I’d like to invite submissions for a semester-long online symposium of papers in political philosophy during Fall 2008 that I would like to host on the website. The idea is that each week a paper will be podcasted on the website by the author and receive comments in response. Symposium submissions will be subject to a process of blind review by a committee of members of the website. Papers in all areas of political philosophy and theory are welcome.

The aim of the symposium is to utilise the resources at our disposal to create a conference experience accessible to every academic in the world, both as a presenter and as a participant. Conference participation is an important part of our research activities as academics, but logistical difficulties and expenses can sometimes make conference travel impossible, especially at the international level. The function of the symposium is to create an online conference in a format designed to elicit as much feedback from fellow academics as possible whilst creating no significant financial or logistical difficulties for participants whatsoever. Those selected will be able to present their papers to an unlimited number of colleagues without having to leave their offices. The papers will be presented on a weekly basis to allow a reasonable time period for comments. The papers will be podcasted to make them as accessible as possible to a wide audience.

I’ve included a little podcast of my own to demonstrate that it can actually be a fairly easy thing to do. Just click the button below. Granted, few of us will ever sound like a professional radio announcer but the medium should be functional enough for our purposes.

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