Call for Papers

Platonism and Neoplatonism Unit, American Academy of Religion

2024 Conference, 23-26 November, San Diego

Nature and the Platonic Tradition

The Platonic tradition has, throughout history, offered a radically alternative understanding of the relationship between humans and nature and between humans and non-human animals. This panel invites papers that explore historical and contemporary instances of the Platonic conceptualization of nature. We encourage contributions that explore this tradition's contemporary application for reconceptualizing our collective understanding of nature. Exploration of the relationship between Platonic realism across multiple religious traditions and constructive proposals for inter-religious ecologies are encouraged. Papers may draw upon sources from antiquity to the present, ranging from philosophical, theological, poetic, and artistic. 

Platonism and Neoplatonism 

We also highly encourage the submission of papers relating to the Platonic and Neoplatonic traditions generally, in both historical and constructive contexts. Papers on the metaphysics of participation are particularly encouraged. 

The Recovery of Participatory Metaphysics 

The past several years have witnessed the remarkable recovery of participatory ontologies, a key conceptual element of the Platonic tradition. This recovery has occurred in many contexts, including Anglican, Evangelical, Reformed, and Roman Catholic circles. Participation constitutes a radically non-dualistic way of conceptualizing the relationship between God and creation, transcendence and immanence, the One in the many. It represents a theological and philosophical resource with a pedigree over 2,000 years old. Its implications range from the theological (soteriology and Christology), the philosophical (dualism, materialism), and the practical (aesthetics, environmental ethics). This invited panel will explore the motivations and implications of this recovery and is convened on the publication of Participation in the Divine (eds. Hedley, Toland). Participants: Hans Boersma (Nashotah House Seminary), Andrew Davison (University of Cambridge), Yonghua Ge (Trinity Western University). 

AAR's Platonism and Neoplatonism Unit & SBL's Mysticism, Esotericism and Gnosticism in Antiquity Unit (Joint Panel) Theosis and the Bounds of Being 

Theosis is a consummate expression of transcendence in the mystical, Gnostic, Platonic, and Esoteric traditions from antiquity to the present. As such, borders, limits, and edges characterize it, and the overcoming of these. It challenges the delimitations of knowledge, cosmos, and contemplation and strains at the very boundaries of experience. Theosis challenges epistemological limitations, bending and breaking ways of knowing, and complicates the boundaries between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, as expressed in the statement of Athanasius that ‘the Son of God became man, that we might become god’. This joint panel encourages submissions exploring the boundaries that characterize theosis, where they are, whether they exist, what they may be, how they function, and how they constrain, restrict, enable, and inspire. 

AAR’s Platonism and Neoplatonism Unit & AAR’s Islamic Mysticism Unit (Joint Panel) Shīʾite Platonisms 

Shīʾite Muslim belief and practice is thoroughly imbued with Platonic and Neoplatonic thought from late-antiquity to the modern era. Topics such as contemplation, theurgy, and spiritual union with the Prophet Muhammad’s family are topics that remain important cornerstones for how Shīʾites conceptualise and practice their beliefs. This panel invites papers that consider questions on the nature, scope, audience, and context of Shīʾite Muslim texts in dialogue with Platonic and Neoplatonic works from the Greco-Arabic translation movement. We encourage papers exploring how translations of the Dialogues of Plato, the ontology of Plotinus, and the theurgical practices of Iamblichus and Proclus became part of Shīʾite mystical thought after the ninth century. Additionally, the panel welcomes submissions considering how ideas in original Greek works were often misattributed or heavily redacted to conform to the monotheistic worldviews of Muslim and Christian readers. 

Program Unit Chair Contact Information 

Prof. Alexander J.B. Hampton a.hampton@utoronto.ca 

Prof. Douglas Hedley rdh26@cam.ac.uk