CFP: The Northeast Conference on Chinese Thought

We are pleased to announce that the 2026 meeting of theNortheast Conference on Chinese Thought (NECCT) will be held October 30–31, 2026, at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts. This annual conference brings together scholars and graduate students working on Chinese thought across disciplines and methodologies, and welcomes both historically focused and comparative work engaging Chinese perspectives.    

Our keynote speaker will be Mercedes Valmisa, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Gettysburg College. Trained at Princeton University and National Taiwan University, her work moves across philosophy of action, metaphysics, and social philosophy to ask a deceptively simple question: what does it mean to act?   Drawing on Chinese philosophy and other cross-cultural resources, she develops an account of agency that is relational, collective, and distributed rather than centered on a self-contained individual. Her books, Adapting: A Chinese Philosophy of Action (OUP, 2021) and All Things Act (OUP, 2025), explore how action emerges from shifting assemblages of human and nonhuman actors. This perspective reframes questions of responsibility, power, and collective life in contemporary social and political contexts.  

For consideration, please submit one anonymized abstract (between 300–600 words) and a separate cover page (title and contact information) to [email protected] by July 1, 2026, with the subject line “NECCT2026 Submission.”  

We invite submissions on any aspect of Chinese thought, as well as comparative work that engages Chinese philosophical traditions. We especially encourage submissions from graduate students and early-career scholars. This year also marks the 50th anniversary of the Hoffman Center for Business Ethics at Bentley University. Founded in 1976 by W. Michael Hoffman, the Center is one of the world’s oldest academic centers dedicated to business ethics. In honor of this anniversary, we especially welcome submissions that engage business ethics (broadly construed) from perspectives informed by Chinese thought.   This conference is made possible by the generous support of Bentley University’s Department of Philosophy, Department of History, and the Valente Center for Arts and Sciences.