12th Edition: Freedom
\n1&ndash\;27 September 2026
Ischia &\; Naples Festival of Philosophy
Conference: 24-26 September 2026
\nKeynote in English by Simona Forti (Scuola Normale Superiore)
\nExtended Submission Deadline: 1 May 2026
\n\;
\nThe Festival
\nFor over a decade\, the IN-Philosophy Festival has transformed the island of Ischia into a living laboratory of thought\, a crossroads where philosophy\, science\, art\, and community converge. Founded and directed by philosopher Raffaele Mirelli\, the Festival has become an international point of reference for its ability to combine academic rigor with strong public engagement\, restoring philosophy to its original public and dialogical vocation.
\nOver the course of its eleven previous editions\, the island has hosted philosophers\, scientists\, writers\, artists\, psychologists\, theologians\, and intellectuals such as Vito Mancuso\, Erri De Luca\, Amalia Ercoli Finzi\, Vittorino Andreoli\, Umberto Galimberti\, Massimo Cacciari\, Aldo Cazzullo\, and many other scholars from Italian and international universities. Each year\, hundreds of participants&mdash\;academics\, students\, and citizens&mdash\;turn the island into a shared space of reflection\, where philosophy is experienced in the open air\, facing the sea.
\nPromoted by InSophia APS\, in collaboration with the \;Department of Cultural Heritage Sciences of the University of Salerno (DISPAC)\, the \;University of Toronto Mississauga (Department of Visual Studies)\, the \;Italian Philosophical Society\, \;HETA &ndash\; Center for Psychological Treatment and Distress\, \;Dora News &ndash\; Psychology and Beyond\, the \;&ldquo\;A. Canova&rdquo\; High School of Treviso\, the \;&ldquo\;G. Buchner&rdquo\; High School of Ischia\, \;Filosofia in Movimento\, \;Gazzetta Filosofica\, the \;La Mortella Gardens of Ischia\, the \;Friends of Gabriele Mattera\, \;under the High Patronage of the European Parliament\, and with the patronage of the \;Campania Region\, \;FISP (International Federation of Philosophical Societies)\, the \;&ldquo\;G. Sadoul&rdquo\; Cultural Circle\, and the \;PIDA International Architecture Award.
\nAfter exploring themes such as Time\, Universes\, Artificial Identities\, and Happiness\, the 2026 edition addresses \;Freedom as a radical shared question: \;&ldquo\;Can we be free together?&rdquo\;
The IN-Philosophy Festival takes place in some of the most evocative locations on the island of Ischia&mdash\;spaces where nature\, art\, and knowledge intertwine\, and where philosophy encounters beauty and life.
\nThe La Mortella Gardens host the opening evening of the Festival\, featuring a classical music concert and the inaugural keynote\, in a dialogue of sound\, words\, and landscape that marks each edition with harmony between art and thought.
\nThe Aragonese Castle\, finally\, becomes the evening stage for major public encounters\, where philosophy\, science\, and art engage in dialogue by the sea\, illuminated by the symbolic power of the site.
\nEach space of the Festival is part of a single experience: thinking together\, on an island that transforms knowledge into encounter and reflection into life.
\n\;
\nThe Theme
\nEvery authentic freedom is both a political act and an ethical gesture. Political\, because it concerns the construction of shared spaces and the possibility of speech\; ethical\, because it requires responsibility toward others. Freedom\, if not grounded in justice\, becomes tyranny\; if not rooted ethics\, it exploits. In an age of polarization\, control\, and surveillance\, freedom may also return as a practice of presence: an attempt to remain in the world with awareness\, to act without dominating\, to oppose without destroying\, to make use without abuse. Politics and ethics thus rediscover their common root: encounter\, and the recognition of the other as a condition of one&rsquo\;s own existence.
\nTo be free today thus also means to face complexity without renouncing depth\; to safeguard distance as a space for thought\; to recognize that freedom is not a solitary right\, but a shared practice. We live in an age of &ldquo\;diffusions&rdquo\;&mdash\;biological\, cultural\, technological&mdash\;in which everything spreads\, yet little endures. So perhaps freedom also demands that we learn yet again how to dwell: to rediscover the value of limits\, silence\, and relation. Freedom is not a possession\, but a shared movement\, a fragile balance between the right to say &ldquo\;I&rdquo\; and the ability to remain &ldquo\;we.&rdquo\; Perhaps it is here that the deepest meaning of being human today is at stake: in the impossible yet necessary convergence between personal and collective freedom\, between the individual who affirms themselves and the community that joins and enjoins them. Freedom is not a good to be safeguarded\, but a way of practicing collectivity that must be renewed every day.
It is not born in the silence of the self\, but in the shared breath of the community.
\nPerhaps the most genuine question remains the same: \;can we be free together?
\nThematic Sessions (Guidelines for Contributions)
\nProposals may address the theme of freedom from an interdisciplinary\, theoretical\, or applied perspective. The following sessions outline the main areas of inquiry of the Festival and are open to contributions from philosophers\, scientists\, artists\, psychologists\, sociologists\, historians\, economists\, theologians\, legal scholars\, and researchers in contemporary culture.
\nAim of the Thematic Sessions
\nThe IN-Philosophy Festival invites scholars\, researchers\, and professionals from different fields of knowledge to contribute original reflections on the theme of \;Freedom\, in its multiple theoretical\, practical\, and symbolic
\narticulations.
\nThe aim is to foster dialogue among disciplines and perspectives which\, although differing in method and language\, share a common need to question freedom as a human\, social\, and epistemic experience.
\nThe proposed thematic sessions are not intended as rigid limits\, but as horizons of inspiration through which each author may orient their contribution. Sessions will take place in Ischia from \;24 to 26 September.
\n\;
\n\;
\nI. Origins and Figures of Freedom
\nPrometheus\, Ulysses\, and the Origins of the Free Act
Myth as the root of human freedom: disobedience\, journey\, and knowledge.
&rarr\; Ancient philosophy\, comparative mythology\, classical literature.
Law and the Soul
Between Socrates and Augustine: inner freedom and moral responsibility.
&rarr\; Moral philosophy\, theology\, law.
The Word that Liberates
Literature as an act of emancipation: from Dante to Primo Levi.
&rarr\; Literature\, linguistics\, philosophy of language.
\;
\nII. Polis and Power
\nPolitical Freedom and Fragile Democracy
From Arendt&rsquo\;s thought to polarized societies.
&rarr\; Political philosophy\, social sciences\, communication studies.
Economy and Freedom
Market\, labor\, inequality: the ethics of money.
&rarr\; Civil economy\, philosophy of work\, sociology.
Architecture of Freedom
Space as right and symbol: open cities\, borders\, and squares.
&rarr\; Architecture\, urban studies\, public aesthetics.
\;
\nIII. Body\, Care\, and Freedom
\nThe Liberated Body
Identity\, gender\, and desire as practices of emancipation.
&rarr\; Psychology\, gender studies\, neuroscience.
Freedom in Fragility
Autonomy and care\, health and dignity: the freedom of vulnerable bodies.
&rarr\; Bioethics\, philosophy of medicine\, clinical psychology.
Art as Disobedience
From painting to theatre\, creation as a political gesture.
&rarr\; Visual arts\, aesthetics\, art history.
\;
\nIV. Digital Freedom and New Horizons
\nDigital Humanism
Restoring meaning to the infosphere: consciousness\, AI\, and freedom of thought.
&rarr\; Philosophy of technology\, computer science\, AI ethics.
Surveillance and Autonomy
Data\, algorithms\, and new forms of control.
&rarr\; Cyberlaw\, digital sociology\, political philosophy.
Educating for Presence
Freedom and education in the connected society.
&rarr\; Pedagogy\, learning psychology\, media education.
\;
\nV. Freedom and the World
\nAn Ecology of Freedom
Inhabiting without dominating: freedom as a measure of the Earth.
&rarr\; Philosophical ecology\, anthropology\, environmental sciences.
The Island and Elsewhere
Freedom as belonging and departure: insular thought.
&rarr\; Geophilosophy\, Mediterranean anthropology\, philosophy of landscape.
To Migrate\, to Host\, to Remain
The right to move and the duty to welcome.
&rarr\; International law\, geopolitics\, ethics of hospitality.
\;
\n\;
\n\;
\n\;
\nVI. Freedom and Imagination
\nCinema and the Freedom of Vision
From neorealism to digital worlds: images that liberate or imprison?
&rarr\; Film studies\, media studies\, visual aesthetics.
Literature and the Memory of the Self
Writing in order not to disappear: freedom\, censorship\, and testimony.
&rarr\; World literature\, philosophy of narration\, psychoanalysis.
Faith\, Science\, and the Future
Between determinism and grace: freedom as responsibility toward the world to come.
&rarr\; Theology\, philosophy of science\, future ethics.
How to Submit Proposals
\nLanguages: \;Italian\, English
\nPaper proposals (minimum 3\,000 and maximum 4\,500 characters\, including spaces\; Times New Roman\, font size 12\, single spacing)\, accompanied by a bibliography and a CV\, as well as a brief autobiographical note (please specify current institutional affiliation or\, if not currently in an academic position\, the institution where the most recent course of study or research was completed)\, must be submitted by \;1 May 2026\, 11:59 p.m.\, to: info@inphilosophyfestival.it(please CC: \;direzione@inphilosophyfestival.it)
\nPlease send the short biography in a separate file (maximum 1\,000 characters\, including spaces).
Files must be submitted in *.doc or *.odt format\, not *.pdf (Times New Roman\, font size 12\, single spacing).
Failure to comply with the formal guidelines will result in exclusion.
Each paper will have \;20 minutes\, followed by \;10 minutes of discussion.
Papers may be presented in Italian or English. Panel proposals are also welcome.
\;
\nPanels
\nEach panel must consist of \;3 or 4 papers \;on a common theme. The panel coordinator\, who may also be one of the speakers\, is responsible for introducing and moderating the discussion. Panel proposals must include the abstracts of each paper (maximum 3\,000 characters each) and a general introduction of no more than 3\,000 characters.
\n\;
\nPublication
\nAs in previous years\, a selection of contributions will be published in the official proceedings of the Festival.
\nA registration fee will be required for speakers. Accommodation options on the island during the Festival week will also be provided.
\n\;
\nSelection
\nThe ability to communicate research knowledge to a broad audience is a key criterion for selection. Proposals will be evaluated by the Scientific Committee.
\nFor further information\, please contact the Festival&rsquo\;s organizational secretariat or scientific direction at:
\ninfo@inphilosophyfestival.it
\ndirezione@inphilosophyfestival.it
\nThe Festival website also provides full information on proposal submission\, including the \;Summer School of Humanities \;and the \;Young Thinkers Festival.
\nwww.inphilosophyfestival.it
Facebook: \;inphilosophyfestival
Instagram: \;@inphilosophyfestival
Across cultures\, historical periods\, and media\, islands have functioned as privileged sites of myth-making and imagination. Often perceived as bounded worlds\, islands have generated narratives of origin and apocalypse\, utopia and dystopia\, exile and belonging\, isolation and connection. From ancient mythologies to contemporary cultural production\, from oral traditions to visual and digital media\, and from colonial imaginaries to ecological discourses\, islands have operated as narrative laboratories in which cultural anxieties\, desires\, and transformations are articulated.
\nThe international seminar Mythical Archipelagos: Islands\, Narratives\, and Imaginaries Across Cultures and Media invites scholars to explore islands as mythical\, symbolic\, and narrative spaces. Myths are understood here in a broad sense: as foundational stories\, cultural imaginaries\, symbolic systems\, and narrative frameworks that are inherited\, transformed\, reimagined\, or contested in relation to insular spaces.
\nRather than treating islands as merely geographic entities\, this seminar approaches them as dynamic sites where overlapping temporalities\, negotiated identities\, and human and more-than-human relations converge. Particular attention will be given to environmental humanities\, indigenous and postcolonial perspectives\, and intermedial approaches\, while remaining open to comparative\, historical\, theoretical\, and interdisciplinary contributions.
\nInstitutional Framework
\nThis seminar is organised within the framework of the ANDRÓ\;MEDA Project (Ref. PHS-2024/PH-HUM-76) and results from the collaboration between:
\nThe event is hosted by the Department of Modern Philology\, Translation and Interpreting (DFMTI) at ULPGC.
\nTopics of Interest
\nThe seminar welcomes proposals from literary studies\, cultural studies\, linguistics\, visual studies\, environmental humanities\, education\, anthropology\, history\, media studies\, and related disciplines. Contributions may address (but are not limited to) the following thematic areas:
\nA. Myth\, Folklore\, and Cultural Memory
\nB. Islands\, Childhood\, and Pedagogy
\nC. Environmental and More-than-Human Humanities
\nD. Isolation\, Confinement\, and Liminality
\nE. Migration\, Belonging\, and Contested Spaces
\nF. Visual\, Intermedial\, and Nonfiction Representations
\nG. Mobility\, Tourism\, and Connectivity
\nH. Linguistic\, Religious\, and Ethnographic Insularity
\nSubmission Guidelines
\nLanguages: English or Spanish (other languages may be considered).
\nAbstracts: 250&ndash\;300 words\, including title\, research question(s)\, methodology\, and relevance to the seminar theme.
\nPresentation format: Please indicate whether you wish to propose an oral paper or a poster.
\nAuthor information: A brief biographical note (approx. 100 words)\, institutional affiliation\, and contact details.
\nFile format: One single Word document\, using the official event template (available on the website).
\nSubmission email: mythical-2026@ulpgc.es
\nEmail subject line: &ldquo\;Mythical Archipelagos 2026 - Abstract submission&rdquo\;
\n\nImportant Dates
\nAbstract submission deadline: 30 March 2026
\nNotification of acceptance: by 15 April 2026
\nCFP &ndash\; The Sixth International Conference for Doctoral Students in Philosophy
\nWhat Makes Sense?
\nThe Sixth International Conference for Doctoral Students in Philosophy examines the multiple meanings of sense and other related concepts across the history of philosophy. From Antiquity to contemporary thought\, the conference seeks to explore how these notions have been used to clarify and interpret philosophical discourse\, to reshape and critically assess traditional philosophical narratives\, to displace old beliefs and truths and even to beget new ones in the wake of the so-called &lsquo\;crisis of meaning&rsquo\;. Whether understood as an experience lived on an individual level\, as a feature of human language\, or as the action or result of the perceiving and knowing faculties\, sense remains a central notion in philosophical thinking. Conceived as the outcome of a hermeneutical interpretation\, as an end towards which actions should be oriented\, or as an axiological value attributed to different events\, the notions of purpose and meaning can be sought. Doctoral students are invited to engage with the various interpretations and uses of the notion of sense and related concepts by addressing questions such as: What can philosophical traditions teach us about the analysis of sense and meaning in relation to human discourse? How does the notion of sense relate to the individual\, to human values\, actions\, and social realities? In what way do philosophical theories confer sense upon historical events\, and what ethical and political implications arise from such undertakings? How does the notion of sense relate to our aesthetic experiences\, attitudes\, and sensibilities? In what manner is the act of investing or finding sense relevant for the knowing subject within a phenomenological or epistemological framework? Finally\, can philosophy still be a source of meaning for individuals in a world frequently depicted as being in crisis?
\nDetails
\nThe Doctoral School of Philosophy\, Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca\, invites submissions for the sixth instalment of the International Conference for Doctoral Students in Philosophy that is going to take place on May 22-23\, 2026. The event will be organized in a hybrid format. The conference is supported by three research centres of the Faculty of History and Philosophy: Centre for Ancient and Medieval Philosophy\, Centre for Applied Philosophy\, and Department of History in Hungarian Language.
\nOfficial languages of the conference are: English\, Romanian\, and Hungarian.
\nBesides the main topic of the event\, we invite submissions of papers from all areas and subdomains of philosophy: phenomenology\, semiology\, hermeneutics\, ethics\, aesthetics\, political philosophy\, philosophy of culture and communication\, philosophy of science\, logic\, theories of language\, history of philosophy\, studies of ancient and medieval philosophy\, Romanian philosophy\, Hungarian philosophy\, and P4C (philosophy for children).
\nThe conference will have thematic parallel panels organized according to the topics of the papers\, in all the official languages of the conference. The presentations will be made either online or on site\, at the Babeș-Bolyai University\, depending on the availability of the participants. All the students affiliated to The Doctoral School of Philosophy are kindly asked to participate in situ. Participants should specify upon the submission of their abstract whether they wish to participate in presence or online. Participants are requested to submit a draft version of their paper by the due date.
\nAbstract and paper submission
\nAbstracts should be up to 350 words\, written in English and must contain: the title of the contribution\, a short description of the main topic\, thesis\, purpose\, argumentative unfolding of the paper\, and five keywords. The draft papers should be sent in an editable format\, ready for blind review\, no longer than 10 pages (text body: Times New Roman\, at 12 points\, justified\, line spacing at 1\,5) and suitable for a 15-20 minutes talk followed by 10 minutes Q&\;A.
\nDeadline for abstract submissions: 15th of March 2026
\nCommunication of acceptance: 1st of April 2026
\nDeadline for paper submission (only for accepted proposals): 1st of May 2026
\nFor submission\, please send your work at vlad.ile@ubbcluj.ro\, with the subject of the message PHILOSOPHY_2026. The author&rsquo\;s personal information (full name\, affiliation\, contact details\, language of the presentation and attending method: online or on site) should be specified in the message and omitted from the attachment containing the abstract or draft paper.
\nPlease feel free to get in touch with Ile Vlad\, the secretary of the Doctoral School of Philosophy (vlad.ile@ubbcluj.ro)\, for any further questions you may have.
\nOpportunities for publication
\nThe scientific committee of the conference will select a number of papers to be published in a collective volume hosted by Studia UBB Philosophia
ORGANIZER: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Lisbon:20260527T150000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/Lisbon:20260529T170000 SUMMARY:Death in the Eyes 2: Philosophical Perspectives on Film Genres and Death UID:20260430T010053Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/Lisbon LOCATION:FCSH Avenida de Berna\, Lisbon\, Portugal DESCRIPTION:NOVA University Lisbon\, 27-29 May\, 2026 (Lisbon\, Portugal)
\nKeynote Speakers: \;Michele Aaron (University of Warwick) and Jean-Baptiste Thoret (Université\; \;de Poitiers)
\nLike philosophical categories\, film genres function as ways of \;unifying the manifold of experience\, determining under what conditions the particular can be subsumed under the universal. This effort of inclusion lies at the very root of Western philosophical thought\, a fundamentally synthetic form of thinking driven by the desire to unveil the secret unity of the multiple. Genres follow in the footsteps of the Aristotelian systematization of the categories\, regulating the modes of attributing a predicate (the multiple) to a subject (the one)\, and it is indeed in the wake of Aristotelian thought that &ndash\; whether knowingly or not &ndash\;film studies have broached issues of genre from the times of Bazin and Kracauer onwards. Still\, has there ever been a moment in film history in which genres were not hybrid\, or have they been from the outset undergoing successive and always different waves of hybridization? Despite the profusion of studies and variety of methodologies on the subject\, the absence of a rigorously defined canon continues to provoke debate around the specific difference of each genre &ndash\; that is\, the set of codes that allow them to articulate a unique and distinctive vision of the world.
\nFrom Spinoza to Janké\;lé\;vitch\, and from Sobchack to Malkowski\, several thinkers have described \;death \;as an experience that far exceeds symbolic articulation and eludes formal capture at every attempt\, or rather as what remains unrepresentable in its lived dimension. Yet\, death is an event in cinema\, affecting its moving images and plots which constantly try to represent it: showcasing a diverse production of narratives in which characters die\, or even exist in the afterlife. Not only patently intersecting philosophical universality in many ways\, death also has a privileged relationship with cinema as a medium/art. As an event that resists full translation into visual or narrative form\, death interrupts continuity and places pressure on the many structures of representation. In cinema\, this limit becomes compositional far beyond direct depiction\, as the image encounters death through operations involving absence\, delay\, fragmentation\, or stillness. These strategies mark the passage of something that cannot be stabilised or fixed within the frame and reveal how unique the tension is between aesthetic construction and existential experience\, bringing forth a specific and very special relation between cinema and death: giving death space. It is within such a space that disparate genres such as erotica with its exploration of corporeality\, the biopic through its construction of individual life stories\, and documentary by its commitment to factual representation\, articulate death as a temporal condition that shapes cinematic form and binds the unique time of cinema to our awareness of life&rsquo\;s end. Through this\, film acts as a reminder of mortality\, a memento mori essential for deeper reflection on existence.
\nCavell and Deleuze have shown that genres are creations of cinema&rsquo\;s internal movements: displaying its transformations\, pragmatics\, fluxes\, folds\, and tensions while underscoring its pluralism of \;perspectives. Yet\, how does death appear and is elaborated by each cinematographic genre? How do film and time based media both think about and depict death within the specificities of each genre? What light do the increasingly prominent analytical\, cognitive\, affective\, and methodological &ldquo\;class/gender/race&rdquo\; frameworks shed not only on genres\, but also on the multi-faceted presence of death in them? Beyond representation and meaning\, does death have an intensive role in both multiplying and composing new vistas within cinematographic genres?
\nThe ERC Project FILM AND DEATH is organizing\, at the NOVA University Lisbon\, a 2-day conference that aims to debate how genres\, understood as different points of view\, each with its own particularity and desire\, become processes of meditation about death in the multiplicity that composes the thinking machine that is cinema. Bazin once joked that in canons\, like in cannons\, the most important part is their central emptiness: unanswerable (or infinitely answerable) questions like &ldquo\;what is a genre?&rdquo\; and &ldquo\;what is film as a medium?&rdquo\; may\, once linked to death (that thorniest of philosophical questions)\, call for a kaleidoscope of enlighteningly oblique\, slanting\, transversal approaches.
\nOrganizers: \;Lucas Ferraç\;o Nassif\, Marco Grosoli\, Pedro Inock\, Susana Viegas\, Tiago Cravidã\;o and Vasco Marques
\nhttps://filmdeath.fcsh.unl.pt/2025/10/01/cfp-death-in-the-eyes-2-philosophical-perspectives-on-film-genres-and-death/
ORGANIZER;CN=Susana Viegas: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20260612T090000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20260613T170000 SUMMARY:The aesthetics of games UID:20260430T010054Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/Zurich LOCATION:Neuchâtel\, Switzerland DESCRIPTION:Confirmed \;speakers:
\nChristopher Bartel (Appalachian State University)
\nAlexandre Declos (University of Neuchâ\;tel)
\nNele \;van de Mosselaer (Tilburg University)
\nNathan Wildman (Tilburg University)
\n
Workshop description: \;Whether games qualify as artworks remains a matter of debate. It is\, however\, uncontroversial that games can possess aesthetic value and exhibit aesthetic properties. But what is distinctive about the aesthetic appeal of games\, and how should we theorize it?
Several influential answers have been proposed. Some argue that the distinctive aesthetics of games lies in their interactivity (Tavinor 2009\; Lopes 2010) or in the sculpted agencies they afford (Nguyen 2020). Christopher Bartel has recently argued that the aesthetics of videogames depends not only on their formal features\, but also on players&rsquo\; attitudes\, distinguishing several aesthetically relevant modes of play (goal-seeking\, narrative\, or &ldquo\;dollhouse&rdquo\; play). Frank Lantz (2024)\, by contrast\, maintains that games exhibit a sui generis form of beauty grounded in their systemic features. It remains an open question how these approaches can be reconciled\, and \;where they fundamentally diverge.
This workshop aims to engage with these debates and to explore the aesthetics of games more broadly. Bringing together philosophers of art and game scholars\, the workshop will examine how games challenge inherited categories of aesthetic theory\, and how aesthetic theory can\, in turn\, illuminate the nature of game-playing.
We welcome contributions addressing the intersection of aesthetics and game studies. \;Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
Submission details
\nPlease submit proposals by email to: N.W.Wildman@tilburguniversity.edu> and alexandre.declos@unine.ch>
Submissions should consist of a PDF prepared for blind review\, containing an abstract of 300 words (references excluded). Please make sure to put "Aesthetics of games submission" in the subject.
Deadline for submission: April 15\, 2026
Please note that participants are expected to cover their own transport and accomodation costs\; however\, lunches and a workshop dinner will be covered.
Making kin is first and foremost a gesture rather than a concept. Donna Haraway \; presents it as a gesture that reacts to a world organized by rigid separations: nature and \; culture\, feminine and masculine\, human and machine\, organism and technique. To \; make kin is to learn how to live together under the epistemological horizontality of \; habitable bodies in damaged landscapes\, accepting interdependence as an ontological \; and political condition. It is not a matter of restoring a lost nature\, nor of celebrating \; technology as a promise of salvation\, but of weaving possible relations within wounded \; worlds. This proposal emerges from the recognition of the most recent narcissistic \; wound in the human imaginary: technology.
\nAfter Copernicus\, Darwin and Freud&mdash\;who \; unsettled anthropocentric pride by demonstrating that the Earth is not the center of the \; universe\, that human beings are not isolated divine creations but part of animal \; evolution\, and that we do not exercise full control over our own mind\, being also \; governed by the unconscious&mdash\;technoscience\, particularly the digital and artificial \; intelligence\, once again displaces the human from the center by challenging its cognitive\, \; ontological\, and moral exceptionalism. For Donna Haraway\, this wound should neither \; be denied nor healed\, but inhabited through a profound reconfiguration of how agency\, \; responsibility\, kinship\, space\, and time are conceived in a shared and fragmented world \; composed of human and non-human cultural entities. Making kin therefore entails \; rethinking and reinhabiting bodies\, beginning by questioning which bodies are \; recognized and how they appear. Bodies that are sites of passage\, traversed by regimes \; of gender\, race\, class\, and species\; bodies exposed to toxicities\, extraction\, and \; infrastructures\; bodies amplified\, monitored\, and reconfigured by technologies. Bodies \; that are also habitats of resistance\, care\, and the invention of new ways of dwelling. The \; pressing question is not only how to survive\, nor even how to live\, but how to render \; bodies habitable. In this sense\, this congress seeks to bring together philosophical and \; interdisciplinary reflections that explore the unexpected alliances between ecology\, \; technology and feminism\, interrogating the conditions of possibility for habitable bodies \; within contemporary ecological techniques. In doing so\, it aims to contribute to \; imagining futures in which making kin is not merely a concept\, but an urgent ethical and \; political praxis.
\nThis way\, researchers are invited to submit presentation proposals within the \; three main strands of the congress&mdash\;feminism\, ecology and technology&mdash\;placing them in \; dialogue through perspectives such as ecofeminism\, transhumanism\, new materialisms\, \; the ethics of care\, decolonial thought\, among others. Theoretical\, critical\, or situated \; approaches from philosophy and related fields are welcome\, exploring\, among other \; possibilities:
\n➢ Contemporary transformations of the categories of subject\, agency and community \; in light of posthumanism\, new materialisms\, and relational metaphysics\;
\n➢ Practices of care\, hospitality and kinship as ethical and political questions\, analyzed \; from the perspectives of care ethics\, applied ethics\, bioethics and contemporary \; political philosophy\;
\n➢ The reconfiguration of the body as a site of experience\, agency and vulnerability\, \; considering dialogues between phenomenology\, philosophy of embodiment\, gender \; studies and philosophy of technology\;
\n➢ Interdependencies between humans\, non-humans and technologies and their \; epistemological implications\, addressed through the lens of philosophy of science\, \; feminist epistemology and technoscience studies\;
\n➢ Questions of justice\, responsibility and vulnerability in wounded ecologies\, \; examined from the optic of political philosophy\, critical theory\, postcolonial theory \; and environmental ethics\;
\n➢ Critiques of traditional hierarchies (nature/culture\, human/non-human\, \; masculine/feminine) and the exploration of alternative models of kinship and \; coexistence\, drawing on metaphysics\, ontology\, social philosophy and posthuman \; theories\;
\n➢ Reflections on technology\, artificial intelligence\, biotechnology and digitalities as \; forces that displace the subject\, transform agency and redefine modes of inhabiting\, \; from the perspectives of philosophy of technology\, critical cybernetics and AI \; studies\;
\n➢ The construction of shared worlds\, kinships and interdependencies through visual \; and performing arts and cinema\, considered in light of philosophy of art\, relational \; aesthetics\, and philosophy of film\;
\n➢ The role of language\, narrative and symbolic representation in mediating bodies\, \; technologies and ecologies\, investigated through philosophy of language\, narrative \; theory\, critical semiotics\, and philosophy of communication.
\nProposals must be submitted in English\, Portuguese\, Spanish\, French\, or \; Italian to makingkin@outlook.pt by April 21\, 2026. They should include an abstract \; (up to 300 words) and a brief biographical note (up to 150 words). Presentations should \; not exceed 20 minutes. The results will be announced on 7 May 2026. This International Congress is organized within the framework of PRAXIS &ndash\; Center for \; Philosophy\, Politics and Culture\, University of Beira Interior (Covilhã\;\, Portugal).
ORGANIZER: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260801T234500 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260801T234500 SUMMARY:CFP for a Special Issue of Angelaki: Khôra UID:20260430T010056Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/London DESCRIPTION:Call for papers for a Special Issue of Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities
\nKhô\;ra
\n(preliminary title)
\nEditors: Nicholas Birns and Marina Christodoulou
\nFor a pdf of the full Call see: \;https://www.academia.edu/164922361/CFP_for_a_Special_Issue_of_Angelaki_Khô\;ra
\nThis special issue (33.5) invites contributions that revisit the concept of khô\;ra\, introduced in Plato&rsquo\;s Timaeus as a &ldquo\;third kind&rdquo\; beyond being and becoming\, a matrix\, a receptacle\, and reinterpreted in contemporary philosophy\, most notably by Derrida. Situated between presence and absence\, intelligibility and materiality\, khô\;ra resists stable categorization while remaining indispensable for thinking space\, inscription\, and receptivity. We seek papers that engage khô\;ra across disciplines\, exploring its implications for spatial theory\, media\, politics\, ecology\, and aesthetics\, as well as its limits and possible reconfigurations today.
\nContributors are encouraged to explore the following subjects\, as already apparent in the presentation/argumentaire of the edited volume\, however these are not exclusive (an indicative non-exhaustive bibliography that might give some directions is included in the end): \;
\nPlatonic interpretations\, as well as pre-platonic and later antique \; (i.e. Neoplatonist \, e.g. Plotinus) references and interpretations
\nPotential later uses and mentions of the term\, e.g. in Byzantine\, Roman\, and Medieval texts
\nModern and Contemporary uses\, mentions\, studies\, interpretations of the term: e.g. Spinoza\, Leibniz\, Schelling&rsquo\;s commentary on the Timaeus\, Bergson\, Heidegger\, Phenomenology (Husserl\, Richir\, etc.)\, Whitehead\, Derrida\, Deleuze\, Feminism (Grosz\, Irigaray\, Kristeva\, etc.)\, \; John Sallis\, Aesthetics (e.g. in Arts\, Performance and Architecture).
\nAccounts from Charles Taylor\, \; John Caputo\, Richard Kearney\, other post-secular thinkers. \;
\nNon-western equivalent terms/concepts/ideas\, or usages and interpretations\, in Hindu or Buddhist philosophy or elsewhere\, as for example in Nishida Kitarō\, or in Indigenous cultures.
\nKhô\;ra and digital space / AI
\nKhô\;ra in architecture or urban studies
\nKhô\;ra and/in feminist philosophy\, especially as applied to the limits and fault lines of gender. \;
\nKhô\;ra and decolonial spatial theory
\nKhô\;ra in literature or visual art\, especially accounts of place or materiality in literature. \;
\nKhô\;ra and affect / embodiment
\nKhô\;ra and environmental thought\, especially in terms of the idea of the ground. \;
\nAnimal Studies
\nObject oriented ontology
\nKhô\;ra and psychology/subjectivity \;
\nChapters shall be 5000-8500 (max) words\, inclusive of bibliography and notes.
\nContributions can include the following: original essays\, interviews\, and &ldquo\;review articles&rdquo\; (Angelaki does not accept standard book reviews though). Translations to English will be taken into account\, as long as the responsibility for producing work of publishable quality in the English language lies with the author.
\nThe Special Issue will also be published as a monograph-type book by Routledgein theAngelaki: New Work in the Theoretical Humanities - book series.
\nPlease submit a title and an abstract/brief-outline proposals of between 300-800 words. Additionally\, please include an up-to-date curriculum vitae (CV). The deadline for submissions is 01 August\, 2026. Please send your materials to Nicholas Birns (nb2003@nyu.edu) and Marina Christodoulou (marina.n.christodoulou@gmail.com)\, who can also address any inquiries you may have. \;
\nThe timeline is below:
\n01 August\, 2026 &ndash\; Abstracts/brief outlines due from CFP
\nSeptember 15\, 2026 &ndash\; Notification of Preliminary Acceptance of Proposals or Rejection
\nSeptember 15\, 2027 &ndash\; Completed Manuscripts Due\, Editorial Reviews Start \;
\nJanuary 15\, 2028 &ndash\; Editorial Reviews Completed
\nMarch 01\, 2028 &ndash\; Revisions Completed\, Final Manuscript Submission\, Final Approval of Manuscripts
\nMay 15\, 2028 &ndash\; Delivery of material to Angelaki. Beginning of Production Process (Copy Edits and Proofs)
\nSeptember 2028 &ndash\; Special Issue Publication Online
\n2029 &ndash\; Republication in the Routledge Book Series
\nAngelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities
\nAngelaki homepage
\nAngelaki facebook
\nAngelaki Humanities - book series
\nAngelaki: New Work in the Theoretical Humanities - book series
\nFor a pdf of the full Call see: \;https://www.academia.edu/164922361/CFP_for_a_Special_Issue_of_Angelaki_Khô\;ra
ORGANIZER: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Belgrade:20260917T070000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/Belgrade:20260917T070000 SUMMARY:Virtues\, Education and Wellbeing UID:20260430T010057Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/Belgrade LOCATION:Sveucilisna avenija 4\, Rijeka\, Croatia DESCRIPTION:The aim of the conference is to bring together scholars working in ethics\, moral psychology\, epistemology\, political philosophy\, philosophy of art\, philosophy of education\, philosophy of wellbeing\, Aristotle&rsquo\;s philosophy\, educational science and other domains of the humanities\, with the aims of exploring our current educational practices and the way they advance development of our virtues\, our moral and epistemic characters\, and provide the necessary foundation for our individual and social wellbeing. \; \;
\nIn particular\, the conference places special emphasis on the role of virtues\, emotions\, and character formation in education\, as well as on their contribution to human flourishing. We are interested in philosophical accounts that explore how educational practices shape not only cognitive capacities but also moral and emotional dispositions\, and how these\, in turn\, support individual and collective wellbeing. This includes questions about the cultivation of intellectual and moral virtues\, the role of art in learning and moral development\, and the extent to which education can and should aim at fostering flourishing lives. We are also interested in exploring the role of arts within education\, and their capacity to contribute to the refinement of our moral characters\, development of moral virtues (or vices) and overall capacity to achieve and maintain wellbeing and social stability.
\nTopics include\, but are not limited to:
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Virtue and character education: aims\, methods\, and limits
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Moral and intellectual virtues in educational contexts
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; The role of emotions in moral development and learning
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Education and human flourishing: philosophical perspectives
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Habituation\, practical wisdom\, and the formation of character
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; The place of Aristotle&rsquo\;s ethics in contemporary philosophy of education
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Epistemic virtues and intellectual character formation
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; The role of exemplars\, role models\, and narratives in education
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Emotional education: empathy\, compassion\, and emotional regulation
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; The risks of moral education: indoctrination\, paternalism\, and autonomy
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Virtues and civic education: friendship\, trust\, and social cohesion
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; The role of art in education
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Questions of art censorship in schools: dangerous and harmful art\, cancel culture
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Virtue aesthetics
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Aesthetics as moral propaedeutic
\nThe conference will take place at the University of Rijeka\, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences\, September 17th and 18th 2026.
\nKey notes: Kristjan Kristjansson and Maria Silvia Vaccarezza \;
\n
We invite submissions for 30 minute presentations\, followed by 15 minutes of Q&\;A. If you are interested in presenting your work\, please send the title and the abstract of max. 300 words by June 20th 2026 to virtue.education.rijeka@gmail.com. \;Notification of acceptance will be sent out by July 1stth. There is no conference fee.
The aim of the conference is to bring together scholars working in ethics\, moral psychology\, epistemology\, political philosophy\, philosophy of art\, philosophy of education\, philosophy of wellbeing\, Aristotle&rsquo\;s philosophy\, educational science and other domains of the humanities\, with the aims of exploring our current educational practices and the way they advance development of our virtues\, our moral and epistemic characters\, and provide the necessary foundation for our individual and social wellbeing. \; \;
\nIn particular\, the conference places special emphasis on the role of virtues\, emotions\, and character formation in education\, as well as on their contribution to human flourishing. We are interested in philosophical accounts that explore how educational practices shape not only cognitive capacities but also moral and emotional dispositions\, and how these\, in turn\, support individual and collective wellbeing. This includes questions about the cultivation of intellectual and moral virtues\, the role of art in learning and moral development\, and the extent to which education can and should aim at fostering flourishing lives. We are also interested in exploring the role of arts within education\, and their capacity to contribute to the refinement of our moral characters\, development of moral virtues (or vices) and overall capacity to achieve and maintain wellbeing and social stability.
\nTopics include\, but are not limited to:
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Virtue and character education: aims\, methods\, and limits
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Moral and intellectual virtues in educational contexts
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; The role of emotions in moral development and learning
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Education and human flourishing: philosophical perspectives
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Habituation\, practical wisdom\, and the formation of character
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; The place of Aristotle&rsquo\;s ethics in contemporary philosophy of education
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Epistemic virtues and intellectual character formation
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; The role of exemplars\, role models\, and narratives in education
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Emotional education: empathy\, compassion\, and emotional regulation
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; The risks of moral education: indoctrination\, paternalism\, and autonomy
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Virtues and civic education: friendship\, trust\, and social cohesion
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; The role of art in education
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Questions of art censorship in schools: dangerous and harmful art\, cancel culture
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Virtue aesthetics
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Aesthetics as moral propaedeutic
\nThe conference will take place at the University of Rijeka\, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences\, September 17th and 18th 2026.
\nWe invite submissions for 30 minute presentations\, followed by 15 minutes of Q&\;A. If you are interested in presenting your work\, please send the title and the abstract of max. 300 words by June 20th 2026 to virtue.education.rijeka@gmail.com. \;Notification of acceptance will be sent out by July 1stth. There is no conference fee.
ORGANIZER;CN="Iris Vidmar Jovanović";CN="Monika Jovanović";CN="Ana Gavran Miloš": METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Rome:20260924T170000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/Rome:20260926T170000 SUMMARY:Ischia & Naples Festival of Philosophy: Freedom UID:20260430T010059Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/Rome LOCATION:Ischia\, Italy DESCRIPTION:12th Edition: Freedom
\n1&ndash\;27 September 2026
Ischia &\; Naples Festival of Philosophy
Conference: 24-26 September 2026
\nKeynote in English by Simona Forti (Scuola Normale Superiore)
\nExtended Submission Deadline: 1 May 2026
\n\;
\nThe Festival
\nFor over a decade\, the IN-Philosophy Festival has transformed the island of Ischia into a living laboratory of thought\, a crossroads where philosophy\, science\, art\, and community converge. Founded and directed by philosopher Raffaele Mirelli\, the Festival has become an international point of reference for its ability to combine academic rigor with strong public engagement\, restoring philosophy to its original public and dialogical vocation.
\n\nOver the course of its eleven previous editions\, the island has hosted philosophers\, scientists\, writers\, artists\, psychologists\, theologians\, and intellectuals such as Vito Mancuso\, Erri De Luca\, Amalia Ercoli Finzi\, Vittorino Andreoli\, Umberto Galimberti\, Massimo Cacciari\, Aldo Cazzullo\, and many other scholars from Italian and international universities. Each year\, hundreds of participants&mdash\;academics\, students\, and citizens&mdash\;turn the island into a shared space of reflection\, where philosophy is experienced in the open air\, facing the sea.
\n\nPromoted by InSophia APS\, in collaboration with the \;Department of Cultural Heritage Sciences of the University of Salerno (DISPAC)\, the \;University of Toronto Mississauga (Department of Visual Studies)\, the \;Italian Philosophical Society\, \;HETA &ndash\; Center for Psychological Treatment and Distress\, \;Dora News &ndash\; Psychology and Beyond\, the \;&ldquo\;A. Canova&rdquo\; High School of Treviso\, the \;&ldquo\;G. Buchner&rdquo\; High School of Ischia\, \;Filosofia in Movimento\, \;Gazzetta Filosofica\, the \;La Mortella Gardens of Ischia\, the \;Friends of Gabriele Mattera\, \;under the High Patronage of the European Parliament\, and with the patronage of the \;Campania Region\, \;FISP (International Federation of Philosophical Societies)\, the \;&ldquo\;G. Sadoul&rdquo\; Cultural Circle\, and the \;PIDA International Architecture Award.
\n\nAfter exploring themes such as Time\, Universes\, Artificial Identities\, and Happiness\, the 2026 edition addresses \;Freedom as a radical shared question: \;&ldquo\;Can we be free together?&rdquo\;
The IN-Philosophy Festival takes place in some of the most evocative locations on the island of Ischia&mdash\;spaces where nature\, art\, and knowledge intertwine\, and where philosophy encounters beauty and life.
\nThe La Mortella Gardens host the opening evening of the Festival\, featuring a classical music concert and the inaugural keynote\, in a dialogue of sound\, words\, and landscape that marks each edition with harmony between art and thought.
\n\nThe Aragonese Castle\, finally\, becomes the evening stage for major public encounters\, where philosophy\, science\, and art engage in dialogue by the sea\, illuminated by the symbolic power of the site.
\nEach space of the Festival is part of a single experience: thinking together\, on an island that transforms knowledge into encounter and reflection into life.
\n\;
\nThe Theme
\nEvery authentic freedom is both a political act and an ethical gesture. Political\, because it concerns the construction of shared spaces and the possibility of speech\; ethical\, because it requires responsibility toward others. Freedom\, if not grounded in justice\, becomes tyranny\; if not rooted ethics\, it exploits. In an age of polarization\, control\, and surveillance\, freedom may also return as a practice of presence: an attempt to remain in the world with awareness\, to act without dominating\, to oppose without destroying\, to make use without abuse. Politics and ethics thus rediscover their common root: encounter\, and the recognition of the other as a condition of one&rsquo\;s own existence.
\n\nTo be free today thus also means to face complexity without renouncing depth\; to safeguard distance as a space for thought\; to recognize that freedom is not a solitary right\, but a shared practice. We live in an age of &ldquo\;diffusions&rdquo\;&mdash\;biological\, cultural\, technological&mdash\;in which everything spreads\, yet little endures. So perhaps freedom also demands that we learn yet again how to dwell: to rediscover the value of limits\, silence\, and relation. Freedom is not a possession\, but a shared movement\, a fragile balance between the right to say &ldquo\;I&rdquo\; and the ability to remain &ldquo\;we.&rdquo\; Perhaps it is here that the deepest meaning of being human today is at stake: in the impossible yet necessary convergence between personal and collective freedom\, between the individual who affirms themselves and the community that joins and enjoins them. Freedom is not a good to be safeguarded\, but a way of practicing collectivity that must be renewed every day.
It is not born in the silence of the self\, but in the shared breath of the community.
\n\nPerhaps the most genuine question remains the same: \;can we be free together?
\n\nThematic Sessions (Guidelines for Contributions)
\nProposals may address the theme of freedom from an interdisciplinary\, theoretical\, or applied perspective. The following sessions outline the main areas of inquiry of the Festival and are open to contributions from philosophers\, scientists\, artists\, psychologists\, sociologists\, historians\, economists\, theologians\, legal scholars\, and researchers in contemporary culture.
\nAim of the Thematic Sessions
\n\nThe IN-Philosophy Festival invites scholars\, researchers\, and professionals from different fields of knowledge to contribute original reflections on the theme of \;Freedom\, in its multiple theoretical\, practical\, and symbolic
\narticulations.
\n\nThe aim is to foster dialogue among disciplines and perspectives which\, although differing in method and language\, share a common need to question freedom as a human\, social\, and epistemic experience.
\nThe proposed thematic sessions are not intended as rigid limits\, but as horizons of inspiration through which each author may orient their contribution. Sessions will take place in Ischia from \;24 to 26 September.
\n\n\;
\n\;
\nI. Origins and Figures of Freedom
\nPrometheus\, Ulysses\, and the Origins of the Free Act
Myth as the root of human freedom: disobedience\, journey\, and knowledge.
&rarr\; Ancient philosophy\, comparative mythology\, classical literature.
Law and the Soul
Between Socrates and Augustine: inner freedom and moral responsibility.
&rarr\; Moral philosophy\, theology\, law.
The Word that Liberates
Literature as an act of emancipation: from Dante to Primo Levi.
&rarr\; Literature\, linguistics\, philosophy of language.
\;
\nII. Polis and Power
\nPolitical Freedom and Fragile Democracy
From Arendt&rsquo\;s thought to polarized societies.
&rarr\; Political philosophy\, social sciences\, communication studies.
Economy and Freedom
Market\, labor\, inequality: the ethics of money.
&rarr\; Civil economy\, philosophy of work\, sociology.
Architecture of Freedom
Space as right and symbol: open cities\, borders\, and squares.
&rarr\; Architecture\, urban studies\, public aesthetics.
\;
\nIII. Body\, Care\, and Freedom
\nThe Liberated Body
Identity\, gender\, and desire as practices of emancipation.
&rarr\; Psychology\, gender studies\, neuroscience.
Freedom in Fragility
Autonomy and care\, health and dignity: the freedom of vulnerable bodies.
&rarr\; Bioethics\, philosophy of medicine\, clinical psychology.
Art as Disobedience
From painting to theatre\, creation as a political gesture.
&rarr\; Visual arts\, aesthetics\, art history.
\;
\nIV. Digital Freedom and New Horizons
\nDigital Humanism
Restoring meaning to the infosphere: consciousness\, AI\, and freedom of thought.
&rarr\; Philosophy of technology\, computer science\, AI ethics.
Surveillance and Autonomy
Data\, algorithms\, and new forms of control.
&rarr\; Cyberlaw\, digital sociology\, political philosophy.
Educating for Presence
Freedom and education in the connected society.
&rarr\; Pedagogy\, learning psychology\, media education.
\;
\nV. Freedom and the World
\nAn Ecology of Freedom
Inhabiting without dominating: freedom as a measure of the Earth.
&rarr\; Philosophical ecology\, anthropology\, environmental sciences.
The Island and Elsewhere
Freedom as belonging and departure: insular thought.
&rarr\; Geophilosophy\, Mediterranean anthropology\, philosophy of landscape.
To Migrate\, to Host\, to Remain
The right to move and the duty to welcome.
&rarr\; International law\, geopolitics\, ethics of hospitality.
\;
\n\;
\n\;
\n\;
\nVI. Freedom and Imagination
\nCinema and the Freedom of Vision
From neorealism to digital worlds: images that liberate or imprison?
&rarr\; Film studies\, media studies\, visual aesthetics.
Literature and the Memory of the Self
Writing in order not to disappear: freedom\, censorship\, and testimony.
&rarr\; World literature\, philosophy of narration\, psychoanalysis.
Faith\, Science\, and the Future
Between determinism and grace: freedom as responsibility toward the world to come.
&rarr\; Theology\, philosophy of science\, future ethics.
How to Submit Proposals
\nLanguages: \;Italian\, English
\nPaper proposals (minimum 3\,000 and maximum 4\,500 characters\, including spaces\; Times New Roman\, font size 12\, single spacing)\, accompanied by a bibliography and a CV\, as well as a brief autobiographical note (please specify current institutional affiliation or\, if not currently in an academic position\, the institution where the most recent course of study or research was completed)\, must be submitted by \;1 May 2026\, 11:59 p.m.\, to:
Please send the short biography in a separate file (maximum 1\,000 characters\, including spaces).
Files must be submitted in *.doc or *.odt format\, not *.pdf (Times New Roman\, font size 12\, single spacing).
Failure to comply with the formal guidelines will result in exclusion.
Each paper will have \;20 minutes\, followed by \;10 minutes of discussion.
Papers may be presented in Italian or English. Panel proposals are also welcome.
\;
\nPanels
\nEach panel must consist of \;3 or 4 papers \;on a common theme. The panel coordinator\, who may also be one of the speakers\, is responsible for introducing and moderating the discussion. Panel proposals must include the abstracts of each paper (maximum 3\,000 characters each) and a general introduction of no more than 3\,000 characters.
\n\;
\nPublication
\nAs in previous years\, a selection of contributions will be published in the official proceedings of the Festival.
\nA registration fee will be required for speakers. Accommodation options on the island during the Festival week will also be provided.
\n\;
\nSelection
\nThe ability to communicate research knowledge to a broad audience is a key criterion for selection. Proposals will be evaluated by the Scientific Committee.
\n\nFor further information\, please contact the Festival&rsquo\;s organizational secretariat or scientific direction at:
\ninfo@inphilosophyfestival.it
\ndirezione@inphilosophyfestival.it
\n\nThe Festival website also provides full information on proposal submission\, including the \;Summer School of Humanities \;and the \;Young Thinkers Festival.
\n
Facebook: \;inphilosophyfestival
Instagram: \;@inphilosophyfestival
At a glance:
\n* Inaugural two-day philosophy of AI and technology conference in Ingolstadt\, Germany. \;
\n* Call for Abstracts \;
\n* Essay Prize
\nOverview of FrankenstAIn Conference:
\nIn Mary Shelley&rsquo\;s Frankenstein novel\, the protagonist\, Victor Frankenstein\, creates an artificial agent that ends up escaping the control of its creator. The analogy with AI is clear. And the novel can therefore be read as a cautionary tale about the rapid and unpredictable consequences of creating agents that we do not properly understand and that do not align with our values. \;
\nThe novel thus raises a host of questions that are today relevant for the philosophy and ethics of artificial intelligence\, as well as the responsible use of technology more generally. Shelley sets her novel in Ingolstadt. And Victor Frankenstein would have studied at buildings recently renovated and now used by KU Eichstä\;tt-Ingolstadt. These include the 15th-century Hohe Schule (High School) and the 18th-century Old Anatomy building in which the conference will take place. The aim of the conference is to bring together academics from various disciplines working in the philosophy of AI and technology. The event is set against the backdrop of Shelley&rsquo\;s novel. And participants will have the opportunity to participate in a &lsquo\;city walk&rsquo\; and a visit to the Medical History Museum where they will learn more about the historical and technological context in which the novel is set. The conference marks the first in an annual conference-series on the topic. \;
\nCall for Abstracts (250-500 words):
\nWe welcome submissions on the philosophy of AI and the responsible development\, deployment\, and use of technologies. The idea is to use Shelley&rsquo\;s novel as a source of inspiration to explore new and important areas of AI research\, or to offer different perspectives on current ones. Talks need not explicitly engage with the novel (though this is of course very welcome) as long as they tackle themes\, questions\, and formats that are to some extent relevant to the novel. \;
\nIn addition\, we welcome submissions that contextualise these debates within a broader cultural and historical framework\, as well as work on topics in the philosophy of fiction/film/sci-fi and philosophical aesthetics. We hope that the conference will allow for an historically-informed philosophical exploration of the future of AI through the images and ideas that determine our relationship to the things we create &ndash\; especially when they develop a dynamic of their own and seem to escape our control.
\nWe are open to submissions from a range of different disciplines and perspectives. The only necessary criterion being that papers must be philosophically informed. Potential areas of interest include\, but are not limited to: \;
\nWhat does it mean to create things or beings whose capabilities and effects are fundamentally unpredictable?
\nWhat do we owe &ndash\; if anything &ndash\; to the artificial agents that we create? \;
\nHow can ethical responsibility be conceived under conditions of radical uncertainty?
\nTo what extent is AI a modern &lsquo\;creature&rsquo\; in Shelley's sense?
\nWhat continuities exist between myth (Prometheus)\, literature (Shelley)\, and modern technological development? \;
\nHow can literature/sci-fi/film (etc.) help with the investigation of AI and the philosophy of technology?
\nWhich metaphors and narratives promote understanding of current developments in the field of AI\, and which are misleading?
\nWhat new insights &ndash\; if any &ndash\; does Frankenstein bring to the &lsquo\;value alignment problem&rsquo\;?
\nHow should we define sentience\, awareness\, and similar in artificial intelligence\, or should we not define them in such systems at all?
\nWhat is technological progress?
\n*Abstracts should be submitted as a PDF attachment in English to: frankenstAIn-conference@ku.de
\n*Please anonymise abstracts by removing any identifying information about the author(s)
\n*Please include your full name and affiliation (if applicable) in the body of the email
\n*Deadline for submission is May 1st (2026)\, 23:59 (CET)
\n*Applicants will be notified by May 15th
\n*Applicants who wish to be considered for the essay prize\, please indicate that when submitting the abstract\; for more info on the essay prize see below
\n*Further information can be found on the website: https://www.ku.de/en/frankenstein/events/conference \;
\nEssay Prize (3000 words)
\nWe also welcome submissions for the associated FrankenstAIn Essay Prize. The prize is sponsored by the &ldquo\;Fö\;rderverein Georgianum&rdquo\;.
\nThe prize is aimed at early career researchers &ndash\; master&rsquo\;s students\, doctoral students\, and postdocs (no more than four years after PhD defence) &ndash\; with a strong research interest in:
\nPhilosophy (ethics\, philosophy of technology\, epistemology\, political philosophy\, aesthetics)
\nHistory of philosophy and history of ideas
\nScience and technology studies (STS)
\nHistory of science
\nComputer science\, AI research\, human-computer interaction\, mathematics
\nBehavioural sciences focused on human relation to technologies \;
\nPhilosophical aesthetics\, including philosophy of fiction\, film\, and sci-fi
\nA cash prize of &euro\;1\,000 will be awarded to the author of the essay that combines philosophical depth\, clarity of argument\, originality\, and relevance to current philosophy of AI debates in an interesting and novel way. Reflections on other cultural-historical themes\, as well as connections to Mary Shelley's novel will also be well-received. The essays will be evaluated by an interdisciplinary jury consisting of\, among others\, the keynote speakers invited to the conference. The winner will also have the opportunity to partake in a panel discussion dedicated to their essay.
\n*Applicants who wish to be considered for the essay prize please indicate this in the body of the email when submitting your abstract
\n*If your abstract is accepted\, you will then be invited to submit an essay
\n*Deadline for submission of the essay is September 4th (2026)\, 23:59 (CET)
\n*Applicants will be notified by September 25th (2026)
\n*Further information can be found on the website: https://www.ku.de/en/frankenstein/events/conference \;
\nQuestions &\; Further Queries
\nQuestions and further queries should be directed to: frankenstAIn-conference@ku.de
\n*Participation is free of charge
\n*Unfortunately we are unable to cover travel and accommodation costs as standard. However\, we might be able to provide assistance in special circumstances. If you think this applies to you\, then please write to us: frankenstAIn-conference@ku.de
ORGANIZER;CN=Norbert Paulo: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250902T110000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260505T170000 SUMMARY:The Value of Consciousness UID:20260430T010101Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/London DESCRIPTION:This is a zoom series on the value of consciousness\, taking place every first Tuesday of the month at noon Eastern time in the US/6pm in Europe. The program is below. The zoom link is this:
\nhttps://riceuniversity.zoom.us/j/93096236283?pwd=s6SO6NqrM5mnGpqjFtKNfTNoxaHGUg.1
\nProgram:
\nSept. 2: Takuya Niikawa\, &ldquo\;Consciousness Aesthetics&rdquo\;
Oct. 7: Anna Giustina\, &ldquo\;Prospects for an Aesthetics of Consciousness&rdquo\;
Nov. 11: Emad Atiq\, ""Agency\, Normativity\, and Acquaintance"
Dec. 2: Lé\;a Salje\, &ldquo\;Feeling Like Oneself&rdquo\;
Jan. 6: David Builes\, &ldquo\;Four Views of the First Person&rdquo\;
Feb. 3: Adrià\; Moret\, &ldquo\;No Welfare without Sentience&rdquo\;
Mar. 3: Gwen Bradford\, &ldquo\;Dreams and Incommunicable Aesthetic Value&rdquo\;
Apr. 7: Enrico Terrone\, "The Type-Token Dilemma for the Aesthetics of Consciousness"
May 5: Leonard Dung\, &ldquo\;Varieties of Sentientism About Moral Standing&rdquo\;
We're delighted to invite you to the research seminar of the Department of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Bucharest. These are organized in partnership with CELFIS\, the Center for Logic\, Philosophy and History of Science at UB. Here are talks scheduled so far:
\nFall 2025:
\nOctober 28\, 5pm: Alexandru Dragomir &\; Andrei Mărăşoiu (University of Bucharest\, \;f2f)\, "The Inconstant Moral Expert: the case of LLMs"
\nNovember 25\, 4pm: Nicholas Rimell (Chinese University of Hong Kong\, hybrid via Zoom)\, "A Metaphysics of Despair"
\nNovember 28\, 2pm: Micah Thomas Pimaro\, Jr. (University of Calabar\, \;f2f)\, "Placide Tempels&rsquo\;s Metaphysics: A challenge or a trap for African philosophy?"
\nDecember 2\, 3pm: Nora Grigore (Romanian Academy\, Institute of Philosophy and Psychology\, f2f)\, "Worthiness and Expediency: a Distinction without a Difference?"
\nDecember 19\, 2pm: Alin Olteanu (Shanghai International Studies University\, ICUB\, \;f2f)\, "Iconic Imagination in Modeling: A Semiotic Approach to Scientific Inquiry"
\nJanuary 16\, 2pm: Marco Facchin (University of Antwerp\, hybrid via Zoom)\, \;"Is mental content an illusion?" \;
\nJanuary 22\, 12pm: Sandra Brâ\;nzaru (University of Bucharest\, CELFIS\, FPSE\, \;f2f)\, "Conceptualising Empathy"
\nFebruary 10\, 4pm: Marian Călborean (OPTI Software &\; University of Bucharest\, f2f)\, "The minimal ontology of time" \;
\nSpring 2026:
\nMarch 27\, 2pm: Erik Myin (University of Antwerp\, \;hybrid \;via Zoom)\, &ldquo\;Of a Different Mind&rdquo\;
\nMarch 30: \;Mariona Eiren Miyata-Sturm (University of Oxford\, f2f)\, &ldquo\;The metacognitive account of aesthetics in science&rdquo\;
\nApril 3: \;René\; \;van Woudenberg (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam\, \;hybrid \;via Zoom)\, 'Are LLMs Authors?'
\nMay 11\, 12pm: Gheorge Ştefanov (U. Bucharest\, f2f)\; TBD
\nMay 13\, 4pm: Andrei Moldovan (U. Salamanca\, f2f)\, \;&ldquo\;Between Independence and Guidance: A Dilemma for Intellectual Autonomy&rdquo\;
\nMay 19\, 10am: Daian Bica (Heinrich Heine University\, \;hybrid \;via Zoom)\, \;''How to Tame &lsquo\;Abundance&rsquo\;? Roman Frigg&rsquo\;s User Manual''
\nJune 5\, 2pm: Paula Tomi (National University of Science and Technology 'Politehnica' Bucharest\, \;f2f)\, &ldquo\;LLMs and truth pluralism&rdquo\;
\nJune: Alexandru Nicolae (University of Bucharest\, Faculty of Letters\; Romanian Academy\, Institute of Linguistics\, \;f2f)
\nJune: Cătălin Teoharie (University of Bucharest\, CELFIS\, \;f2f)
\nJune: Ioan Muntean (UT Rio Grande Valley\, UI Urbana\, \;f2f)
\nJuly: Mihai Rusu (Babeş Bolyai University\, ICUB\, hybrid)
\nJuly: Constantin Stoenescu (University of Bucharest\, CELFIS\, \;f2f)\, "Revisiting 'The Normative Structure of Science' \;
\nSeptember: Oana Şerban (University of Bucharest\, CCIIF\, \;f2f)
\nPrevious events \;in the series are available at: \;
\n2021-22: \;https://philevents.org/event/show/93365 \;
\n2022-23: \;https://philevents.org/event/show/105249 \;
\nhttps://filosofie.unibuc.ro/category/seminar-cercetare-dft/ \;
\nhttps://icub.unibuc.ro/2022/06/14/workshop-semantic-cognition-and-truth/ \;
\nFor those of you who would like to join some of the meetings but have overlapping commitments\, we will do our best to record the meetings whenever everyone in attendance consents to it\, and to then upload the recordings on the Department's YouTube channel. Previous talks are available here:
\nhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOgUq3dN8CXI4L6DhZT1f_Q
ORGANIZER;CN="Andrei Mărăşoiu": METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20260423T090000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20260424T170000 SUMMARY:Raising a Mirror to the University: Theory and the Canadian Institution UID:20260430T010103Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:America/Toronto LOCATION:1151 Richmond St\, London\, Canada\, N6A 3K7 DESCRIPTION:The Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism at Western University is pleased to announce our in-person 2026 Annual Theory Conference\, an event that will also commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Theory Centre. The Conference will take place from Thursday\, April 23 - Friday\, April 24 2026.
\nThe theoretical objective of the conference is twofold. Our first objective is centered around the ceremonious occasion of the CSTC&rsquo\;s 40th anniversary. This occasion allows us to foreground theory as an intellectual tradition and academic practice that has shaped the Canadian university. This comes at a critical time when the programs of the humanities and social sciences within the university are being challenged across the country by austere policies and ideologies that have increasingly favoured more practical (or profitable) disciplines. This poses the broader question of the university&rsquo\;s role as a public institution\, as well as the function that it ought to play in contributing to broader social goods such as culture\, aesthetics\, and democracy.
\nOur second objective is centered around the problematic of Canadian identity. Building off our first objective\, this conference aims to provide a ground for theorists and critical scholars to consider theory&rsquo\;s role in shaping the various institutions that affect Canadian identity. This comes at a time when the question of national identity has taken center stage within political discourse and has been continuously leveraged by power players to achieve political outcomes within Canada. In posing this question\, our conference aims to establish space for critical theory to engage with the public discourse in ways that are both nationally situated and generative of a Canadian intellectual tradition not necessarily tied to national frameworks.
\n
Possible topics may include\, but are not limited to:
● The role of theory within/outside the university
\n○ Theory as praxis\; theory and hegemony
\n○ The question of theory and practice
\n○ The Canadian intellectual tradition (Canada&rsquo\;s successes and failures)
\n● The commodification of the university
\n○ Historically contingent vs structurally necessary
\n○ The division of disciplines and the defunding of the humanities
\n○ Democracy and Capitalism\, the University as a site of struggle
\n● The question of Canadian Identity
\n○ Canadian self-conception: One or many or (no) Canadas?
\n○ Literature and Canadian Identity (e.g.\, Frye&rsquo\;s &lsquo\;garrison mentality&rsquo\;\; Atwood&rsquo\;s &lsquo\;Survival&rsquo\;)
\n○ Negation of Americanism\; Canadian identity in an era of declining American hegemony
\n○ Mosaic vs. Melting Pot\; Cultural Diversity vs. Cultural Difference (immigration and the Canadian University)
\n○ Localized cultural identities
\n○ Theory\, Indigenous Sovereignty and Decolonization
\n○ Does Canada have a national question?
The Annual Theory Conference endeavours to cultivate a forum for diverse engagement from graduate students and scholars with a broad range of backgrounds and approaches. This year we are seeking submissions across the humanities and social sciences that deal critically and theoretically with problems related to the university and national identity in a Canadian context.
\nSubmission Instructions:
\nSubmissions will undergo anonymous review. Please submit proposals as a .docx or .pdf file to cstcconference@uwo.ca. Accepted candidates will be notified by email.
Submission Deadline: February 20th\, 2026
Please submit:
1. A cover page that includes: the title of your proposed presentation\, your name\, affiliation(s)\,
\nemail address\, a brief (150-200 word) bio\, and 3-5 keywords for your presentation
\n2. A separate document that includes: the title of your presentation and an abstract of 150- 200
\nwords describing the intentions of your presentation.
ORGANIZER;CN=Ulysse Sizov: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260426T234500 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260426T234500 SUMMARY:Fragility and the Aesthetics of Sensitivity UID:20260430T010104Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/London LOCATION:55-59 Penrhyn Rd\, Kingston upon Thames\, London\, United Kingdom\, KT1 2EE DESCRIPTION:Call for Contributions: Fragility and the Aesthetics of Sensitivity \;
\nKeynote Presenters: \;
\nAndrew Goffey (University of Nottingham)
\nBrigitte Hart (Sound artist\, Shortwave Collective)
\nWhen crisis becomes a permanent state rather than an exceptional rupture\, fragility assumes the form of an existential condition visible across social\, ecological\, and political domains. Under such circumstances\, the production of knowledge increasingly shifts toward anticipatory regimes&mdash\;risk modelling\, foresight studies\, and adaptive infrastructures designed to navigate instability. Contemporary problems appear as hybrid entities: complex issues that exceed the grasp of any single discipline and demand collaborative investigation capable of rendering them perceptible and registering fragile relations that cannot be stabilised or fixed.
\nIn this context\, the problem of disciplinarity&mdash\;of relations between disciplines and collaboration across them&mdash\;acquires renewed urgency. Contemporary ecological frameworks in the humanities further intensify this concern by grounding the crossing of boundaries in an existential condition. This expansion of the problematic invites a reconsideration of an older question: what do the prefixes inter-\, trans-\, non-\, or post- differentially signify when applied to disciplinarity? Which form of disciplinarity adequately captures our present condition?
\nWhile the laboratory has served as a central model&mdash\;a metonym for interdisciplinary collaboration\, anchoring the emergent mode of scientific praxis called &ldquo\;research&rdquo\;&mdash\;today research also unfolds across privately funded para-institutions\, hybrid platforms\, and transient project-based networks. However\, collaborations between artists and social theorists with natural scientists remain structurally asymmetrical: artistic practice is often reduced to the visualization of scientific data\, while social theory has long remained under pressure to imitate the methods of the hard sciences. In this context\, the symposium seeks to examine the tangible forms of contemporary cross-disciplinary collaboration and the conceptual frameworks that sustain them.
\nThe symposium approaches this question under the long shadow of post-1968 French philosophy\, whose insistence on the inherent intertwinement of politics and aesthetics continues to shape contemporary thought. As a guiding reference\, we take the framework developed by Bruno Latour\, approached here through the twin themes of \;fragility and the aesthetics of sensitivity. Latour may be seen as the synthetic inheritor of this philosophical trajectory\, insofar as his anthropology of laboratory science leads to a non-disciplinary\, transversal form of social ontology that immanently connects science\, aesthetics\, and politics. His model advances a form of collective pragmatism oriented toward the proposal of new entities for social existence&mdash\;entities defined relationally as fragile networks of attachments. Scientific instruments function as sensitive devices that inscribe and thereby render these entities visible\, thereby making them open to collective concern.
\nThe symposium is thus both a call for dialogue and an invitation to rethink disciplinarity under the increasingly urgent\, deteriorating\, and transitional conditions of the present. We are interested in contemporary artistic and theoretical practices\, particularly those that combine the two and critically reflect on their disciplinary\, institutional\, and methodological conditions. If\, as Fé\;lix Guattari reminds us\, &ldquo\;there is no general pedagogy relative to the constitution of a living transdisciplinarity\,&rdquo\; then where and how might such a transdisciplinarity be practiced today? \;
\nPossible contributions might focus on: \;
\nSubmission Guidelines:
\nAbstract: \;max. 300 words
\nPresentation length: \;20 minutes \;with time reserved for discussion.
\nPlease send an abstract (max. 300 words) and a short biographical note to: \;k2035920@kingston.ac.uk
\nDeadline for submissions: \;26 April 2026
Notification of acceptance: \;10 May 2026
The event is organised as a \;PhD student-led symposium supported by the Techne AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership.
