Call for Papers: Anthology on the Philosophy of Slavery and Emancipation
Historically, the institution of slavery was the focus of a great deal of
philosophical research. Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Mill, Wollstonecraft, Bentham,
Locke, Rousseau,
Paine, Wilberforce, Grotius, Pufendorf, Nietzsche, Marx, and many others,
considered such topics as the definition of slavery, the rightness or wrongness
of slavery, which sorts of people could or should be enslaved, and whether (and
if so, when) they should
be emancipated.
In recent years, by contrast, philosophers have shown little interest in
slavery. This anthology seeks to remedy this by presenting new work on the
philosophy of slavery
and emancipation. Possible topics to be addressed include, but are not
restricted to:
• What is slavery? How is slavery different from other forms of
unfreedom/inequality/labour etc?
• What was mistaken about historical arguments for slavery?
• How do we best explain the wrongness of slavery? Why were the actions of slave
owners, slave traders, or those involved in the initial enslavement, wrong?
• Do people not involved in slavery have obligations to oppose slavery?
• Are slaves who once consented to their own enslavement required to obey their
masters? Do such masters have a right to such obedience? Should the state
recognise,
or even enforce, such contracts of slavery?
• What is the relationship between slavery and sexism/racism/ableism/heteronormativity
etc?
• What is the relationship between slavery and bondage & discipline, or
dominance & submission, or sadism & masochism?
• What do slave narratives tell us about the nature or wrongness of slavery or
about the rightness of emancipation?
• What is emancipation?
• What does the history of emancipation tell us about contemporary abolitionism?
• Who can emancipate whom, when, and from what?
• Is emancipation all that is owed to slaves? Does the legacy of slavery and
emancipation require further action?
The anthology will, in the first instance, be submitted to Cambridge University
Press for possible inclusion in their new series, Slavery Since Emancipation:
http://www.historiansagainstslavery.org/main/book-series/.
For this reason, we especially encourage submissions that respond to the
criteria for this series.
Guidelines for submissions
• Deadline for submission of abstract (150-300 words): 22nd December
2013
• Deadline for submission of paper: 1st
February 2014
• Manuscripts should be in English and be between 6000 and 9000 words, including
abstract, references and footnotes.
• Manuscripts should be anonymised and sent by email attachment as a word
document or pdf to both editors.
• Expected date for preliminary verdict on submitted papers: 31st
July 2014
Editors
Nathaniel Adam Tobias Coleman, uctynat@ucl.ac.uk
Simon Roberts-Thomson, serobertsthomson@gmail.com
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