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Call for Abstracts: The Ultimate Game of Thrones and Philosophy

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in Game Of Thrones

Call for Abstracts
The Ultimate Game of Thrones and Philosophy
Edited by Eric J. Silverman, PhD and Robert Arp, PhD
Send correspondence to: robertarp320@gmail.com

  • The 6th season of Game of Thrones (GOT) will air in April of 2016, with 10 episodes planned
  • There will be 2 due dates for abstracts and papers, given that we want to feature some papers from the 6th season
  • 1st due date for abstracts and papers EXCEPT THOSE FROM the 6th season:
    --- Abstracts due: November 2, 2015, but you can send them in sooner
    --- Notification of accepted abstracts: November 9, 2015
    --- First drafts of papers due: January 17, 2016
  • 2nd due date for abstracts and papers SPECIFICALLY FROM the 6th season:
    --- Abstracts due: July 1, 2016, but you can send them in as soon as you have an idea from the 6th season
    --- Notification of accepted abstracts: July 3, 2016
    --- First drafts of papers due: July 28, 2016 (you don’t get much time, as the manuscript needs to be submitted in August)
  • Submit abstracts of no more than 300 words to: robertarp320@gmail.com
  • 3,000 to 3,500-word philosophy papers are written in a conversational style for a lay audience
  • Papers must frequently refer to ideas, arguments, characters, events, and circumstances, in GOT stories from Martin’s books and the HBO show

Any relevant topic considered, but here are some possibilities to prompt your thinking:

  • What is it like to be an Other? Are Others persons? Should Others have rights?
  • Who is the rightful ruler? Robert, Daenerys, or someone else?
  • Bran, Hodor, Jamie and the significance of disability in Westeros.
  • Reliable prophesy and metaphysical freedom: can both exist?
  • Can we make sense of the gods, false gods, political gods, and the real supernatural in Westeros?
  • Knowledge in Westeros: belief and justification in the fog of war, lies, and manipulation.
  • Taking the Black: is joining the Night's Watch service, slavery, Platonic Guardianship or something else?
  • Royal incest, prostitution, and slut shaming: the complex view of sexuality in Westeros
  • Life beyond the wall: is life better in a state of nature without civil society, laws, or social contract?
  • Power in Westeros: answering Varys's riddle
  • Eddards's Honor and the noble lie: what is worth lying for? What is worth dying for?
  • We do not sow: are the pirate ethics of the Greyjoys defensible?
  • Paying the iron price: can courage be more important than benevolence?
  • Friendship in Westeros: are there any real friendships of virtue? Robert and Eddard, Jon Snow and Sam Tarly, etc.
  • A Lannister pays his debts: contracts, debts of friendship, and debts of vengeance
  • Love, class, and politics: does civil society undermine true love?
  • The Game of Thrones as Nietzschean morality tale
  • Trial by combat and the nature of justice
  • Are Arya, Brienne, or Cersei feminist exemplars?
  • Savages, other cultures, and colonial attitudes in Westeros
  • Betrayal, honor, and honesty: how do you know who to trust?
  • Winter is coming! The inevitability of death and wise living
  • The aesthetics of violence in narrative: justified violence, artistic violence, gratuitous violence, and horrific violence
  • Life is not a song: idealism, romanticism, and real life
  • The limitations of the first person perspective: perception, misperceptions, and reality
  • Individuality, anonymity, and collective identities: the Night's Watch, the Unsullied, and The Faceless Men
  • Natural theology and the gods of Westeros
  • "Anyone who isn't us is our enemy," Lannister family values: care for one's family and tension with the moral life
  • A Paper Shield: (Misplaced?) Confidence in Legal Convention
  • Intellectual virtue: a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone
  • What is honor compared to a woman's love? Puzzles of incommensurate value in Westeros
  • What do we say to the god of death? Not Today. Philosophies of Death in Westeros
  • The role of animals in Westeros: persons, divine instruments, or extensions of human persons?
  • Personal Identity and the many faces of Arya Stark
  • Sex, consent, arranged marriages, and rape in Westeros
  • Game of Thrones and other famous narratives: Lord of the Rings, The Sopranos, the Biblical book of Judges, etc.

Submit abstracts of no more than 300 words to: robertarp320@gmail.com

The Ultimate Game of Thrones and Philosophy will be a book in Open Court Publishing Company’s Popular Culture and Philosophy Series:http://www.opencourtbooks.com/categories/pcp.htm. Submit ideas for possible future PCP books to the series editor, George A. Reisch, at pcpideas@gmail.com.

Thanks for your consideration.

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