International Journal of Philosophical Studies The winner of the 2014 Robert Papazian Essay Prize Competition has been announced!

We are pleased to announce the winner of the 2014 Robert Papazian Essay Prize Competition. The theme for the 2014 competition was Authority, and the winning essay is:

“Political Authority, Practical Identity and Binding Citizens” by Carl Fox, Inter-Disciplinary Ethics Applied Centre, The University of Leeds.

The essay has now been published as the lead article in Volume 23. Issue 2 of the International Journal of Philosophical Studies and is available online free to access. The author will also receive a monetary prize of €1500.

Read the winning article here for free.

On the recommendation of the referees, three runners up papers have also be published, and are also free to access online.

They are;

• Naomi Osorio-Kupferblum, University of Vienna, “Conceptualising Authority”;
• Eleonora Piromalli, University of Rome “La Sapienza”, “Authority and the Struggle for Recognition”;
• Jörg Löschke, University of Berne, “Authority in Relationships”.

​About the prize

The prize is established in memory of a young man executed for his ideas and political ideals. The winning entry receives a cash prize of €1500, publication in the journal, and promotion on the journal’s Taylor & Francis website.

The topic for the 2015 prize is Freedom.

Scholarly essays from all philosophical approaches – analytic, continental, and historical – dealing with the topic of freedom, understood broadly, including in its moral, political, epistemic and social forms and contexts, are now invited. Please submit your paper by email directly to Professor Maria Baghramian.

Terms and conditions

Submissions should not be under consideration for publication elsewhere and should not be submitted to any other journal until the outcome of the competition is known.  All submitted papers will be evaluated, in the first instance, by the journal’s editorial board.

The top 5 papers will be nominated for the Prize and will be judged by a jury consisting of three members of the journal’s advisory board. The jury will evaluate the papers on the originality of the paper, its engagement with the announced topic and the contribution it makes to scholarship in the field, the quality of the argumentation and conceptual clarity.

The decision of the jury will be final. There is only one prize per year and the jury reserves the right to award no prize at all if submitted material is not of an appropriate standard.

Runner-up papers will be considered for publication in IJPS.

Word limit: 6000-9000 words, including notes and references.

Closing date for submissions: September 1, 2015.

Please indicate clearly in the subject line that you wish to have the paper considered for the Essay Prize. Make sure that the essay is modified for double blind review, and that it has an abstract.

The winner of the prize will be announced in January 2016 via the IJPS website, as well as at other appropriate venues.

The winning entry will be published as the lead article in Volume 24, Issue 2 of the International Journal of Philosophical Studies.

On Robert Papazian

Robert Papazian was born in an Armenian family in Tehran, Iran in 1954. He studied Politics and International Relations at École des relations internationales in Paris. Like many other Iranian political activists abroad, Robert returned to Iran in the summer of 1978, during the last months of the uprising against the Shah, to join the revolution. Subsequent to the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, he continued his activities in Kurdistan as a political and theoretical instructor to a left wing opposition group. He was arrested in Tehran in February 1982.

In prison, Robert did not have access to a lawyer and was denied visits by friends and family members. Throughout interrogations in Evin prison, he remained steadfast in his ideals and refused to co-operate with the authorities. It is known through surviving prisoners that he also helped others to be strong and defiant.

Robert Papazian was executed along with a large number of other political prisoners in July 1982.  He was buried anonymously in the mass graves of the Khavaran cemetery in the outskirts of Tehran. His parting words to fellow-prisoners were: "It's not the number of years that counts but the effect of one's life and death on others...  Life in a broader sense continues…"

The annual prize of €1500 is sponsored by the Papazian family

For more information about the prize please contact: Professor Maria Baghramian.

Professor Maria Baghramian, MRIA, School of Philosophy, University College Dublin, Ireland.