Review of the BNKF Graduate Student Workshop and Symposium
The Bergen Network for Women in Philosophy (BNWP) at the University of Bergen, Norway (UiB) hosted its first graduate student workshop and symposium from January 17th - 19th, 2019 . Here comes a review of the arrangement and an invitation to submit inputs for future events.
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We discussed the relationship between imagination, society, and culture, broadly construed, with talks given on the interrelation of logic, language, and imagination; imagination in the political, ethical, and aesthetic spheres; and imagination’s bearing on expression and receptivity of others. Our keynote speakers were Sabina Lovibond (Oxford), Sandra Laugier (Panthéon-Sorbonne), and Anat Biletzki (Quinnipiac and Tel Aviv).
The event was comprised of two kinds of sessions: Workshops involving close discussion of pre-circulated papers in small groups, all written by graduate students and supervised by our keynote speakers, and symposium presentations given by our keynotes and selected workshop participants. These presentations were open to the rest of the department and the general public.
The workshop and symposium were a student-led initiative encouraged by the then-head of BNWP, Jesse Tomalty. Carlota Salvador Megias conceived of the workshop-symposium format and, together with Jasmin Trächtler, came up with the theme, invited keynotes, chose participants, and oversaw the event’s organization. Kirsten Bang and Vibeke Andrea Tellman helped enormously with logistics, and Sofie Lekve provided us with the event poster. We would not have had such a wonderful event without all of our student participants, who traveled to Norway from Europe, the United States, and the Middle East to attend and came with thoughtful, high-quality papers and presentations for comment.