ORGANIZER: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260427T100000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260428T170000 SUMMARY:Varieties of realism: aesthetics\, politics\, and philosophy UID:20260430T010105Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:America/New_York LOCATION:16 Washington Mews\, New York\, United States DESCRIPTION:One of the most disputed questions regarding the politics of our times focuses on the questions of &lsquo\;truth&rsquo\; \, &lsquo\;facts&rsquo\; \, &lsquo\;objectivity&rsquo\; and the NYU Liberal Studies challenge that a multitude of social and political forces present to the stability of these concepts in myriad ways\, all within a novel media ecology. The question of &lsquo\;what is possible?&rsquo\; for instance\, often engenders the claim of &lsquo\;realism&rsquo\; as a challenge to political projects perceived to be fantastic or utopian. But In aesthetics\, the question registers in a different\, though related\, fashion with respect to the history of plastic arts. An issue that has only intensified with the introduction of accelerated forms of technology highlighting the contrast between the &lsquo\;virtual&rsquo\; and the &lsquo\;real&rsquo\;. In philosophy the history of the question of reality and realism is as old as the practice itself in terms of the world we live in\, the language we use to describe it\, and how we understand ourselves and our individual experience. This conference gathers an interdisciplinary group of scholars to rethink the question of realism in light of these various perspectives.
\n\;Speakers \;
\nJocelyn Benoist (University Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne)\, Andrew Brandel (University of Chicago)\, Michael Campbell (Kyoto University)\, Juliet Floyd (Boston University)\, Jeroen Gerrits (SUNY-Binghamton)\, Brendan Hogan (NYU)\, Sandra Laugier (University Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne)\, Azadeh Nilchiani (University Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne)\, Richard Shusterman (Florida Atlantic University)\, Martin Shuster (University of North Carolina at Charlotte)\, Yann Toma (University Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne)\, Hent de Vries (NYU)\, Zed Adams (The New School for Social Research) and Nat Hanson (University of Reading)\, Tatsiana Zhurauliova (University Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne).
ORGANIZER;CN=Brendan Hogan;CN=Sandra Laugier: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20260427T234500 DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20260427T234500 SUMMARY:2ª ed congreso internacional de desterritorializaciones políticas UID:20260430T010106Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/Madrid LOCATION:Madrid\, Spain DESCRIPTION:From the National University of Distance Education\, the Complutense University of Madrid\, and the Universidad Autó\;noma Metropolitana&ndash\;Iztapalapa\, we invite researchers to submit proposals that explore and analyze our political present from a Deleuzo‑Guattarian perspective that understands the centrality of capitalism as an axiomatics and immanent system.
\nWe are now accepting abstracts that follow (but are not limited to) the following thematic lines:
\nDialogues between macro\, micro and mesopolitics: thinking a minor politics
Democracy\, institutions and community
State and war: borders and imperial regimes
The affective turn in politics
Capitalist axiomatics\, social organization and libidinal economy
Militant clinic: antipsychiatry and schizoanalysis
Feminisms of difference\, xenofeminisms and post‑humanist feminisms
Anticoloniality\, postcoloniality and decoloniality
Corporealities and dissident desires
Violence\, extractivism and climate catastrophe
Proposal submission:
An anonymized abstract should be sent to the organizing email address (desteticas@gmail.com)\, summarizing the proposal in 250 to 300 words. The title\, thematic lines\, five keywords\, and an essential bibliography must be included. In addition\, a second document should be attached to the email stating the author&rsquo\;s name\, institutional affiliation\, a brief biography\, contact email\, and the title of the proposal.
Deadline:
April 27\, 2026 will be the deadline for submitting papers.
Conference dates:
&ldquo\;Political Deterritorializations&rdquo\; will take place on June 17\, 18\, and 19\, 2026 at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and the National University of Distance Education (UNED).
Organizers:
Luis Jaime Estrada (UAM‑I &ndash\; UCM)\, Myriam Rodrí\;guez del Real (UNED)\, Ana Gorostizu (UC3M).
Scientific committee:
Germá\;n Cano (UCM)\, Francisco José\; Martí\;nez (UNED)\, Amanda Nú\;ñ\;ez (UNED)\, Nicolá\;s Ried (Universidad Diego Portales&ndash\;Chile)\, Juan Evaristo Valls Boix (UCM)\, Sayak Valencia (COLEF&ndash\;Mexico).
We are pleased to announce that the next annual meeting of The Kristeva Circle will be held at the University at Buffalo\, SUNY\, on October 23-24\, 2026. \;
\nThe Kristeva Circle meeting is an international conference that advances scholarship on\, or influenced by\, philosopher\, psychoanalyst\, and novelist Julia Kristeva. The two-day conference will host a variety of speakers from the United States and abroad. \;
\nIn its 11th iteration\, the theme of the 2026 conference will broadly focus on embodiment. However\, given the tenant of the work of this year&rsquo\;s two keynote speakers we \;encourage submissions that address the work of Julia Kristeva in relation to disability\, gender\, sexuality\, and race.
\nWe are delighted to share that we have two keynote speakers confirmed for this year&rsquo\;s conference. They are as follows: \;
\n\;We are seeking abstracts that develop the work of Julia Kristeva\, with preference given to submissions that address embodiment broadly construed\, and more specifically disability\, gender\, sexuality\, and/or race.
\n\;Please submit abstracts of 500 words\, prepared for anonymous review\, by April 30\, 2026\, to kristevacircle@gmail.com. In a separate document\, include a short author bio with contact info. For more information on the conference\, please write to the local host\, Elisabeth Paquette\, at epaquette@buffalo.edu.
ORGANIZER;CN=Elisabeth Paquette: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260430T230000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260430T230000 SUMMARY:Women\, Feminisms\, and Philosophy in Africa (CFA) UID:20260430T010108Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/London DESCRIPTION:Women\, Feminisms\, and Philosophy in Africa
\nEdited by: Abosede Priscilla Ipadeola\, University of Hildesheim\, Germany.
\nCall for Abstracts
\nBackground and Rationale
\nThe African philosophical tradition\, unlike many others\, has faced tremendous challenges before gaining recognition as a valid sphere of human knowledge. In fact\, in some intellectual circles\, controversies over the existence and authenticity of African philosophies still continue to rage. Within this contested terrain\, the ordeal of African women has been especially severe. This is because their experiences and contributions to philosophy have been plagued by epistemic erasure and invisibility.
\nAlthough African philosophy has gained increasing traction as a distinct intellectual tradition\, African women&rsquo\;s ideas and interventions remain significantly underrepresented. The denial of philosophy to a people is not simply an oversight\; it is a denial of their humanity and a serious form of epistemic injustice. In both global and African philosophical canons\, African women&rsquo\;s philosophical contributions have repeatedly been pushed to the margins.
\nMoreover\, within dominant schools of thought in African philosophy\, women's concerns and issues are still largely absent or only superficially examined. At the same time\, many African indigenous beliefs and practices have been persistent in shaping gender relations and everyday life\, often in ways that disproportionately impact women. This volume seeks to interrogate such beliefs and practices through feminist lenses\, foregrounding African women's agency\, creativity\, resistance\, and philosophical thought.
\nAims \; of the Volume
\nThis edited volume has two main objectives:
\nTo highlight African women's contributions to philosophy\, both past and present\, within and beyond academia.
\nTo demonstrate how African feminist philosophical ideas have influenced discourses and knowledge production in African philosophies and societies.
\nThe volume particularly welcomes rigorously argued philosophical contributions that may be historical\, theoretical\, or applied and that may also draw on interdisciplinary perspectives\, where relevant.
\nContributions should employ clearly articulated philosophical methods and may also incorporate empirical or historical materials where appropriate. A plurality of African feminist frameworks is welcome\, including\, but not limited to\, African feminisms\, Africana womanism\, Black feminism\, and decolonial and intersectional approaches\, provided they engage critically and constructively with African contexts.
\nThe call is open to scholars at all career stages whose work engages African women\, feminisms\, and philosophy. Authors drawing on empirical or community-based research are expected to ensure relevant ethical clearance and informed consent in accordance with their institutional and local guidelines.
\nSuggested Topics
\nContributions may address\, but are not limited to\, the following topics:
\n- Representations of women in African philosophy
\n- African women and philosophy
\n- African women philosophers and thinkers
\n- African feminisms
\n- Feminist African epistemology
\n- Feminist African ethics
\n- Feminist African political philosophy
\n- Feminist African aesthetics
\n- Feminist African philosophy of language
\n- Feminist African existentialism
\n- FeministAfricancriticalthinking
\n- Methodological issues in feminist African philosophical discourses
\n- Gender relations in traditional and contemporary Africa
\n- Women and decolonization in African philosophy
\n- Women and African metaphysics
\n- African ecofeminist philosophy
\n- African feminist AI ethics
\n- Feminist African leadership ethics
\n- Feminist African philosophy of mind
\n- African women and applied ethical issues
\n- Feminist African jurisprudence
\n- Feminist African philosophy of religion
\nAuthors are also welcome to propose additional topics that fall within the general scope of Women\, Feminisms\, and Philosophy in Africa.
\n\;
\n\;
\nSubmission Guidelines
\nAbstract: Maximum 150 words.
\nPlease include a brief bio stating your name\, institutional affiliation\, academic title\, and key publications (if any).
\nFull chapter length: 5\,000&ndash\;8\,000 words (including references).
\nLanguage: English (British or American\, used consistently).
\nReferencing style: Chicago author&ndash\;date.
\nFile format: Microsoft Word (docx).
\nOriginal work: Submissions must be original and not under review elsewhere.
\nPlease title your email subject line and abstract document as "Women\, Feminisms\, and Philosophy in Africa.&rdquo\;
\nSend your abstract and short bio: \;abosedepriscillaipadeola@gmail.com
\nInformal queries and requests for clarification are welcome and may be sent to the same email address.
\nImportant Date:
\nDeadline for abstract submission: Thursday\, April 30\, 2026.
\nPlease note that all submitted chapters will undergo rigorous peer review. Acceptance of an abstract does not guarantee the full chapter will be published.
\nEditor&rsquo\;s Bio
\nAbosede Priscilla Ipadeola\, PhD\, is a feminist African philosopher. She is currently a research fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies at the University of Hildesheim in Germany. Her research interests include African philosophy (especially feminist African philosophy)\, global political philosophy\, Black feminist studies\, epistemology\, ethics\, and postcolonial studies. She has worked as a faculty member and academic researcher at various universities and research institutes\, including the University of Ibadan\, Nigeria\; Katholische Universitä\;t Eichstä\;tt-Ingolstadt\, Germany\; the University of Leeds\, United Kingdom\; and The New Institute\, Germany. She is the author of Feminist African Philosophy: Women and the Politics of Difference (Routledge\, 2023). Her latest publications include "Filosofí\;a \;africana feminista: un enfoque interseccional" (Feminist African Philosophy: An Intersectional Approach). SumiacherD'Angelo\, D.\, AcevedoCameto\, S. V.\, Sá\;nchez Rivera\, V.\, y D&rsquo\;Angelo\, P. C. (Comps.). Gé\;nero y feminismo en construcció\;n a travé\;s de las prá\;cticas filosó\;ficas. Corporació\;n Universitaria Minuto de Dios&ndash\;UNIMINUTO\; Editorial CECAPFI (2025) (in Spanish) and "Feminist Critical \;Storytelling: African Philosophy and the Challenge of Gender Inclusivity\," Namita Herzl (Ed.) \;Women Beyond the Canon: Philosophies and Feminisms. Hildesheim: Universitaetsverlag\, 99-113. She is the convenor and first coordinator of the League of African Women Philosophers.
ORGANIZER: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260501T000000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260501T000000 SUMMARY:Philosophy in Astrobiology - special issue of Philosophical Problems in Science UID:20260430T010109Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/London DESCRIPTION:Astrobiology sits at a peculiar crossroads. It is a science without a stable object of study &ndash\; no confirmed life beyond Earth \; &ndash\; and yet it reshapes how we think about life\, mind\, and knowledge itself. It asks what counts as evidence when there is almost none\, what it means to recognise life when our only example is terrestrial\, and whether our sciences can ever truly escape the Earth-centric paradigm\, and if they should.
\nThis special issue of Philosophical Problems in Science invites contributions that explore how astrobiology challenges and transforms philosophical reflection. The aim is to explore how concepts such as life\, cognition\, evolution\, and evidence shift when the cosmic scale comes into view.
\nPossible themes include (but are not limited to):
\nWhat is life\, and can the definition survive contact with the unknown?
\nThe ontology of living worlds: is life an entity or a planetary process?
\nAstrobiology and the metaphysics of possibility: could life be otherwise?
\nCould Intelligence\, computation\, consciousness\, \; and information be different (differently conceived) in a non-terrestrial framework?
\nEpistemic and methodological problems in detecting biosignatures.
\nn=1 problem in logic and reasoning.
\nThe Drake Equation and the limits of probabilistic reasoning: can probability meaningfully apply when the reference class is one?
\nFine-tuning and cosmological contingency.
\nArtificial intelligence as an instrument of cosmic perception.
\nIndirect inference in astrobiology as an epistemological issue.
\nAstrobiology as a new kind of scientific epistemology.
\nAstrobiology as post-human philosophy of science: rethinking life\, mind\, and agency on a cosmic scale.
\nConvergent evolution and the problem of inevitability: could intelligence be a cosmic attractor?
\nRare Earth and the return of cosmic specialness: humility\, contingency\, and anthropocentrism.
\nThe Fermi Paradox as an epistemic and existential problem: what does cosmic silence tell us about evidence\, expectation\, and ourselves?
\nThe aesthetics of the unknown: imagination\, speculation\, and representation in astrobiology.
\nThe anthropic principle revisited: observer selection\, self-location\, and the conditions for intelligibility in the cosmos.
\nEthical and existential consequences of the discovery or silence of extraterrestrial life.
\nAutonomous exploratory robots meeting possible extraterrestrial life: moral and practical problems.
\nThe moral status of non-terrestrial environments and ethics beyond Earth.
\nGovernance and political philosophy in interplanetary research and ownership.
\nMinimal cognition conditions for extraterrestrial life: the concept of mind on other worlds and Earth.
\nExtremophiles and the shifting boundaries of what counts as &ldquo\;living&rdquo\;.
\nFrom metabolism to meaning: philosophy of mind and language in non-terrestrial contexts.
\nCommunication with extra-terrestrial intelligence and cognitive systems\, along with issues in symbolic structures and meaning.
\nMeeting extraterrestrial civilizations: sci-fi cases\, reality\, and readiness. How could we respond to a SOLARIS case (Lem&rsquo\;s sci-fi extraterrestrial mind affecting human consciousness)?
\n&ldquo\;Astrophilosophy&rdquo\;/&rdquo\;xenophilosophy&rdquo\;: epistemology\, ethics\, and meaning beyond Earth.
\nWe especially welcome papers that cross disciplinary boundaries and reflect on how the search for life elsewhere alters our understanding of life here\, especially in relation to biology\, chemistry\, physics\, mathematics\, linguistics\, psychology\, and other sciences.
\nThe format of submissions is specified on the Philosophical Problems in Science submission page. Submissions should not exceed 8000 words excluding references. The submission should follow APA 7 format and be blinded for peer review. Please include an abstract (150&ndash\;200 words) and 4-5 keywords.
\nSelected papers will appear in a special issue of Philosophical Problems in Science (https://zfn.edu.pl\, WoS/Scopus). All submissions will undergo double-blind peer review.
\nDeadline for submissions: May 1\, 2026
\nSUBMISSION
\nManuscripts should be submitted through the journal&rsquo\;s online system:
https://zfn.edu.pl/index.php/zfn/about/submissions \; \;
Please write &ldquo\;special issue&rdquo\; in the editor comments.
\nCONTACT
\nFor questions about the special issue\, please contact the guest editors:
Erik Persson and Kristina &Scaron\;ekrst at \;philosophyofastrobiology@gmail.com \;
The Ludovika University of Public Service (NKE) and the Jewish Theological Seminary &ndash\; University of Jewish Studies (OR-ZSE) are pleased to announce a joint academic conference on \;&ldquo\;Chosen Nation(s): Historical and Cultural Interpretations of Exceptionalism&rdquo\;\, to be held in Budapest\, Hungary.
\nKeynote speaker: \;DR. CHRISTINA LITTLEFIELD\, Associate Professor of Communication and Religion at Pepperdine University\, author of "Chosen Nations: Pursuit of the Kingdom of God and its Influence on Democratic Values in Late-Nineteenth Century Britain and the United States" (Fortress Press\, 2013)\, and \;"Christian America and the Kingdom of God" (University of Illinois Press\, 2025\, with \;Richard T. Hughes).
\nThe aim of this interdisciplinary conference is to present the elements of various religious\, group\, national\, and imperial identities that refer to chosenness\, historical vocation\, and uniqueness in world history. This includes everything from the religious formulation of the chosen people\, through the sense of civilizational mission\, to the martyrdom concepts of individual groups and nations. We are particularly interested in examining how claims of chosenness function as instruments of legitimacy\, exclusion\, and moral hierarchy\, and how they are contested\, transformed\, or inverted in different historical and cultural contexts.
\n\;
\nConference Themes
\nWe invite proposals for papers that engage with the following topics\, among others:
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; the concept of the chosen people in Jewish religious tradition and in modern Jewish secular thought
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; the concept of chosenness in Christian and Muslim religious understanding
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; secularized chosenness and political theology
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; victimhood\, sacrifice\, and negative exceptionalism
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; the Christian empire as the embodiment of universalism
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; the civilizing mission of modern empires
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; the religious foundations of the American republics
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; the Russian World and Eurasianism
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; American exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; the German Sonderweg and tragedy
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; the vanguards of Communism and liberal democracy in the 20th century
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; aesthetics of chosenness
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; canon formation and cultural chosenness
\nThere is no conference participation fee\, and accommodation is provided for speakers.
\nKey Details
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Date: \;10-11 June 2026
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Location: \;Nemzeti Kö\;zszolgá\;lati Egyetem\, Orszá\;gos Rabbiké\;pző &ndash\; Zsidó\; Egyetem\, Budapest\, Hungary
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Language: \;English
\n\;
\nSubmission Guidelines
\nWe welcome abstracts of no more than 300 words\, accompanied by a brief biography (100 words)\, including current institutional affiliation. Individual presentations will be 20 minutes\, followed by discussion. Proposals for individual papers and thematic panels are both encouraged.
\nSubmissions should be sent to \;chosennations2026@gmail.com by \;1 May 2025. Notification of acceptance will be sent on a rolling basis\, at the latest by \;10 May 2025.
\n\;
\nPublication Opportunities
\nSelected papers from the conference may be considered for publication in a peer-reviewed volume.
\nContact
\nFor further information\, please contact \;chosennations2026@gmail.com.
\nWe look forward to your contributions and to welcoming you to a stimulating dialogue on chosenness and exceptionalism in religion\, history\, and culture.
ORGANIZER: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260501T110000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260501T170000 SUMMARY:The Political Dimension in Hegel's Aesthetics UID:20260430T010111Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/London LOCATION:Malet Street\, London\, United Kingdom\, WC1E 7HU DESCRIPTION:The Political Dimension in Hegel's Aesthetics
\nWhile Hegel&rsquo\;s Lectures on Fine Art (1818&ndash\;29) have received much attention in recent scholarship\, the question of how exactly art impacts political life remains open. How should we interpret Hegel's view of this matter\, and how ought we to theorize the interaction between art and society in general? In Hegel&rsquo\;s system\, the emergence of art is linked to historical processes of conflict\, struggle\, and contradiction\, thereby expressing spirit's liberation beyond the confines of a specific historical situation. In world history (where art's absolute spirit comes to the fore)\, established forms of political life\, institutions and traditional ways of thinking and acting appear fragile and debatable. As an &lsquo\;old&rsquo\; form of socio-political life comes to an end\, art is the first sensuous embodiment of this dissolution and the medium in which the transition to a new form of socio-political life manifests itself. Hegel&rsquo\;s theorem that in modern times art &lsquo\;has become a thing of the past&rsquo\; and no longer fulfils &lsquo\;the highest need [Bestimmung] of human spirit&rsquo\; (often referred to as art&rsquo\;s &lsquo\;end&rsquo\;) is therefore paradoxical: rather than simply stating the irrelevance of art for the present\, it points to art as something that reflects on and expresses the current historical-political state in all its contradictions. \;
\nThe workshop aims to develop a fresh perspective on the intersection between aesthetics and politics in Hegel&rsquo\;s philosophy. It seeks to reconsider Hegel&rsquo\;s claim that art is absolute spirit&rsquo\;s initial form (before religion and philosophy) and its sensuous embodiment\, and its critical potential in modern society. Speakers will address the issue of how we should read the paradoxical figure of art&rsquo\;s &lsquo\;end&rsquo\;\, its possible emancipatory role\, namely the question of how art not only articulates the predicament of our present society in a visible form\, but may also actively participate in its actual transformation. \;
\nSpeakers: \;Rebecca Comay \;(Toronto)\, \;Peter Osborne \;(Kingston)\, \;Gregor Schä\;fer \;(London/Basel)\, \;Christoph Schuringa \;(Northwestern). \;
\nThis \;in-person \;workshop will take place at the University of London Senate House. \;
\nAll welcome\; advance online registration essential. \;Registration: £\;10 (standard rate)\; £\;5 (students).
\nThe workshop is organized by \;Cæ\;cilie Varslev-Pedersen \;(University of Southampton) and \;Gregor Schä\;fer \;(Institute of Languages\, Cultures and Societies\, University of London/University of Basel)\, and sponsored by \;The Mind Association.
ORGANIZER;CN="Gregor Schäfer";CN="Cæcilie Varslev-Pedersen": METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=America/Edmonton:20260501T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Edmonton:20260502T170000 SUMMARY:Violence\, Resistance\, and Decoloniality: Rage Against the Machine UID:20260430T010112Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:America/Edmonton LOCATION:11503 Saskatchewan Dr NW\, Edmonton\, Canada\, T6G 2C4 DESCRIPTION:The topic of the 2026 University of Alberta Graduate Philosophy Conference \;hosted by the University of Alberta Philosophy Graduate Student Group in collaboration with the UofA chapter of 'Minorities in Philosophy' (MAP) \;to be held Friday May 1 - Saturday\, May 2 is political philosophy concerning political violence\, resistance\, and themes in decoloniality. With the pervasiveness of news outlets reporting on a seemingly relentless flow of geopolitical and civil unrest worldwide\, issues continue to arise that incite philosophical perspectives including theories of justice\, the role of the state\, and duties of authority figures\, among others. This raises several important questions about what citizens and individuals can do in the face of the abuse of power\, how to work on decolonizing oppressive power structures\, where researchers should focus their investigations to address this unyielding era of political violence\, and more generally\, the role academia plays in theorizing and acting against oppressive forces. The aims of this conference include:
\nDiscussing and analyzing the rise in political violence in North America\;
\nExploring the desensitization to violent acts that may occur through the dissemination of graphic videos\, photographs\, and stories via social media platforms\;
\nExamining and understanding tools for decoloniality and their application to the various colonized territories and peoples around the world\;
\nConsidering the role of political institutions in moderating the escalation of abuses of states&rsquo\; power\;
\nDiscussing what forms resistance may take and what forms of resistance may be justified in differing contexts\; and
\nProposing actions people can take to resist injustice and surveying the potential of historical tactics and/or successful solutions people have adopted in response to breaches of the social contract or human rights infringements.
\nThe lenses through which we intend to think critically about these issues pertain to but are not limited to\, ethics\, Indigenous philosophies and methodologies\, epistemology\, political theory\, the philosophy of law\, feminist theories\, and continental accounts of violence\, grief\, and loss.
\nKeynote Presentations
\nDr. Jé\;rô\;me Melanç\;on\, University of Regina.
\n&lsquo\;Title TBA&rsquo\;
\n\;Dr. Nathan Kowalsky\, St Joseph&rsquo\;s College\, University of Alberta. \;
\n&lsquo\;Title TBA&rsquo\;
ORGANIZER: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20260506T181500 DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20260506T194500 SUMMARY:Talking\, Listening\, and Learning UID:20260430T010113Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/Zurich LOCATION:Hochschulstrasse 4\, Bern\, Switzerland\, 3012 DESCRIPTION:The Anna Tumarkin Lectures in Philosophy are a lecture series dedicated to presenting top women philosophers.
\nThis is part 3 of a series of three lectures on The Right to Be Known. Epistemic Reparations and the Making of Rounder Stories
\nAbstract When we talk about victims of gross violations and injustices having the right to be known\, traditional epistemological theories push us toward understanding this as involving either wholesale deference to their testimony\, on the one hand\, or autonomous\, firsthand inquiry\, on the other. In this lecture\, it is shown that there is a third\, powerful option available to us: knowing someone through the interpersonal process of talking\, listening\, and learning. This process can lead to coconstructed narratives that are epistemically generative for both those who are telling their stories and those who are appropriate listeners\, leading to the repairing of epistemic wrongs\, the creation of new narratives and new identities\, and\, ultimately\, the development of new selves.
ORGANIZER;CN=Claus Beisbart;CN=Georg Brun: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260508T090000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260509T170000 SUMMARY:The Faculty of All Faculties: Re-Imagining Moral Imagination UID:20260430T010114Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:America/New_York LOCATION:Sarasota\, United States DESCRIPTION:This groundbreaking event is designed to develop novel approaches to the human capacity for moral imagination. Drawing on Sø\;ren Kierkegaard&rsquo\;s claim that moral imagination is not just a human faculty but rather \;the \;faculty encompassing all others\, we intend to show how moral imagination decisively shapes knowing\, feeling\, and willing. The development of the moral imagination\, which allows us to know the experience of others\, feel what matters to others\, and choose possibilities that arise from outside our own horizons\, is essential to healing divisions within our body politic and forming individuals of character. What are the moral issues that arise from the exercise of imagination? What virtues are required to pursue the imaginative life? How does imagination enter into education and formation? What are the connections between ethics and aesthetics? \;
\nTalks:
\nThis groundbreaking event is designed to develop novel approaches to the human capacity for moral imagination. Drawing on Sø\;ren Kierkegaard&rsquo\;s claim that moral imagination is not just a human faculty but rather \;the \;faculty encompassing all others\, we intend to show how moral imagination decisively shapes knowing\, feeling\, and willing. The development of the moral imagination\, which allows us to know the experience of others\, feel what matters to others\, and choose possibilities that arise from outside our own horizons\, is essential to healing divisions within our body politic and forming individuals of character. What are the moral issues that arise from the exercise of imagination? What virtues are required to pursue the imaginative life? How does imagination enter into education and formation? What are the connections between ethics and aesthetics? \;
ORGANIZER;CN=Jeffrey Allan Hanson: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260508T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260508T133000 SUMMARY:“Imagination\, Fantasy\, and Desire” UID:20260430T010116Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:America/New_York LOCATION:Sarasota\, United States DESCRIPTION:This groundbreaking event is designed to develop novel approaches to the human capacity for moral imagination. Drawing on Sø\;ren Kierkegaard&rsquo\;s claim that moral imagination is not just a human faculty but rather \;the \;faculty encompassing all others\, we intend to show how moral imagination decisively shapes knowing\, feeling\, and willing. The development of the moral imagination\, which allows us to know the experience of others\, feel what matters to others\, and choose possibilities that arise from outside our own horizons\, is essential to healing divisions within our body politic and forming individuals of character. What are the moral issues that arise from the exercise of imagination? What virtues are required to pursue the imaginative life? How does imagination enter into education and formation? What are the connections between ethics and aesthetics? \;
ORGANIZER;CN=Jeffrey Allan Hanson: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260508T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260508T133000 SUMMARY:“Kierkgaard on Imagination and Thought Experiment” UID:20260430T010117Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:America/New_York LOCATION:Sarasota\, United States DESCRIPTION:This groundbreaking event is designed to develop novel approaches to the human capacity for moral imagination. Drawing on Sø\;ren Kierkegaard&rsquo\;s claim that moral imagination is not just a human faculty but rather \;the \;faculty encompassing all others\, we intend to show how moral imagination decisively shapes knowing\, feeling\, and willing. The development of the moral imagination\, which allows us to know the experience of others\, feel what matters to others\, and choose possibilities that arise from outside our own horizons\, is essential to healing divisions within our body politic and forming individuals of character. What are the moral issues that arise from the exercise of imagination? What virtues are required to pursue the imaginative life? How does imagination enter into education and formation? What are the connections between ethics and aesthetics? \;
ORGANIZER;CN=Jeffrey Allan Hanson: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260508T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260508T133000 SUMMARY:“Dialectical Intrepidity” UID:20260430T010118Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:America/New_York LOCATION:Sarasota\, United States DESCRIPTION:This groundbreaking event is designed to develop novel approaches to the human capacity for moral imagination. Drawing on Sø\;ren Kierkegaard&rsquo\;s claim that moral imagination is not just a human faculty but rather \;the \;faculty encompassing all others\, we intend to show how moral imagination decisively shapes knowing\, feeling\, and willing. The development of the moral imagination\, which allows us to know the experience of others\, feel what matters to others\, and choose possibilities that arise from outside our own horizons\, is essential to healing divisions within our body politic and forming individuals of character. What are the moral issues that arise from the exercise of imagination? What virtues are required to pursue the imaginative life? How does imagination enter into education and formation? What are the connections between ethics and aesthetics? \;
ORGANIZER;CN=Jeffrey Allan Hanson: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260511T100000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260513T170000 SUMMARY:Process Philosophy in Under-explored traditions in philosophical history UID:20260430T010119Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/London DESCRIPTION:There are two dominant streams for talking about reality in the history of metaphysical thought - \; substance and process. These two streams are noticeable in virtually all traditions but the former seems to have gained more attention at the expense of the latter which offers a more robust and insightful framework for codifying reality. The metaphysical framework of substance has been elevated as absolute and universal in humanity&rsquo\;s comprehension of the self and the world. That metaphysical framework fails in providing a springboard on topics such as value and conscious nature of all ontological entities. As a result\, topics such as the cellular basis of consciousness or biopsychism in plant neurobiology\, panpsychism and its impact over the inter-relationship among all entities for environmental stability have not received penetrating and convincing analysis from the substance-based perspective. This is why an alternative framework in process metaphysics as broadly construed in all religious and philosophic traditions &ndash\; African\, Oriental\, Anglo-American\, and Continental become pertinent.
\nIn its most commonly shared formulation\, process philosophy\, regardless of tradition\, lays emphasis on vital force\, flux\, biopsychism\, dynamism\, relationality and interconnection among entities such that nothing stands in isolation (see Mesle 2008\; Ivakhkiv 2018). Among process philosophers\, there is a shared acknowledgement that reality is &lsquo\;becoming&rsquo\; and an interconnected web such that no event stands in isolation. Process philosophers eschew the mainstream and dominant outlook in traditional metaphysics that changelessness implies perfection (see Rescher 1996\; Mesle 2008). Extant scholarship offers a more robust explanation for topics like ecology (Ivakhiv 2018\; Maffie 2015\; McLeod 2023)\, consciousness (Griffin 2007\; Raud 2021\; Zu 2025)\, agency (Valmisa 2025)\, relationality (Chimakonam &\; Ogbonnaya 2021\; Maffie 2015\; McLeod 2023)\, mystical experiences (Dambrowski 2023)\, and Being (Ofuasia 2024). These are hot topics that signal the importance of such metaphysics for contemporary scholarship. In spite of this common ground\, process scholars in the afore-mentioned philosophical traditions have never engaged one another critically.
\nThis conference will therefore be the first to birth this long overdue intellectual exchange as it offers an improved metaphysical framework for value and consciousness in all ontological entities to address various concerns that are facing humanity: economy\, political\, and environmental. Although there are hesitant answers to some of these global challenges facing humanity\, the influence of substance-based analysis has yet to offer penetrative answers\, in addition to the almost lack of interaction among scholars of process to explore their common ground for a common voice in the way that substance thought has done over the centuries.Based on the foregoing established gap\, anonymized abstracts\, not more than 250 words are invited from scholars of all traditions who specialise in process philosophy over topics that are not limited to the following thematic coverage of the Conference:
\nBeing discourses in two traditions &ndash\; Substance and Process\;
\nBecoming\, relationality\, and vital force in substance and process philosophies\;
\nConsciousness and process philosophy\;
\nProcess-relational philosophy and Ethnophilosophy\;
\nProcess philosophy in conversation: African\, Chinese\, and Indian\;
\nProcess implications for environmental philosophy\;
\nAlternative logics and eventism\;
\nTime and processism in Africa and beyond\;
\nRelational field metaphysics\;
\nRelationality and a process alternative framework in African environmental philosophy\;
\nBecoming and relationality in Aztec thought system\;
\nVitalism\, biopsychism\, panpsychism\, and panexperientialism in processism\;
\nPhilosophic sagacity and processism in African\, Indian\, Chinese\, &\; Anglo-American traditions\;
\nProcess philosophy\, sentience and plant neurobiology\;
\nEzumezu logic and classical logic\;
\nDoctrines of Being in process thought: African and Eastern\;
\nAfrican traditional religions and process theology\;
\nThe subjectivist principle and the reformed subjectivist principle\;
\nPessimism\, meaningfulness\, and becoming\;
\nProcessism in Medieval Islamic theology\;
\nAfro-Brazilian religions and process philosophy\;
\nSelfhood and process philosophy\;
\nRelationality and change in ancient and contemporary philosophical systems\;
\nProcessism in Medieval Christian theology\;
\nProcess theology and Indian religious systems and practices\;
\nChinese philosophy and process thought\;
\nIdentity\, (trans)gender and feminism in relational and vitalist contexts\;
\nBuddhist and Hindu processisms\;
\nProcess philosophy and the question of alternative systems of logic\;
\nAfricana philosophy and processism\;
\nDeath and immortality in Afro-Indo process thoughts\; and
\nProcess theology and the nature of God in classical theology.
\nInstructions &\; Important Timelines
\nOpen Call for Abstracts: \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; September 30\, 2025.
\nAbstract Submissions Deadline: \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \;January 16\, 2026.
\nAbstract Acceptance/Notification to Participants: \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; February 13\, 2025.
\nSubmissions of Article Drafts (to be shared with respondents) ends: \; \;April 15\, 2026.
\nOnline Conference Proper: \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \;May 19-21\, 2026. \; \;
\nDeadline for submission of Final papers for consideration in publication: \; \; July 31\, 2026.
\nTalks are ongoing with a renowned and reputable Journal for a Special Issue edition as post-conference publication.
