“Educating for modern democracy”, an exploration of philosophical and religious resources
The Conférence Mondiale des Institutions Universitaires Catholiques de Philosophie (COMIUCAP) is a worldwide network of Catholic University Institutions dedicated to teaching and research in Philosophy. The network was founded in Rome at the Pontifical Gregorian University in April 1999 and corresponds to the Research Group for Philosophy of the International Federation of Catholic Universities (IFCU).
The coming COMIUCAP international conference will take place from 7 to 10 November 2017 at Boston College and will focus on the theme: “Educating for Modern Democracy”. The nature and process of the democratic form of government has come under increased pressure in recent times. The many causes include features or implications of pluralism, secularism, competing claims among religions, economic inequality, racial and gender disparities, and partisanship. Solutions are elusive, and the possible bases for them unclear.
The participants to the conference will discuss on any topic broadly connected to the current crises facing democracy, with particular interest in work that explicitly brings the questions of religion, race and / or gender into contact with the intellectual resources in the philosophical and Catholic traditions, both to understand the contemporary situation and to educate students and the public at large in ways that strengthen reflective civic engagement and democratic institutions. The Conference will focus on presentations that include reflection on the task of teaching to these important matters from the philosophical and Catholic intellectual traditions.
Here are a few sample topics that will be tackled during the conference:
- The continued promise and / or apparent limits of Alexis de Tocqueville’s conception of democracy.
- The economic conditions for democracy and the prospects for a new articulation of basic principles (e.g., the emergence of globalization and/or technological innovation on the shrinking job market as factors that erode confidence in modern governance and diminish the basic self-esteem required for engaged citizenship, and proposals).
- Catholic approaches to the relationship between political responsibility and care for the environment, as for example is developed in the recent papal encyclical Laudato Si’.
A full conference schedule will soon be available.
To access the conference webpage, follow → this link
