Kierkegaard in the World

The “Kierkegaard in the World” conference, proudly presented by the Centre for Philosophy and Phenomenology of Religion at Australian Catholic University and the Centre for Citizenship and Globalization at Deakin University, celebrates the 200th anniversary of Kierkegaard’s birth by examining the ways in which the world figures in his thought, and the ways in which his thought has entered the world.

Kierkegaard’s work is rightly seen as a corrective of “worldliness,” but he is equally attuned to the necessity that the life of faith appear in the world (not in monastic retreat from it). This conference aims to explore how worldly life is transformed by Kierkegaard’s insights. How does the Kierkegaardian subject appear in the world? What about the incognito: Is it a form of strict invisibility or does its counter-worldliness paradoxically show up in the world? Kierkegaard is a thinker of transcendence, but is there a Kierkegaardian theory of immanence? The priority of subjective truth is obvious in Kierkegaard’s philosophy, but what of his theory of objective truth? How would subjective truth make its way in the world? How would it be embodied or transmitted? What implications does Kierkegaard’s thought have for political orders, cultural artefacts, communicative strategies, or the founding and perpetuation of traditions? How might Kierkegaard’s work intersect with various world religions? And how has Kierkegaard’s own thinking been translated, transmitted, and given expression in contexts across time and space?

Contact: Dr. Patrick Stokes ([email protected]) and/or Dr. Jeffrey Hanson ([email protected]).

Further details of the conference, including schedule, registration, travel and accommodation will be made available at: