The Oxford Spinoza Conference 2025

The Oxford Spinoza Conference is dedicated to exploring the myriad manners in which Benedict Spinoza has contributed to the history of philosophy and continues to shape our understanding of the world. 

The third edition will take place at Pembroke College on Tuesday 20 May 2025. The theme of this year’s conference is Benedict Spinoza: Politics & the International. 

Keynote Speakers

• Sandra Leonie Field (Monash University)
• Pierre-François Moreau (Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon)

The conference is open to all and free to attend. Please fill in the registration form here: docs.google.com/forms/d/1mNG5PXPTM7TorvYvv2dCd5e3HM9Pv8VcQDRpxn55V5E.

The theme will colour the keynotes, but papers will hail from across Spinoza’s work and across all generations of Spinoza scholars.

Hosted by: Olivier Yasar de France (Stipendiary Lecturer in Political Theory, Pembroke College, Oxford) & James Read (Associate Professor of Philosophy, Pembroke College, Oxford.

8.00 – 8.30am
Tea & coffee in the Harold H.W. Lee Room
Introduction

Opening Keynote 

8.30 – 9.30am 
Society, State, Nation, Homeland
Pierre-François Moreau (ENS de Lyon)

Spinoza’s Reception

9.40 – 10.20am
Spinozistic Patterns Within the Anglophone Debate on Causes
Leonardo Vanni (Groningen)

10.20 – 10.40am 
Refreshments on the Isaacson Terrace

10.40 – 11.20am 
Lost in the Vatican: The 1675 Manuscript of Spinoza’s Ethics 
Olivier Yasar de France (Oxford) & Pierre Chambert-Protat (Vatican Apostolic Library)

Spinoza & Politics

11.20 – 12.00am
Spinoza on Political Love
Oliver Toth (Heidelberg)

12.00 – 12.40pm
Spinoza and the Politics of Atheism
Kenneth Novis (Oxford)

12.45 – 1.45pm 
Lunch for speakers in Hall

Spinoza, The State & the International 

1.50 – 2.30pm
Spinoza on Humans as Social Animals 
Ruben Noorloos (Austrian Academy of Sciences)

2.30 – 3.10pm
A Spinozian Approach to the Transnational Circulations of Affects
Arthur Duhé (Paris VIII)

3.10 – 3.30pm 
Refreshments on the Isaacson Terrace

Spinoza, Metaphysics & Religion

3.30 – 4.10pm 
The Role of Expression in Spinoza’s Substance-Attribute Ontology 
Meg Gottschall (St Andrews)

4.10 – 4.50pm
Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd: The Spinoza of Islam and the Secularization of the Scripture
Hamid Andishan (Cape Breton)

Concluding Keynote 

5.00 – 6.00pm 
Tyrannies Never Last Long: Spinoza, Conquest, and the Power of the Multitude
Sandra Field (Monash)

6.00pm
Conclusion
James Read (Oxford)