POSTLIBERALISM, INDIVIDUALISM AND SOCIETY (Friday 11th and Saturday 12th July 2014)

Registration for this conference is now open via the online booking page

If you wish to attend the conference, first contact our conference administrator Hannah Mansell on +44 (0) 161 275 3319 or email hannah.mansell@manchester.ac.uk Please include the following information: Full name and institution (as you would like printed on your badge); and any dietary or access requirements.

Call for Papers

In both Britain and the United States, political, legal and economic culture has been shaped in significant ways by individualistic accounts of the human being. This fact raises significant issues for political theology. How should political theologians respond to the highly individualistic orientation of both politics and society? Are liberal societies doomed to selfish insularity or are their positive legacies to be gleaned from liberal theory and practice? This conference explores these issues through the lens of postliberal politics. Comprising a rich array of Burkean, socialist and Communitarian strands, the postliberal turn offers a provocative alternative to the prevailing political language of public neutrality, individual rights and procedural pluralism. In Britain such alternatives have made significant in-roads into political discourse in the form of Red Toryism on the Right and Blue Labour on the Left.

Participants are invited to submit paper proposals on the following areas:

• Autonomy in the Christian tradition

• Individualism and Culture

• Individualism and Liberal Theology

• Self and Ego in theology and politics

• Christian encounters with political liberalism

• Christian approaches to Capitalism and global trade

• Radical Orthodoxy and Christian anthropology

• Christianity and consumerism

• Keynesianism and Political Theology

• Christian responses to Thatcherism

• Christian responses to notions of limited-government.

Deadline for Paper Submissions: July 2

Please send paper abstracts of 300 words to benjamin.wood-3@manchester.ac.uk

Discussion Panels

Should Schools Teach Children to be Individuals? (Dr. Esther McIntosh, York St John University, Revd. Gary Hall, The Queens Foundation, Birmingham, Grace Robinson, University of Leeds, Founder of Thinking Space, John Pugh MP

Is Individualism Bad for Christian Engagement in Politics? (Dr Dave Landrum, Director of advocacy, Evangelical Alliance, Dr Russell Remanning, Lord Stewart Wood, Shadow Minister without Porfolio, Derek McAuley, Chief Officer of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches)