7th Annual Philosophy and Theory of Higher Education Society Conference
Jointly Hosted by Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin, Dublin, IRELAND
Please see here for the draft programme for the conference.
June 10th – 12th, 2025
PLEASE SEE HERE FOR INFORMATION ABOUT ACCOMMODATION (AND CONFERENCE DISCOUNT CODES)
The contemporary university is saturated in a creativity discourse. Notions of ‘creative teaching’, ‘creative learning spaces’, and ‘the creative graduate’ abound. Creative dispositions and talents are lauded as key resources in addressing the wicked problems of our time and they are seen also as the last preserve of a human rather than an artificial intelligence. Thus, in an era of climate catastrophe and escalating conflict, creative ‘problem-solving’ is glorified as the best available response.
Creativity, we are told, is in high demand from employers, and educational policy at national and international levels has leaned in to ‘graduate creativity’ as the golden ticket to social mobility, financial security, and an AI-proof career. But academics and students are sceptical. The notion of creativity seems increasingly hollowed out and commodified, reified as it has been to a fashionable buzzword or lucrative top-down agenda.
This year’s PaTHES conference asks: Is there a way to sidestep ‘creativity’ as Higher Education agenda or discourse, and to reclaim its conceptual richness as a life-giving and individual (if unpredictable) force?
Is there a way to foreground a more philosophical account that roots the concept not in ‘innovation’ or ‘problem-solving’ but in quieter and less ambitious modes – in daily processes and actions that bring meaning and richness to our lives in the academy?
These are the modes, we would suggest, through which we come into being as free and independent selves and through which we might go about our precious days with agency and intentionality. These are the modes through which we might all be educated, in the truest meaning of that word.
In thinking again about The Creative University, then, this year’s PaTHES conference seeks to honour those smaller and less obvious experiences of the creative. It is inspired by Professor Barbara Grant’s idea of ‘a thousand tiny universities’ where progress happens incrementally and where the ambition for seismic shifts is replaced with the hope for thoughtful change. For Grant, the university must facilitate those creative and purposeful spaces where we resist the status quo, test the boundaries of the acceptable, and put some steam back into protest. These are all creative actions that challenge what has been given and that re-wire what has been taught.
We hope that the theme of The Creative University will inspire broad-ranging reflection on imagination and the artful, and that it will focus attention on the university’s very particular potential to bring forward the unforeseen. We are pleased that the first day of the conference will start in MoLI – the Museum of Literature Ireland, and continue in Trinity College Dublin’s Trinity Long Room Hub, both settings testifying to an institutional commitment to creativity, the arts, and the humanities.
Presentations will have the setting of a traditional conference, in a seminar room, but need not take that traditional format. Participants are encouraged to think creatively about how they communicate and explore the concepts with which they play, live, or work.
Topics might include but are not limited to:
- Imagining the Post-Pandemic University
• Creativity in Doctoral Education
• Academic Writing as Craft
• Creativity, the University, and Artificial Intelligence
• Designing Creative Learning Environments
• Innovation and the University’s Built Environment
• University Teaching as Craft and as Care
• Speculative Fiction and Higher Education Futures
• Creating an Inclusive University
After the acceptance of the abstract, the extended versions (up to 3000 words) of submissions will be uploaded to the conference website.
Important dates
Mid-January 2025 Registration opens
14 February 2025 Final submission deadline
28 February 2025 Notification of acceptance
23 May 2025 Registration deadline
23 May 2025 Submission of extended submissions
As an international community, PaTHES has committed to including as many people as possible in the conference by responding to the range of research/conference funding provided within and between institutions and countries – as we have tried to enact in the gradation of our conference fees (e.g. members/non-members, high-GDP countries/low-GDP countries, student/unwaged). We are running the conference at cost and have tried to distribute the cost in this way.
Please see this link for more information about travel and accommodation (including discounts): https://rb.gy/k0fkw6