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BRITAIN'S EARLY PHILOSOPHERS (Durham, April 1-2, 2019)

The Durham Centre for Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (http://dcamp.uk) is hosting a two-day workshop on Britain's Early Philosophers and is seeking abstracts for contributed talks on any aspect of philosophy and philosophers born in or living in Britain before 1000.

Who were Britain’s earliest philosophers? What were Alcuin of York’s contributions to philosophy? To what extent can we consider thinkers such as Hild, Bede, Cuthbert, Gildas, and Cædmon philosophers? How did philosophy reach Britain? Who was reading it, who was writing it, who was teaching it, who was learning it? In this seminal exploratory workshop, we will be considering these questions as well as other questions such as: What counts as philosophy in the early medieval British period? What are the boundary/ies between philosophy and theology? Is there a specifically/uniquely early British philosophical tradition? Just who was reading Alfred’s translation of Boethius?

In this two-day workshop, we will have plenary talks given by:

Dr. Fred Biggs (Connecticut)
Dr. Barbara Denison (Shippensburg)
Dr. Helen Foxhall Forbes (Durham) (tbc)
Dr. Mary Garrison (York) (tbc)

These talks will set the stage by focusing on some of the intellectual context of early medieval Britain and the contributions of leading figures in early British intellectual history, including Bede, Alcuin, and Hild.

We would like to supplement these invited talks with around 12 contributed talks from scholars (especially junior scholars) from all disciplines, so long as they touch on the matter of philosophy and philosophical writing, teaching, and learning.

Abstracts of no more than 500 words should be sent to Dr. Sara L. Uckelman, s.l.uckelman@durham.ac.uk, by January 30, 2019; responses to decisions on abstracts will be communicated by February 15, 2019.

For more information, see http://www.dcamp.uk/britains-early-philosophers/

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(Photo: "Handwritten" by A. Birkan, licensed under CC BY 2.0)