\nAll abstracts for the online conference MUST be submitted via this link: https://forms.gle/ppjSjRMGDP8CpRNn7
\nNo registration fees but all participants and observers must register before they can get the links to the talks/panels. This will be communicated in due course. For further information\, please relate with Dr. Chukwueloka Uduagwu via email: \; cuduagwu@noun.edu.ng More information will be made available to participants.
\nReferences
\nChimakonam\, J. O. &\; Ogbonnaya\, L.U. (2021). African metaphysics\, epistemology and a new logic: A Decolonial approach to philosophy. Palgrave.
\nDombrowski\, D. (2023). Process Mysticism. SUNY Press.
\nGriffin\, D.R. (2007). Whitehead&rsquo\;s Radically Different Postmodern Philosophy: An Argument for its Contemporary Relevance. SUNY Press.
\nIvakhiv\, A. (2018). Shadowing the Anthropocene: Eco-Realism for Turbulent Times. Punctum Books
\nMaffie\, J. (2015). Aztec Philosophy: Understanding a World in Motion. University Press of Colorado.
\nMcLeod\, A. (2023). An Introduction to Mesoamerican Philosophy. Cambridge University Press.
\nMesle\, R. C. (2008). Process-Relational Philosophy: An Introduction to Alfred North Whitehead. Templeton Foundation Press.
\nOfuasia\, E. (2024). Ì\;wà\;: The process-relational dimension to African metaphysics. Springer Verlag
\nRaud\, R. (2021). Being in Flux: A Post-Athropocentric Ontology of the Self. Polity.
\nRescher\, N. (1996). Process Metaphysics: An Introduction to Process Philosophy. SUNY Press.
\nValmisa\, M. (2025). All Things Act. Oxford University Press.
\nWhitehead\, A.N. (1929 [1978]). Process and reality: An essay in cosmology. The Free Press.
\nZu\, J. (2025). Just Awakening: Yogācāra Social Philosophy in Modern China. Columbia University Press. \;
ORGANIZER;CN=Emmanuel Ofuasia;CN=Chukwueloka S. Uduagwu;CN=Abhishek Tripathi: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260512T163000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260512T180000 SUMMARY:Talk 5: Women’s Writing of Harriet Taylor Mill and its Various Modes of Self-Expression. Talk 6: Karoline von Günderrode: Fragmentation\, Philosophy\, and Early German Romanticism UID:20260430T010120Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/London DESCRIPTION:Register here: https://indico.uni-paderborn.de/event/156/
12.05.2026\, 4.30-6pm (Paris time)
Elżbieta Filipow &ndash\; Women&rsquo\;s Writing of Harriet Taylor Mill and its Various Modes of Self-expression
\nHarriet Taylor Mill (1807&ndash\;1857) was a long-time friend\, intellectual partner\, and\, eventually\, wife of John Stuart Mill (1806&ndash\;1873) &ndash\; one of the main representatives of utilitarianism and an advocate of feminism. My preliminary research has shown that Harriet Taylor Mill is an almost entirely absent figure in the field of literary studies. The aim of my presentation will be to highlight her contribution to the development of women&rsquo\;s writing\, aesthetics\, and literary self-reflection\, based on her essays in aesthetics\, literary criticism\, and poetry. Although the topic of Harriet Taylor Mill&rsquo\;s female writing is completely overlooked from the perspective of her contributions to social thought or feminist philosophy\, it is\, in my view\, worth taking a closer look at these insufficiently explored aspects of various modes of self-expression in her literary activity. Doing so may show her creative output in a different light: as that of a writer with a critical sensibility towards literary work and as a poet addressing themes linked to emotions arising from motherhood and marriage. Particularly\, this last element of her female voice inwriting may serve to complete her portrayal as a woman who attempted to reconcile her feminist beliefs with family life &ndash\; a considerable challenge in the Victorian era. Ultimately\, I will argue that it is possible to demonstrate that Harriet Taylor Mill&rsquo\;s works represents an example of female writing as a form of self-reflection\, which ambivalently set for and against her own perception of the social issues related to gender inequality within the broader context of the role and place of women in Victorian society.
\nAbout the Speaker:Elżbieta Filipow holds MA in sociology and BA in philosophy. Since 2022 she is working as a research assistant in the Department of Ethics at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Warsaw and she is principal investigator in the research project entitled &lsquo\;The Place of Equality in John Stuart Mill&rsquo\;s Utilitarianism&rsquo\; financed by the National Science Centre (Poland) and a research assistant in the project &lsquo\;Enlightenment-Era Pedagogical Reforms and Arguments against the Gendered Conception of Human Progress in Poland and Germany&rsquo\; financed by National Agency of Academic Exchange (NAWA\, Poland). She is completing her doctoral dissertation in philosophy entitled &lsquo\;Perfectionism and Justice. The Equality of Women and Men in John Stuart Mill&rsquo\;s Utilitarianism&rsquo\;. Since 2024 she is doctoral student in a Doctoral School in Sociological Science at the University of Bialystok (Poland). Her doctoral dissertation focuseson the contribution of Harriet Taylor Mill into the canon of sociological thought. In 2024 she was an Academic Visitor at the Faculty of Philosophy\, Oxford University and conducted research in The John Stuart Mill Library at Somerville College
\nShamoni Sarkar - Karoline von Gü\;nderrode: Fragmentation\, Philosophy\, and Early German Romanticism
\nIn this paper\, I argue for a creative ethics grounded in fragmentation in the work of the early German romantic poet and philosopher Karoline von Gü\;nderrode. Scholarship on Gü\;nderrode is scant\, but commentators have emphasized\, among other themes\, her novel environmental ethics and Naturphilosophie\, as well as her original philosophy of gender and selfhood. However\, the larger hermeneutics of the early romantic fragment as a form of philosophical communication has not been sufficiently investigated in terms of her philosophical conception\, especially given her role as a woman on the fringes of the movement. With this in mind\, I provide a close reading of Gü\;nderrode&rsquo\;s essay-fragment &ldquo\;The Idea of the Earth&rdquo\; (Die Idee der Erde) and her lyric poem &ldquo\;The Kiss in the Dream&rdquo\; (Der Kuss im Traume) to show how her concept of the spiritual will\, life\, and dream-inspired creativity all depend on an underlying conception of fragmentation at the core of willing\, living\, and dreaming. We are confronted with fragmentation as both a threat as well as a sustenance of our collective life on earth and of our creative communication. Therefore\, writing in the fragment form is a direct expression of the pain of philosophizing and poeticizing from within a context of a world and a creative will that is consistently torn apart seemingly by its own volition. Gü\;nderrode&rsquo\;s work appeals to our imaginations to see and to use this pain to re-imagine the real rather than chase the ideal. Ideal unity functions more as a limit condition of this philosophical activity rather than as a destination.
\nAbout the Speaker: Shamoni Sarkar obtained her PhD in Philosophy from the University of California\, Riverside in Fall 2025. Her dissertation argued for a conception of openness in community in Early German Romantic philosophy. This is facilitated by the process of reading and understanding the early romantic fragment&ndash\; in which finitude and infinitude work themselves out together. From 2023-2024\, she was an associated doctoral fellow at the Freie Universitä\;t Berlin\, funded by an Einstein Stiftung grant. In the future\, she plans to focus more on women philosophers from the period\, and on investigating alternative forms of &lsquo\;philosophizing&rsquo\; as a form of community creation. \; \; \; \; \;
ORGANIZER;CN=Marguerite El Asmar Bou Aoun;CN=Jil Muller;CN=Daniel Fischer;CN=Katia Raya Rami: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260515T090000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260515T090000 SUMMARY:North American Sartre Society 31st Annual Conference UID:20260430T010121Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/London DESCRIPTION:North American Sartre Society
31st \;Annual Meeting
\nCall for Abstracts
\n\;
\n23-24 October 2026
\nVirtual Zoom Conference \;
\nSubmission Deadline: May 15\, 2026
\n\;
\nTheme
\nA.I.\, Virtual Worlds\, and Digital Existentialism
\n\nThe North American Sartre Society invites proposals for our 31st \;meeting. \; \;Our conference theme is A.I.\, Virtual Worlds\, and Digital Existentialism. We encourage papers that explore existentialism as it relates to A.I.\, social media\, data centers\, and virtual worlds. We encourage papers on topics and questions such as: \;
\n\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \;How does artificial intelligence reshape our understanding of selfhood\, agency\, and responsibility?
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \;Can virtual worlds provide authentic forms of meaning\, identity\, and community\, or are they structurally alienating?
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \;What does &ldquo\;existence&rdquo\; mean when one&rsquo\;s social\, emotional\, and creative life is increasingly mediated by A.I. systems and platforms?
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \;Do A.I.-generated personas and avatars challenge distinctions between authenticity and bad faith?
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \;How should we understand freedom and choice when algorithmic systems increasingly guide behaviors\, desires\, and commitments?
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \;What ethical obligations do creators of A.I. and virtual worlds have toward users&rsquo\; existential well-being and sense of meaning?
\n\nWe invite proposals from any area of Sartre studies and from any disciplinary background. In the spirit of Sartre&rsquo\;s eclectic thinking\, we encourage proposals that address philosophy\, literature\, theater\, aesthetics\, psychology\, politics\, intellectual history\, art\, music\, and other disciplines. Aiming to foster diverse and pluralistic approaches\, we understand Sartre Studies broadly to indicate work in the existentialist tradition\, including work emerging from thinkers like Simone de Beauvoir\, Maurice Merleau-Ponty\, Frantz Fanon\, Richard Wright\, Angela Davis\, Albert Camus\, Anna Julia Cooper\, Harriet Ann Jacobs\, Lewis R. Gordon\, Frederick Douglass\, Kathryn Sophia Belle\, Steve Biko\, Naomi Zack\, Chabani Manganyi\, Emilio Uranga\, Jorge Portilla\, W.E.B. Du Bois\, Aimé\; Cé\;saire\, Keiji Nishitani\, Azzedine Haddour\, Martin Buber\, Hannah Arendt\, Martin Heidegger\, Gabriel Marcel\, Emmanuel Levinas\, Sara Ahmed\, danielle davis\, bell hooks\, Kamau Brathwaite\, Nathalie Etoke\, Achille Mbembe\, Suzanne Cé\;saire\, James Baldwin and others. \;
\n\n\;
\n\;
\n\;
\nKeynote Speaker: Stefano Gualeni
\n\;
\nTitle: Existential Immersion and Care in Virtual Worlds
\nStefano Gualeni is a Full Professor at the Institute of Digital Games\, University of Malta. His academic books include \;Virtual Worlds as Philosophical Tools \;(Palgrave\, 2015)\, \;Virtual Existentialism \;(Palgrave Pivot\, 2020\, with Daniel Vella)\, and \;Fictional Games: A Philosophy of Worldbuilding and Imaginary Play \;(Bloomsbury\, 2023\, with Riccardo Fassone). Stefano&rsquo\;s games\, essays and philosophical fictions can be found on his webpage at \;www.gua-le-ni.com
\nStefano&rsquo\;s philosophical fictions include \;The Clouds: An Experiment in Theory-Fiction \;(Routledge\, 2024)\, \;What We Owe the Dead \;(Set Margins'\, 2025)\, \;Scholar's Codex \;(Tune and Fairweather\, 2026)\, and \;Errata Corpora \;(Set Margins'\, forthcoming in 2027)
\n\nThe submission process:
\n● \; \; \; \; \; \;The submission deadline is May 15. \;
\n● \; \; \; \; \; \;We are accepting abstracts of 300-500 words. Reading time for papers is 20-25 minutes. \;
\n● \; \; \; \; \; \;We will accept proposals for both individual papers and panel proposals. Please indicate if you are interested in the teaching existentialism session. \;
\n● \; \; \; \; \; \;English or French is acceptable.
\n● \; \; \; \; \; \;Please submit your abstract (or any questions) by email to NASS President\, Dane Sawyer\, \;dsawyer@laverne.edu
\n● \; \; \; \; \; \;Graduate students are encouraged to submit.
\n● \; \; \; \; \; \;All proposals will be forwarded to the program committee for review.
\n\nContacts:
\n● \; \; \; \; \; \;Dane Sawyer\, NASS President: dsawyer@laverne.edu
\n● \; \; \; \; \; \;Paul Gyllenhammer\, NASS Co-President: \;gyllenhp@stjohns.edu
\n● \; \; \; \; \; \;Kiki Berk\, NASS Past-President k.berk@snhu.edu
\n● \; \; \; \; \; \;Kimberly Engels\, NASS Treasurer: kengels@molloy.edu \;
\n● \; \; \; \; \; \;Damon Boria\, NASS Member-at-Large: damon.boria@gmail.com \;
\n● \; \; \; \; \; \;T Storm Heter\, NASS Member at Large: sheter@esu.edu \;
\n● \; \; \; \; \; \;James Sares\, NASS Member-at-large: james.sares@uky.edu
\n● \; \; \; \; \; \;Tom Meagher: NASS Member-at-large: tjm101@shsu.edu
\n● \; \; \; \; \; \;Thomas Payre\, NASS Member-at-large: thp42@aber.ac.uk
\n● \; \; \; \; \; \;Varun Chandrasekhar\, NASS Member-at-Large: c.varun@wustl.edu
\n● \; \; \; \; \; \;NASS Webpage: \;https://www.northamericansartresociety.org
\n● \; \; \; \; \; \;NASS Knowledge Commons Page: \;https://hcommons.org/groups/north-american-sartre-studies-society/
\n● \; \; \; \; \; \;NASS Facebook: \; \;https://www.facebook.com/SartreSociety/
\n● \; \; \; \; \; \;Sartre Studies International \;https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/sartre-studies/sartre-studies-overview.xml
ORGANIZER;CN=Dane Sawyer: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Berlin:20260515T234500 DTEND;TZID=Europe/Berlin:20260515T234500 SUMMARY:Libori Summer School 2026 - The History of Women Philosophers and Scientists UID:20260430T010122Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/Berlin LOCATION:Pohlweg 57\, Paderborn\, Germany\, 33098 DESCRIPTION:27.07.-31.07.2026University of Paderborn | In-Person &\; Hybrid Application Deadline: May 15\, 2026 Registration Deadline: July 15\, 2026
\nWe are excited to announce the Libori Summer School 2026\, dedicated to the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists. The Summer School offers an interdisciplinary forum for critical inquiry into women&rsquo\;s intellectual contributions across historical periods\, cultural contexts\, and disciplinary boundaries.
\nThe Libori Summer School invites applications from Bachelor&rsquo\;s\, Master&rsquo\;s and graduate students\, as well as post-doctoral researchers interested in exploring the rich\, diverse\, and often overlooked histories of women philosophers and scientists. We particularly welcome contributions that adopt innovative perspectives\, engage with neglected figures or traditions\, or challenge established narratives through interdisciplinary approaches.
\nPossible areas of interest include (but are by no means limited to):
\nThe Libori Summer School strongly encourages interdisciplinary dialogue\, welcoming submissions that bridge philosophy\, history\, science studies\, literature\, theology\, economics\, environmental studies\, and related fields. Comparative\, cross-cultural\, and transhistorical approaches are especially encouraged.
\nApplication Details:
\nTo apply\, please send the following documents in a single PDF-file no later than May 15\, 2026:
\nTo: jil.muller@uni-paderborn.de
\nNotification of acceptance will be sent out latest by May 30\, 2026\, with early notifications for submissions in the preceding months being communicated in due time.
\nFor candidates coming to Paderborn via BIP Agreement\, the submission deadline is 1st of April\, with notification of acceptance by April 15\, 2026.
\nIt should be noted that the Libori Summer School is scheduled to coincide with the Libori Festival Week\, an event that attracts visitors from across the globe. It is recommended that submissions are made at the earliest opportunity\, as this will facilitate the reservation of hotel accommodation at the earliest opportunity.
\nPlease note that participation is possible both in-person and in a hybrid format.
\n3 ECTS credits will be awarded for participation with scientific paper and presentation.
