Lego and Philosophy

Call for Abstracts

Edited by Sondra Bacharach and Roy T. Cook

The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series

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Abstracts and subsequent essays should be philosophically substantial but accessible, written to engage the intelligent lay reader. Works focusing on the any aspect of the multimedia Lego phenomenon (including building sets, films and television programs, original creations, videogames, clothing, educational programs, adult conventions, etc.) can be included. Contributors of accepted essays will receive an honorarium.

Possible themes and topics might include, but are not limited to, the following:

Gender issues, LEGO Friends, and the LEGO Female Scientists set; Race and the introduction of flesh-toned minifigures; The Zen of LEGO; Creativity, conformity, and the LEGO Movie; Order, chaos, Nietzsche, and the LEGO Movie; LEGO, ABS plastic, and the environment; Existentialism, originality, and MOCs (My Own Creations); LEGO, Shell, Octan, and environmental ethics; LEGO Mindstorms, Turing machines, and robotics; Authenticity, purity, and clone (knock-off) bricks; Nathan Sawaya, Sean Kenney, and the museum: the nature of LEGO gallery art; LEGO Videogames and the nature of adaptation; LEGO Serious Play and business ethics, Bionicle and cultural appropriation; LEGO Ideas and intellectual property; LEGO, soldiers, and the ethics of war(toys); The LEGO System and the ontology of toys; Parts, wholes, composition, and LEGO; Stepping on LEGO, probability, pain, and luck; LEGO building and the psychology of flow; Building, rebuilding, and identity over time; “Rainbow warriors” and the aesthetics of availability; Deconstructionism and deconstructing with LEGO; Modeling in science and in LEGO; LDraw, digital Building, simulacra, and the real; Cloud Cuckoo Land, Aristophanes, and Utopia; New part molds and the nature of creativity; Instructions, Wittgenstein, and rule-following; The LEGO Movie, 1984, and dystopia; Forgotten worlds, the LEGO Movie, and multiple universes; “LEGO bricks”, “LEGOs” [sic], and the normativity of language; Nostalgia, interpreting the past, and first-generation LEGO; Building inter-generational bonds with bricks; LEGO, (in)activity, and the Tao; LEGO and the maker movement; LEGO, education, and teaching; LEGO media and kids as consumers; The City theme and the urban; LEGO and imagination; LEGO instructions and rule-following.

Submission Guidelines:

1. Submission deadline for abstracts (100-500 words) and CVs: August 3.
2. Submission deadline for drafts of accepted papers: November 23.

Kindly submit by e-mail (with or without Word attachment) to: Roy Cook cookx432@umn.edu

To propose ideas for future volumes in the Blackwell series please email the Series Editor, William Irwin.

If you have comments or criticisms for the series, please contact the series editor after reading “Fancy Taking a Pop?” and “Writing for the Reader: A Defense of Philosophy and Popular Culture Books”