Call for Papers and Posters

Deadline for Abstracts: January 30, 2010

We should not deny the validity or value of any of these partial, constituent, “regional,” stories that we’ve worked so hard together to construct, that we’ve become so invested in, usually with very strong reasons for being so.  But what we want—what we need—is the “whole” story, the story of our stories, the story of how all these stories hang together.

We sense that the stories we have and hold dear can never be fully satisfying unless there is a whole story that gives an ultimate account of them.  Though each of us has a story—many stories, really—if the stories should conflict with one another we worry that at best we can only say, “I simply prefer my story to yours.”  But personal preference, when it comes to the stories that order and regulate our lives, just isn’t good enough.  We need to know:  Is our story the true story?  Is our story good?  Is it beautiful? And that, it would seem, would take the whole story, the story of the whole.

But it would seem that such a story is impossible.  It’s not just that we do not happen to have the whole story, that we could get it if only we worked long enough and hard enough.  No.  The whole story—the story of the whole—is impossible.  The whole story is impossible because it would require a complete speech, and as we human beings are beings in time, we can never get to completeness. 

So the whole story is impossible—yet we are after it.  In fact, perhaps paradoxically, that is why we are after it.  We are after it because we have not attained it…we cannot attain it, so we are after it.  As we seek knowledge, the disciplines (our intellectual stories) are formed and multiply.  Interdisciplinary studies are developed to try to leverage the successes of the disciplines and get at a “whole” story.  But interdisciplinary studies quickly become new disciplines (new stories).  So we try to move to transdisciplinary work to get ourselves some purchase, some vantage point to try to see what it is we know now that we know so many disciplinarily and interdisciplinarily distinct things.  But if we let transdisciplinary studies become the next discipline, we will still come up short of our goal—the whole story. Because that is impossible. 

Thus our work rests in a space between idolatry and foolishness, between thinking we already have the whole story and thinking there is no point to seeking the whole story at all (another way of saying nihilism).  To remain in this space, this difficult but not impossible space requires extreme discipline (it will be nothing, if not rigorous).  It requires humility (so to avoid reductionism to some specific partial story, and to avoid attempts to “overcome” or to homogenize all existing disciplines).  It requires openness (an ear for the call of the impossible that drives us and prevents us from resting satisfied).

In short, to undertake the transdisciplinary work we do, to find the means for the constructive engagement of science and religion, philosophy and theology, to develop new notions of rigor and methodologies and non-standard logics, is difficult and demanding.  It can be no easy mish-mash of half-digested theories and awkwardly blended vocabularies.  No.  It is hard—but honest—work.  It doesn’t fit in neatly with the way our educational and academic institutions are structured.  It is not measured in just the same way as our disciplinary work.  But it is real work, and, in the end, the most important work.  So long as we are persistent enough in our thinking and envisioning to remain in the tension of the space between idolatry and foolishness.

Join us for the 11th international Metanexus Conference when philosophers, biologists, physicists, cosmologists, neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, theologians, scholars in religious studies, and other researchers and educators will discuss what it means to seek a whole story in a rapidly evolving and complex world.

Among the attendees will be representatives of the Metanexus Global Network of multidisciplinary Local Societies from more than 40 countries.

Some speakers at past Metanexus conferences include:

Additional Themes

Papers are invited that address the broad themes listed above, but the conference is open to critically rigorous, scientifically-, theologically-, and philosophically-informed papers on any topics that touch on profound questions of a transdisciplinary nature concerning the related themes below.

Presentations by interdisciplinary or inter-institutional teams are especially welcome.
Proposals for special sessions and panel discussions will be considered.

• meta-THEMES: Transdisciplinary Theories, Methodologies, and Approaches:

• Is it possible to articulate the “whole” story?  Is it even good to seek it?  Is this effort fraught with dangers?  Is metaphysics the way to tell the whole story?  Is the whole story narratival?  Can it be conveyed by mappings instead of narratives? Are non-standard logics required?  Is systems theory?  Is complexity theory?  Network theory?  Is Big History?  Is Social Ecology?  What do we even mean by transdisciplinarity?  Will it require new institutional forms (i.e., are our current institutional forms obstacles to our seeking/finding something like the “whole” story?)

• nexus-THEMES: Profound Questions, Pressing Issues:

• Writing our own big history while we’re in the midst of it?  How big can it get?
• Non-atomistic ontologies/non-monotonic logics—tools for getting at the “big picture”?
• Wholeness and Wisdom.
• What are the prospects for a Grand Unified Theory (Theory of Everything)?
• What is the relation between mapping the whole and coming again to feel whole?
• Religion, Theology, and the Big Picture.
• Networks and Meshworks, Theories and Maps.
• The narratival nature of science.
• Identity and Narrative: the stories we live and the stories that live through us.
• The Social Construction of Reality—or Reality’s Construction of the Social?
• Issues in emergence and complexity.
• Prospects for the unity of knowledge.
• Scientific and metaphysical realism.
• Infinity—logic, mathematics, cosmology, theology.
• Pan(en)theism and natural science.
• Metascience, or the possibility of post-postmodern metaphysics.
• Exploring levels of reality.
• Religion/Science as narrative:  the stories of who we are and where we’re going.
• The alpha and the omega—stories of creation and apocalypse.
• How do we tell our stories?

Paper Guidelines

Deadline for Paper Abstracts is January 30, 2010

A NOTE ABOUT PRESENTATION OF THESE PAPERS: All abstracts submitted for Metanexus Conference 2010 will be evaluated in a blind review process under the direction of the Metanexus Institute Academic Board (see www.metanexus.net/academicboard.asp). All accepted papers and presentations are to be submitted in advance in final form and will be posted and publicly accessible on the Metanexus Conference Web site.

The goal in this conference is not simply to present papers, but to meet and network with creative persons from around the world. The hope is to learn from each other, to try out new ideas on a welcoming yet critically astute audience, to provide inspiration towards further research and exploration, and to generate a synergy that will have effects long after the conference is over. As this is a transdisciplinary conference, attendees will represent various academic fields and specialties. Papers should be crafted with this multidisciplinary scholarly audience in mind.

To be considered for a paper presentation at the conference, please submit ALL of the following in ENGLISH in THREE SEPARATE FILES:

• FILE # 1: A COVER SHEET that lists the author(s) full name(s), name of institution(s), complete postal address, telephone number(s), and email address, along with the PAPER TITLE.
  N.B. This will not be sent to the review committee.
  
  
• FILE # 2: A 200 word BIOGRAPHY for each author of the paper, written in third-person form (“She is professor…” rather than “I am professor…”). Please include your current job title or academic position.
  N.B. This will not be sent to the review committee.
  
  
• FILE # 3: An ABSTRACT of between 500 and 1000 words. Please adhere to the following guidelines:
  • All abstract PAGES MUST BE NUMBERED.
  • The abstract MUST NOT CONTAIN ANY SELF-REFERENCES, in order to facilitate blind review.
  • The abstract MUST INCLUDE 5-15 KEYWORDS.
  • The abstract MUST INCLUDE 3-8 KEY BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES, in order to facilitate reviewer selection.
  • All submission elements must be in .DOC or .RTF format only. No other file extensions (.pdf, .odf, .tex, .pages, etc.) will be accepted.

LENGTH LIMIT OF FULL PAPERS: 10,000 words (approximately 20 single-spaced 8.5” X 11” typed pages in 12 pt. Arial or Times New Roman font).

READING TIME: approximately 25 minutes, followed by up to 5 minutes of question and answer.

Further instructions will be sent to presenters upon selection.

Paper Abstract Timeline

• DEADLINE for submitting abstract and biography is January 30, 2010.
• Authors submitting abstracts will be notified of acceptance decision by March 15, 2010.
• DEADLINE for completed versions of SELECTED papers is May 15, 2010.

Poster Guidelines

Deadline for Poster Abstracts is January 30, 2010

Poster presentations allow for personal presentation of summary papers and research on poster boards, with live on-site sessions for Q&A and exchange of ideas and information regarding your work. Discussants will include various peers and colleagues across our global transdisciplinary network of thinkers.

At least one author of the presented scholarship must register and attend the conference, and be available for a two hour window for discussion and Q&A.

To be considered for a poster presentation at the conference, please submit ALL of the following in ENGLISH in THREE SEPARATE FILES:

• FILE # 1: A COVER SHEET that lists the author(s) full name(s), name of institution(s), complete postal address, telephone number(s), and email address, along with the POSTER TITLE.
  N.B. This will not be sent to the review committee.
  
  
• FILE # 2: A 200 word BIOGRAPHY for each author of the paper, written in third-person form (“She is professor…” rather than “I am professor…”). Please include your current job title or academic position.
  N.B. This will not be sent to the review committee.
  
  
• FILE # 3: An ABSTRACT of 250 words. Please adhere to the following guidelines:
  • Abstract should include a sense of the intended content of the poster and what it hopes to accomplish.
  • All abstract PAGES MUST BE NUMBERED.
  • The abstract MUST NOT CONTAIN ANY SELF-REFERENCES, in order to facilitate blind review.
  • The abstract MUST INCLUDE 3-5 KEYWORDS.
  • All submission elements must be in .DOC or .RTF format only. No other file extensions (.pdf, .odf, .tex, .pages, etc.) will be accepted.

Further instructions will be sent to presenters upon selection.

Poster Abstract Timeline

• DEADLINE for submitting poster abstract is January 30, 2010.
• Authors submitting abstracts will be notified of acceptance decision by March 15, 2010.