COMMUNITY and CONFLICT in Intellectual History

Political Thought and Intellectual History Graduate Conference

University of Cambridge, 28th April 2022

Call for Papers

The existence of communities and the threat of conflict have been central features of
thought since humanity began reflecting on the forms of its organisation. How can you
maintain a community divided by conflict? Does humanity naturally tend towards
harmony? Is conflict necessary for societies to flourish? While these sorts of questions
are legion, this year’s Cambridge Graduate Conference in Political Thought and
Intellectual History will examine them with an additional focus on how the realities
of community and the threat of conflict have been contexts for, and not simply the
contents of, thought.

In doing so, the conference seeks to expand the analysis of intellectual history by
looking beyond the traditional themes of political thought. We are interested in papers
which see community and conflict not only as questions of political theory, but also as
central to broader themes of a scholarly, religious, and cultural nature.

For our keynote speaker, Professor Andrew Fitzmaurice (Queen Mary,

University of London), the existence of communities and the inevitable presence of
conflict, as both ideas and contexts, have formed the basis of his wide-ranging research
on international law, theories of empire and colonisation, non-state entities, and
theories of sovereignty.

Image: Emanuel de Witte, Interior of the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam, 1680. Oil on canvas, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
 In considering this theme, participants are encouraged to draw from all aspects,
traditions, and periods of intellectual history and political thought. In looking to
welcome a broader selection of papers, we are particularly interested in receiving
submissions on, but not limited to, the following themes:

● Confessional religion and philosophical religion: To what extent has philosophy set itself
against, or sought to displace, religious belief? How do political-juridical orders mediate between
confessional and philosophical faiths? What  role have religious communities played in pitting
universalism against relativism? What role do both conflict and assimilation play in strategies of
proselytisation and conversion? What is the difference between religious recognition and toleration?

● Intellectual communities:  What role has institutionalisation played in the development of

intellectual networks? What role have collective approaches to scholarship and knowledge
production had throughout intellectual history? Are there exceptions to knowledge production’s
inherent socialised nature?  What role does conflict play in knowledge production?

● Legal communities: To what extent is the state as an entity constituted by the collective
agreement of the community? To what extent must the state forge community and cultural cohesion
to protect itself from internal conflict? Is it possible for internal conflict to strengthen a state? How
does community identity function within- and in relation to- a state whose boundaries have been
redrawn in the living memory of the community? How does the role of conflict in the redrawing of
boundaries impact community identity?

● Natural law, human consent, and political resistance: Is it possible for a community to
disobey its ruler, especially when appointed directly by God? If so, on what grounds? What is the
relationship between natural law and human consent in the process of building a community?

● State, surveillance, and governmentality: How does surveillance (or, perhaps, the suspicion of
surveillance) inform the relationship of the state and its citizens? Does surveillance function
primarily to foster safety or foment mistrust? Is surveillance of a community by the state justified
as a preventative measure, or only in the face of active–and specific–threat to the community?

● Community, conflict, and the method of intellectual history:  Is the commitment to

“value-free” inquiry the same thing as political quietism? Is it desirable, or even possible, for
historians to withdraw from irresolvable conflicts over religious or philosophical truth? If not, how
can disagreements about absolute values be aired in lecture halls and in scholarly journals? Can
the norms of academic politeness and good faith withstand such disagreements?

Interested doctoral students should send proposals, consisting of a short abstract

(max. 500 words) and a brief CV (max. 2 pages), to chptconference@gmail.com,
with “PTIH Conference Submission” as the subject. The deadline for proposals is
18th March 2022.