Call for Attendees: 2023 Academy of Philosophy and Letters Conference – “Picking Up the Pieces: Rebuilding a Viable Culture”
The Academy of Philosophy and Letters will hold its annual meeting on June 1-3, 2023, at the College Park Marriott in College Park, MD. The theme of this year’s conference is “Picking Up the Pieces: Rebuilding a Viable Culture”:
We live in an age of fracture. Every level in every sector of government and society has failed in its basic tasks. The institutions of politics, religion, economy, and society are all in crisis. Declining trust in our social institutions is exceeded only by the plummeting trustworthiness of those institutions. The engines of the American economy are sputtering, apparently incapable of adjusting in a productive way to new economic realities.
Religious organizations of all denominations have been embroiled in scandals and complicit in political intrigue of all sorts. Politicians are openly corrupt, enriching friends and family like the oligarchs of old. In cinema and literature, there is less reason for outrage than boredom. Banality is the rule in the era of wokeness, perpetual remakes, and derivative sequels.
If at the end of the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was convinced that the sun upon Washington’s chair was rising, we have reason to fear that it is finally setting.
However, eras of turmoil are eras of opportunity. Eras of destruction are followed by eras of imaginative reconstruction. What does it take to rebuild the American polity across the domains of politics, religion, economics, and society?
You are invited to join the Academy of Philosophy and Letters as we discuss this important question.
View the full program of the conference here and register here. Early bird registration ends May 5. If you live outside the DC area, reserve your hotel room at the College Park Marriott. APL’s room block pricing expires May 11.
Please send inquiries to APL@philosophyandletters.org.
Click here to learn more and to register for the conference >>
The Academy of Philosophy and Letters was founded in recognition that the direction of society is set by its most deeply held beliefs and aspirations. These are molded by culture in the broad sense, as represented by universities, the arts, churches, publishing, museums, and entertainment. Acting on the minds, imaginations, and moral-spiritual sensibilities of a society’s members, the culture shapes their general perception of reality and their likes and dislikes—for good or ill. Politics does not operate independently of the culture but reflects it. Though politics can also shape culture, being able to exert educational and other cultural influence is ultimately more important than winning elections. Major and long-range change presupposes a transformation of the culture.
The Academy pursues a deeper understanding of the meaning, origins and development of civilized life, especially in the Western world, and of how a humane society can best counteract threats to its own survival. The Academy seeks explanations for acute problems in America and the rest of the world and addresses how they might be overcome. To this end, the Academy promotes exploration of moral, religious, epistemological, literary, artistic, and scientific issues, including their relation to politics and economics.
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