The Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression and the Information Society Project at Yale Law School invite applications for the third annual Freedom of Expression Scholars Conference. The conference will be held on May 2-3, 2015, at Yale Law School.
The conference brings scholars together to discuss their works-in-progress concerning freedom of speech, expression, press, association, petition, assembly, and related issues of knowledge and information policy. The past two conferences were great successes, with many interesting conversations, dozens of papers presented, and upwards of 50 scholars attending. Diversity of views welcome.
The conference offers participants an opportunity to receive substantive feedback through group discussion. Unlike a traditional conference, authors do not give formal presentations of their work. Rather, each accepted paper will be assigned a discussant, who will briefly introduce the paper, provide feedback to the author, and lead a discussion among participants. This format permits substantive and lively discussion of ideas and writings that may be inchoate or not yet fully developed.
Because of the format of the conference, participants will be expected to read and be prepared to discuss at least one paper per session, and to attend the entire conference. In the past, there have typically been eight sessions, running from Saturday morning through Sunday afternoon, with a welcome dinner on Friday evening for those already arrived in New Haven.
Participation in the conference is by invitation only, but we welcome paper submissions–and applications to participate as a discussant–from a wide range of scholars. Please feel free to share this call for submissions with any colleagues that may be interested.
→Titles and abstracts of papers should be submitted electronically to jonathan.manes@yale.edu no later than February 20, 2015.
→ Those interested in participating as discussants or participants without submitting a paper should also contact jonathan.manes@yale.edu by February 20, 2015.
→ Workshop versions of accepted papers will be due on April 3, 2014 so that they can be circulated to discussants and conference participants in advance.
→The conference announcement is online here. Information about prior conferences, including attendees and the titles of workshopped papers, is available here and here. As before, we are expecting that scholars will ask their home institutions to cover travel expenses.