The Center for Collaboration and Ethics at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley invites submissions for the second annual philosophy workshop on the theme of Digital Worlds, to be held online from April 22-24, 2022. This workshop considers the ways modern digital technology enhances, hampers, or alters our experience of our lived worlds. The distinction between “being on the internet” and “being in the real world” is eroding, and this workshop aims to interrogate the meaning and structure of the world as it is mediated by digital technology.
This year we are particularly interested in papers dealing with quantification, from questions about the meaning and ethics of “big data,” to what notions of self are reinforced or undermined by the “quantified self” movement and the various feedback and reports our devices generate about ourselves, to issues of digital surveillance and surveillance becoming increasingly common and integrated into our worlds and daily lives.
We invite submissions that take up these themes, or others related to Digital Worlds, from a wide variety of perspectives. The purpose of this workshop is to collaboratively develop works in progress with an eye toward publication, possibly in a collected form (the first annual conference did form the basis of a forthcoming issue of Techné). We invite extended abstract submissions of 500-750 words by February 1. We also invite expressions of interest to be a commenter on a paper, independent of a submission (it is not necessary to submit a paper to provide commentary). The discussion draft of the papers will be required one month in advance of the meeting for everyone to pre-read and for commenters to review and prepare feedback.
Abstracts can be submitted to: digitalworldsworkshop@gmail.com