Good Work: the ethics of craftmanship

An international conference on the work of Richard Sennett on craftmanship.

Against the backdrop of the great social and political challenges of our times, this conferences focuses on Richard Sennett’s views on the ethical significance of craftsmanship. The development of craftsmanship is not only a deep source of personal meaning and of fruitful cooperation. According to Sennett, ‘learning to work well’ is also the foundation of citizenship: it is learning to be curious and patient, to focus on relationships and learn the skills of anticipation and revision in a continual dialogue with material that resists ‘quick fixes’ and turns the craftsman ‘outward’. In the contemporary search for practically relevant perspectives that point beyond the moral poverty of a market driven society, ‘the ethics of craftsmanship’ thus offers an intriguing perspective, worth of in depth exploration.

This conference aims to clarify and critically expand the ethics of craftsmanship. To this end it focuses on conceptual, ethical and empirical questions concerning ‘good work’ in four domains:

· Care and Social work
· Education and Counseling
· Organizing and Managing
· Art and Culture

The morning program (10.00-13.00) will include a lecture by Joep Dohmen on Richard Sennett as a humanist. Then Richard Sennett himself will address the audience in a lecture through Skype. After that the audience can interact with the chairpersons of the workshopsessions in the afternoon (14.00-17.00).

Proposals for papers on one of these conference tracks are welcomed. Deadline is July 1st.

For all further information, check www.goodwork.info