be required or granted in relationships between nations
~ Seeking forgiveness on behalf of others: righting historic wrongs

4. Social, Cultural and Literary Perspectives
~ The role forgiveness plays in different cultures
~ Differences in perceptions of the importance of forgiveness in different societies
~ Forgiveness ceremonies as important cultural practices
~ How questions of forgiveness are used in literature
~ Forgiveness in cinema, film, tv, radio and theatre
~ The role of the arts as catalyst or hindrance for actual cases of forgiveness
~ Forgiveness and the media

5. Religion and Forgiveness
~ Distinctions between secular and religious notions of forgiveness
~ The role of forgiveness in religious practices
~ How religious beliefs can promote forgiveness
~ How religions can be barriers to forgiveness
~ Rituals of forgiveness and their importance

6. Issues, Connections and Relations
- The relationship between forgiveness and restitution
- The relationship between forgiveness and retribution
- The relationship between forgiveness and compassion, mercy or pity
- The relationship between forgiveness and reconciliation
- The relationship between forgiveness and personal growth

Papers on any other topic related to the theme will also be considered.

500 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 19th September 2008. The abstract will be double blind peer reviewed (where appropriate). If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 6th February 2009.

500 word abstracts should be submitted to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats, following this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract

We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Joint Organising Chairs
David White Department of Philosophy University of Calgary, Calgary Canada	Rob Fisher Network Leader Inter-Disciplinary.Net, Freeland, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom

The conference is part of the ‘Probing the Boundaries’ programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.

All papers accepted for and presented at this conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers will be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume.

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