1st Global Conference

Monday 19th November - Wednesday 21st November 2007
Salzburg, Austria

Friendship plays a key role in our development as a person. In different stages of life we have different friends and yet we also have life-time friends. Is friendship threatened by modern commercial society? Employment patterns uproot and relocate people; children have to move to new schools and often take time to make new friends. Is friendship threatened by the rise of technology? Advances in telecommunications, e-mail and other forms of communication underlines the fact that we are no longer in a face-to-face society What is happening to friendship as a result of this? Are we too busy to meet each other and see each other except at significant social occasions (for example, christenings, weddings or funerals)? How does friendship work at the level of nations and states? What are international and global friendships?

The conference will try to unpack these issues in contemporary life so much of which puts new strains in human relationships. The following are some of the areas of discussion and there are of course others which participants may like to include

1. Changes in marriage, kinship and family and how this affects our experience of friendship
2. The place of friendship in an impersonal society
3. Friendship as a social need; implications of the absence of friendships; the loner
4. Friends, foes and strangers
5. The influence of the media and technology
6. Persons, friendship and the over-valuing of work
7. How neighbours become friends; how neighbours become enemies
8. Friendship and love. Changing patterns of intimacy. Intimacy overload and disappointment
9. Friendship as a relation free of constitutional linkage. Friendship versus spheres of claim, e.g. family, peer groups, community and class
10. Friendship in childhood
11. The loneliness of suburban wives; modern society as a lonely society. Evidence of surveys, agony columns etc
12. Analysis of the contemporary language of friendship: ‘partners’ , ‘companions’, ‘significant others’. Does friendship feature in these relationships?
13. Friendship and various other social forms - cronyism, patronism, gang membership, being a colleague. The loss of collegiality. The factor of keeping boundaries
14. Is friendship a morally privileged relationship? Nepotism and the obligation to be impartial in the moral life. Distinctions made between amicitia, eros, and agape in different periods of time
15. Civic friendship and justice
16. National, international and global friendships

Papers will be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 17th August 2007. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be developed and submitted by Friday 9th November 2007. The draft paper should be of no more than 8 or 9 pages long and ready for a 20 minute (maximum) presentation during the conference.

If you are interested in participating, please send 300 word abstracts (simultaneously) to both Organising Chairs; they may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats, in the following order: author(s), affiliation, email address, title of abstract, body of abstract. We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper or panel proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us within 14 days 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.