2025 Agency and Disadvantage Workshop

We are pleased to announce the upcoming workshop, Perspectives on Agency and Disadvantage. The CFP is now closed.

Registration open!

Perspectives on Agency and Disadvantage

University of Turku, Finland, July 2–3 2025

This two-day interdisciplinary workshop explores human agency in the context of social interaction and social structure. We invite academics across philosophy, psychology, and related disciplines to present new work on any aspect of the interaction of agency and disadvantage to share theoretical insights, empirical research, and practical social and political applications. The workshop is hosted by the Agency as Experience and Capacity: Social Mechanisms, Political Implications project at the University of Turku. Generous support by the Kone foundation enables us to make this event free for all. The event is organized by Polaris Koi, Anssi Bwalya and Joonas Martikainen.

The keynote speakers are:

Jeanette Kennett (Philosophy, Macquarie University)
Nelli Hankonen (Social Psychology, Tampere University)
Lilian O’Brien (Philosophy, Tampere University & University of Helsinki)

The event will be livestreamed, so the audience can also participate online. Information about registration for online and on-site participation will be circulated in April. Updates will be posted on this web page.

Registration

To participate in the event, registration is necessary, including for online participants.
Please register here.
Note that the ’speaker’ option in the registration form is reserved only for people already included in the programme.

Preliminary programme

This schedule is tentative and changes may be made.

Wednesday, July 2

8:30-9:15 registration & coffee
9:15 opening words

9:30-10:45 Keynote: Lilian O’Brien (Tampere, Helsinki)

10:45-11:00 break

11:00-12:45 session 1 – Agency, inequality, and dependence
Ari Ofengenden (Tulane): Agency under conditions of structural inequality
Charlie Kurth (Clemson): I’m losing it! What the feeling of lost control tells us about being an agent
Catherine Dale (Leipzig): Dependent intentional action as enhancing agency

12:45-14 lunch

14-15:10 session 2 – Agency and psychiatry
Cristiano Bacchi (HU Berlin): “Where does my psychiatric condition stop and the rest of me begin?” On the interplay between authenticity and the sense of agency in psychiatry
Aku Visala (Helsinki): Autonomy and moral responsibility in MDD

15:10-16:00 coffee break

16-17:15 Keynote: Nelli Hankonen (Tampere)

18:30 Speakers’ dinner

Thursday, July 3

9-10:45 session 3 – Sexual agency and law
Esko Yli-Hemminki (Helsinki): A normative theory of criminal law’s person
Maria Teresa Cotrufo (KCL): Redefining sexual agency: A critical analysis of the sexual offenses act 2003
Arlene Lo (LSE): Defiance amid despair: Reporting sexual assault despite its futility

10:45-11:30 coffee break

11:30-12:45 session 4 – Agency and political theory
Ben Colburn & Jennifer Corns (Glasgow): An agent-centred approach to disadvantage
Russ McIntosh (Berkeley): Agent-relative prerogatives and deference to power

12:45-14 lunch

14-15:10 session 5 – Agency and epistemic (in)justice
Daniel Vespermann (Heidelberg) & Sanna Tirkkonen (Helsinki): Existential injustice and psychosis risk: the role of harmful salience in social defeat
Amandine Catala (UQAM Montréal): From a pluralist account of epistemic agency to a pluralist account of epistemic repair

15:10-16:00 coffee break

16:00-17:15 Keynote: Jeanette Kennett (Macquarie)

17:15-17:30 Closing words

Friday, July 4

Recreational day: tour of Turku castle and archipelago

Questions?

If you have any questions about the event, please contact Polaris Koi at polaris.koi@utu.fi
If you are participating as audience on-site and need to be included in the programme, we may be able to include you as chair of one of the sessions. Please contact Polaris Koi.