Eco-Imagination for a Sustainable Future

The World Phenomenology Institute

William S. Smith, Executive President

Jadwiga S. Smith, Co-President of American Division

Daniela Verducci, Co-President of European/Asian Division

Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Founder †

together with

The Department of Humanities, IULM University, Milan (Italy)

Renato Boccali, Professor of Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art

INVITE YOU TO

The 66th International Congress of Phenomenology (held in a blended mode)

The aim of the conference is to explore the role of imagination in forming and interpreting our world-in-transformation in view of a sustainable future. The classical phenomenological approach to imagination has focused on the different modes in which we can experience the world and the correlating 

modes in which the world can appear to us, so that the imagination was strictly conceived in relation to perception. Furthermore, imaging can be considered as an act of experiencing something as possible, opening the virtualities that are latently present in the world. This is particularly true if we consider the life-world and the processes of individualization on the vital level. Using Tymieniecka words, the ontopoietic spread of the Logos of Life appears caught up in the turmoil of generative progress that implies a creative imagination that enable the human being to go beyond the simple framework of the life-world, to surpass himself and open a new form of design thinking. This kind of imagination can be also defined as eco-imagination, stressing the importance of the “ecological” dimension of imagination conceived as an ontopoietic creative dynamic, grounded in the human condition within the totality of life’s spread. The expansion of the human condition is thus based on the eco-imagination that activates creative virtualities and thus relates to reality in a new way, deepening the productive dynamic of life. Such an eco-imagination seems therefore to be a useful tool to frame in a new and profitable way our living, or rather the relationship that we have with our world-environment. Eco-imagination is thus the privileged way to the ontopoiesis of life conceived as an eco-phenomenology. A new form of phenomenology of life arises based on eco-imagination in relation to a more general eco-phenomenology. It means a new way of considering the development and genesis of life, promoting environmental sustainability conceived on a large scale. 

Contributions that take an interdisciplinary approach are particularly encouraged.  All submissions must specifically identify phenomenological aspects of the work. 

The conference welcomes contributions in different topics of interest, but are not limited to:

-       Environment imagination

-       Imagination and eco-phenomenology

-       Eco-imagination and sustainability

-       Imagination in the autopoiesis/ontopoiesis of the living being

-       Architecture, urbanism, and eco-imagination 

-       Virtual realities and eco-imagination 

-       Eco-systems and media environments 

-       Anthropocene and eco-imagination

-       Elemental imagination 

Further information:

• Abstracts due: July 10, 2022
• Full papers due: January 27, 2023
• Registration Fee: 50,00 Euro
• Please note that all participants are expected to be members of the World Phenomenology Institute. Membership dues are 30.00 Euro per year
• Registration fee and membership dues must be paid to the W.P.I. by October 29, 2022 to account no. 67503173, in Daniela Verducci’s name at Banca Fideuram Spa, Via D. Annibali 112, 62100 Macerata (Italy).  IBAN: IT13C0329601601000067503173 ; SWIFT/BIC: FIBKITMM
• Please submit abstracts and full papers to: [email protected]
• The conference will be held both in person and on-line
• Papers will be considered for publication in the peer-review books series, “Analecta Husserliana” and “Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue”, edited by the World Phenomenology Institute and published by Springer Nature.