The 2025 West Coast Methods Institute Annual Meeting
Communication and (Mis-)Understanding in the Information Age
April 24-26, 2025
WCMI 2025 Call for Papers
The operation of communications plays a crucial, if often neglected, role in Bernard Lonergan's ground-breaking account of functional specialization in theological method. The theme of communication has also become a central topic in contemporary philosophy and discussions of philosophical hermeneutics, especially in light of the mid-twentieth century "linguistic turn" and the growing focus on social systems. And the question of genuine communication has grown urgent in the information age, amidst the ever-present attempts to spread disinformation, manipulate public opinion, or replace human communication with artificial intelligence. The WCMI Committee invites proposals, for individual papers or panels, that take up these various complications of communication today.
Topic areas for proposals might include, but are not limited to:
- Lonergan on Communications as Functional Specialization
- Lonergan's Verbum Articles
- Communication and Political Discourse
- Free Speech and Communication
- The Role of the Public Sphere in modern Philosophy and Theology
- Communication and Artificial Intelligence
- Communication and Action
- Thought and Language
- Common Meaning and Community
- Communication and Philosophical Hermeneutics
- Communication in/and Theological Method
- Communication and Pedagogy
Please send proposals for papers or panels to wcmi@gonzaga.edu by Friday, January 17, 2025.