\nFor attendance without scientific contributions\, please register here: https://indico.uni-paderborn.de/event/157/
ORGANIZER;CN=Ruth Edith Hagengruber;CN=Jil Muller: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Prague:20260518T093000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/Prague:20260519T170000 SUMMARY:EMW XIV: Aesthetic Attention UID:20260430T010123Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/Prague LOCATION:Husova 4\, Praha\, Czech Republic\, 110 00 DESCRIPTION:We cordially invite submissions for the 14th \;Ernst Mach Workshop\, which will focus on the role of aesthetic attention in shaping aesthetic experience and cognitive engagement with the world. The workshop aims to explore how aesthetic attention works and how it influences the appreciation of art and nature\, examining its interplay with perception\, emotion\, and cognitive states. Particular emphasis will be given to modes of aesthetic attention across a range of artistic genres\, including painting\, sculpture\, photography\, literature and music\, as well as conceptual art and even AI-generated art. \;
\nContributions are welcome from scholars working in aesthetics and the philosophy of mind\, as well as from cognitive scientists\, experimental psychologists and neuroscientists. There is no registration fee for the event. \;
\nSubmission deadline: \;March 20\, 2026. Submission portal for anonymized 300-word abstracts: \;https://emw14.sciencesconf.org/
\nInquiries at \;emw@flu.cas.cz
ORGANIZER;CN=Juraj Hvorecky;CN=Tomas Marvan;CN=Tomas Koblizek: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260519T163000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260519T180000 SUMMARY:Talk 7: Philosophy\, God-Seeking\, and Developmental Psychology: Stolitsa and Volkovich in Late Imperial Russia. Talk 8: The Metaphysical Tenacity of Barbara Skarga – Metaphysics in Totalitarianism UID:20260430T010124Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/London DESCRIPTION:Register here: https://indico.uni-paderborn.de/event/156/
19.05.2026\, 4.30-6pm (Paris time)
Maxim Demin - Philosophy\, God-Seeking\, and Developmental Psychology: Stolitsa and Volkovich in Late Imperial Russia
\nThis presentation examines the philosophical project of two largely forgotten Russophone women thinkers\, Zinaida Stolitsa (1873&ndash\;1956) and Vera Volkovich (1873&ndash\;1962). As co-authors and lifelong partners\, they developed a distinctive body of work at the intersection of religious philosophy\, developmental psychology\, and pedagogical reform during the final decades of the Russian Empire. Their voices\, once publicly visible\, were later marginalized and silenced under Soviet rule.Stolitsa and Volkovich strategically used a wide range of media and communicative forms to articulate a female philosophical voice within the early twentieth-century God-Seeking movement. Their collaborative writings\, most notably the manifesto The Future in Our Hands (1909)\, combined speculative religious philosophy with emerging scientific approaches to child psychology. They published philosophical essays\, reviews\, and programmatic statements of their independent society\, and they also participated in international scholarly events in Geneva (1909) and The Hague (1912). These diverse communicative strategies enabled them to claim intellectual authority within discourses traditionally dominated by men. Their reworking of central theological and philosophical concepts\, particularly Stolitsa&rsquo\;s reinterpretation of Man-Godhood\, formulated partly in a one-sided polemic with figures such as Nikolai Berdiaev\, provided a conceptual foundation for their broader agenda of moral\, spiritual\, and national renewal. Their work also contributed to the early twentieth-century feminisation of pedagogical expertise\, placing women at the center of discussions on education and child development. The paper will highlight the paradoxical ideological constellation that shaped their project: an upper-class background combined with conservative moral views\; openness to feminist concerns\; aspirations for international intellectual exchange\; and\, simultaneously\, elements of Russian imperial nationalism and cultural chauvinism on the eve of the First World War. The presentation will also draw on archival photographs and visual materials\, offering a tangible sense of their intellectual and social world.
\nAbout the Speaker: Maxim Demin is a research fellow at the Ruhr University Bochum (Germany). His main interest is post-Hegelian philosophy and its intellectual development in German-speaking countries during the nineteenth century. Before moving to Bochum\, he taught for nearly a decade at the National Research University &ndash\; Higher School of Economics (HSE) in St. Petersburg and Moscow\, offering courses in critical thinking\, philosophy of science\, metaethics\, and moral psychology. His current project explores Russian philosophical and public debates on the emergence of studies of human and animal psychology and mental phenomena\, tracing the transfer of psychological knowledge from the early nineteenth century to the early Soviet regime.
\nPatricia Guevara Wozniak - The Metaphysical Tenacity of Barbara Skarga - Metaphysics in Totalitarianism
\nContrary to twentieth-century proclamations of the &ldquo\;death of metaphysics&rdquo\; and the erosion of truth\, Barbara Skarga persistently defended the metaphysical dimension of human existence. For Skarga\, metaphysicality constitutes the core of being\; its eradication would entail a loss of humanity itself. Her philosophical stance gains particular significance when considered against the backdrop of totalitarian experience\, including her imprisonment in the Gulag.
\nSkarga&rsquo\;s reflection on metaphysics centers on the notion of the source of being\, explored primarily through the categories of time\, evil\, and experience. In a series of philosophical essays\, she emphasizes both the difficulty and the ethical-intellectual value of seeking the origins of being. She critically engages classical conceptions of time&mdash\;physical\, psychological\, and cosmological&mdash\;while foregrounding lived temporality as structured by finitude. Her analysis of evil exposes philosophy&rsquo\;s enduring struggle to comprehend it: as privation of good\, corruption of human nature\, or an inescapable dimension of social violence\, paradoxically accompanied by utopian visions of moral redemption. Addressing experience as a source of being\, she enters into dialogue with thinkers such as Plotinus\, Husserl\, and Heidegger.
\nAfter returning from the Gulag in 1955 and completing her studies\, Skarga joined the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences\, remaining associated with it throughout her career. Although her early academic choices were shaped by Adam Schaff&rsquo\;s centrally planned research agenda\, they ultimately became foundational to her intellectual development and to the formation of the Warsaw School of the History of Ideas.
\nSkarga&rsquo\;s work can be divided into five stages: studies of Polish and French positivism\; research on non-positivist currents in nineteenth-century French philosophy\, culminating in her engagement with Bergson\; a metaphilosophical reflection on the methodology of the history of philosophy\; a &ldquo\;post-critical&rdquo\; metaphysics informed by phenomenology and hermeneutics\; and\, finally\, moral and civic essays affirming the durability of European values. Rather than offering rigid definitions\, Skarga reveals the plurality of meanings and historical configurations through which metaphysical questions persist.
\nAbout the Speaker: Patricia Guevara Wozniak is a Doctor of Humanities in the field of philosophy\, editor\, academic lecturer\, and educator. A graduate of the Academy of Film and Television. She has collaborated with the Academy of Art and Design and with Pedagogium &ndash\; the University of Social Sciences in Warsaw. She is currently a lecturer at Kozminski University. \;She is a beneficiary of the Culture in the Network program awarded by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage and administered by the National Centre for Culture. She is the editor-in-chief of the nationwide monthly Remedium (remedium-psychologia.pl)\, funded by the Ministry of Health and administered by the National Centre for the Prevention of Addictions\, a professional magazine providing up-to-date information on modern methodologies of education and prevention. \;
ORGANIZER;CN=Marguerite El Asmar Bou Aoun;CN=Jil Muller;CN=Daniel Fischer;CN=Katia Raya Rami: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Bucharest:20260522T093000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/Bucharest:20260522T170000 SUMMARY:Power and Vulnerability: Narratives of Uncertainty in Global Dynamics UID:20260430T010125Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/Bucharest LOCATION:Aleea Universității 1\, Constanţa\, Romania DESCRIPTION:The contemporary world is undergoing a period of profound reconfiguration\, marked by a paradox in the meaning of power: while conflictual intentions and technological capacities reach unprecedented levels\, the sense of individual and collective vulnerability is becoming more acute. The international conference &ldquo\;Power and Vulnerability: Narratives of Uncertainty in Global Dynamics&rdquo\; proposes an interdisciplinary exploration of contemporary challenges that are redefining the human condition in a world marked by instability and rapid social transformations. This academic event aims to bring together diverse perspectives &ndash\; theological\, philosophical\, political\, psychological\, and sociological &ndash\; in order to examine three major phenomena that shape the uncertainties of the present: 1. The impact of global armed conflicts on the individual and on social structures\, analyzing not only the immediate effects of violence and destruction\, but also the long term consequences for the human psyche and democratic value systems. Topics such as collective trauma\, post conflict identity reconstruction\, and the redefinition of concepts such as security\, integrity\, peace\, and dialogue will be explored. 2. The intensification of radical political ideologies that borrow and adapt religious narratives\, examining how these movements exploit existential anxieties and the need for meaning in a time of uncertainty. 3. The awareness of an existential pressure generated by the unequal competition between the human biological and cognitive rhythm and the exponential acceleration of technological developments (artificial intelligence\, digitalization\, etc.)\, resulting in an experience of human powerlessness in the face of processes that are difficult to understand and regulate. This section will address ethical dilemmas\, transformations of interpersonal relationships\, as well as new forms of vulnerability and power generated by technological advancement. From a theological and philosophical perspective\, the conference will analyze the role of religious traditions and philosophical paradigms in formulating credible responses to current crises\, questioning the limits of power and re-signifying vulnerability not as weakness\, but as a starting point for an ethic of solidarity and responsibility. From a political and sociological standpoint\, it will examine the transformation of power relations\, the emergence of new forms of radicalization\, the weakening of democratic institutions\, and their effects on human integrity and social cohesion. The psychological approach will explore the traumatic impact of fear\, insecurity\, and the indiscriminate use of technologies on identity and mental health. The conference encourages an integrative approach that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries\, with the aim of offering a more nuanced understanding of the complex relationship between power and vulnerability. By bringing together varied perspectives\, the conference seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the conditions that shape contemporary human experience. Its objective is to identify not only challenges\, but also potential responses and strategies for resilience and adaptation at both individual and collective levels. We invite university professors\, researchers\, and doctoral students from relevant fields to contribute original perspectives and critical analyses on the new meanings of power and vulnerability in our time. The event will provide a platform for interdisciplinary dialogue\, exchange of ideas\, and the development of new academic networks.
ORGANIZER;CN=Dura Ioan: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Bucharest:20260524T100000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/Bucharest:20260528T170000 SUMMARY:Sacralization of Politics and Secularization of Religion. Old Narratives in New Paradigms UID:20260430T010126Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/Bucharest LOCATION:Str Petru Rareș \, Stramtura\, 727593 Strâmtura\, România\, Suceava\, Romania DESCRIPTION:The contemporary world faces a double distortion in articulating the relationship between political authority and religious belief\, a pendulum phenomenon that oscillates between two equally risky extremes: the sacralization of politics and the radical secularization of religion. The international seminar "The Sacralization of Politics and the Secularization of Religion. Old Narratives in New Paradigms" aims to analyze these symmetrical pathologies\, inviting critical reflection on the place of the Church in the polis and the legitimate limits of secular power.\nThe first line of analysis concerns the sacralization of politics\, a phenomenon whereby the state or a particular ideology arrogates to itself a soteriological character\, claiming absolute authority and an aura of sacred intangibility. This tendency\, identifiable from ancient monarchies to modern totalitarianisms and subtle forms of contemporary political idolatry\, transforms the instrument into the goal. The seminar will explore how authentic theology and critical thinking provide the tools necessary to unmask this claim as idolatry\, reaffirming the essential distinction between the Kingdom of God and any historical political regime\, which is inherently provisional and subject to ethical judgment.\nThe second direction focuses on the opposite pole: the absolute secularization of religion. This is not limited to a necessary institutional distinction\, but describes a programmatic exclusion of the religious voice from the public sphere\, reducing faith to a strictly subjective and private experience. In the context of what was called the "dictatorship of relativism\," the seminar will question the illusion of the "axiological neutrality" of the public sphere. It will examine how the void left by the withdrawal of religion is often filled by new "civil religions" and secular beliefs\, which function as undeclared dogmatic systems of meaning.\nThe academic event invites researchers in the fields of theology\, philosophy\, political science\, sociology\, and law to contribute to a necessary debate on the restoration of a dynamic balance. How can religious traditions refuse complicity with political idolatry without retreating into a pietism that is irrelevant to the current global context? How can the public dimension of religion&mdash\;especially through the defense of the vulnerable and the promotion of justice&mdash\;be reaffirmed in a society that claims absolute autonomy for the political? How can the role of religion in defending human dignity and the common good be redefined\, beyond political partisanship or retreat into the private sphere?\nWe welcome proposals for papers that address these tensions\, offering original perspectives on how individuals and communities can navigate and avoid the sacralization of politics and the secularization of religion. ORGANIZER;CN=Dura Ioan: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20260526T093000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20260529T170000 SUMMARY:SUSANNE K. LANGER: Artistic Angles\, Philosophical Circles\, Poetic Dots\, and Technical Lines UID:20260430T010127Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/Vienna LOCATION:Karlsplatz 13\, Vienna\, Austria\, 1040 DESCRIPTION:The Susanne K. Langer Circle hosted at Utrecht University will collaborate in 2026 with the Research Unit Architecture Theory and Philosophy of Technics (ATTP) at TU Wien and the Institute Vienna Circle at the University of Vienna in realizing its third bi-annual conference: \;
\nSUSANNE K. LANGER: Artistic Angles\, Philosophical Circles\, Poetic Dots\, and Technical Lines
\nVienna\, 26&ndash\;29 May 2026
\nThe architectonic vernacular of angles\, circles\, dots\, and lines composes the conceptual sketchpad that maps the theoretical edifice of Susanne K. Langer&rsquo\;s work in logic\, the arts\, philosophy of mind\, and philosophy of science. This conference aims to explore Langer's philosophical framework and invites scholars as well as artists to actuate her philosophical methods\, spanning from logical analysis and synthesis to embodied cognition\, symbolic projection\, and understanding.
\nArtistic Angles \;
Perceived widely as an artists&rsquo\; philosopher\, Susanne K. Langer&rsquo\;s thought has informed media-theoretical debates on the affective turn\, conceptual undercurrents of carnal rhetorics and speculations in new materialism(s)\, providing a toolkit to capture the artefacts of expressiveness. This distinctive artistic angle for theory shapes Langer's approach to the body-mind and to aesthetic cognition. Her philosophy\, synthesizing Alfred N. Whitehead&rsquo\;s process metaphysics and Ernst Cassirer&rsquo\;s anthropology of symbolic forms\, echoes later post-structuralist movements in its exploration of non-linguistic dimensions of meaning. These intersections situate Langer&rsquo\;s philosophy of artistic expressiveness as a mode of epistemological import.
Philosophical Circles
Langer's orbital relationship with the Vienna Circle is exemplified in her 1930 book\, The Practice of Philosophy (praised by Moritz Schlick)\, in which she was among the first to articulate the &ldquo\;&rsquo\;analytic` type&rdquo\; of philosophy (p. 17)\, well before its widespread adoption in the 1950s. She also played a key role in helping exiled Vienna Circle members (e.g. Herbert Feigl or Eugen T. Gadol) settle in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s. Establishing her own philosophical circle at Harvard\, devoted to the discussion of logic\, Langer bridged the transatlantic evolution of analytic philosophy. Her scholarly thinking blended empirical rigour and experiential meaning-making with process-oriented thought.
Poetic Dots and Technical Lines
Langer&rsquo\;s legacy &ndash\; one that bridges philosophical and epistemic divides &ndash\; invites a re-negotiation of living form\; for Langer\, mind is grounded in an intricate matrix of exogenic and autogenic processes that expand the idea of living and non-living entities\, and the systems they are embedded in. The continued computational turn &ndash\; advancements in algorithmic learning and synthetic biology &ndash\; blur the contours of mechanics and organism\, life and form. \;
This conference seeks to make tangible the poetic and technological transversality currently intersecting philosophy\, science\, and the arts. \;
Program
The program is structured around the subheadings "Artistic Angles"\, "Philosophical Circles"\, "Poetic Dots"\, and "Technical Lines". Confirmed keynote speakers are Salomé\; Voegelin (Tuesday)\, Sander Verhaegh (Wednesday) and Adam Nocek (Thursday). \;
Information
For further information\, visit the Langer Circle website: https://langercircle.sites.uu.nl/
For updates on the program\, please register as a member: https://langercircle.sites.uu.nl/register/
Organized in collaboration with the Research Unit Architecture Theory and Philosophy of Technics\, ATTP at the Vienna University of Technology and the IVC Institute Vienna Circle at the University of Vienna\, this conference illuminates the history and relevance of Susanne K. Langer's philosophy&mdash\;demonstrating how her thought continues in contemporary debates in philosophy\, aesthetics\, the arts\, and science\, and how it is linked to the city of ideas\, Vienna.
\nConference Committee: \;Prof. Vera Bü\;hlmann (AT)\, Dr. Lona Gaikis (AT)\, Dr. Matthew Ingram (USA)\, \;Dr. Tereza Hadravová\; (CZ)\, \;Prof. Randall E. Auxier (USA)\, Prof. Christian Grü\;ny (DE).
ORGANIZER;CN=Lona Gaikis;CN="Vera Bühlmann";CN=Matthew Bruce Ingram;CN=Tereza Hadravova;CN=Randall E. Auxier;CN="Christian Grüny": METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260528T120000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260529T170000 SUMMARY:Racism\, Nationalism and Xenophobia - 9th International Interdisciplinary Conference UID:20260430T010128Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/London DESCRIPTION:Conference online (via Zoom)
\nCFP:
\n\; \; \; \; \; It is widely known that ideologies of racism\, nationalism\, and xenophobia are dangerous and spread all over the world. We want to examine these terms as much as possible\, from many perspectives and variable aspects: in politics\, society\, psychology\, culture\, and many more. We also want to devote considerable attention to how the phenomena of racism\, nationalism and xenophobia are represented in artistic practices: in literature\, film\, theatre or visual arts.
\nOur first conference on racism\, nationalism and xenophobia took place in Warsaw in March 2016. The second edition was held in June 2018\, followed by subsequent editions in 2020\, 2021\, 2022\, 2023\, 2024\, and 2025. We have hosted over 250 scholars representing universities and research institutions from all over the world. \;
\nWe invite researchers representing various academic disciplines: history\, politics\, psychology\, sociology\, anthropology\, philosophy\, economics\, law\, literary studies\, theatre studies\, film studies\, fine arts\, design\, memory studies\, migration studies\, consciousness studies\, dream studies\, gender studies\, postcolonial studies\, medical sciences\, psychiatry\, psychoanalysis\, cognitive sciences among others.
\nDifferent forms of presentations are encouraged\, including case studies\, theoretical investigations\, problem-oriented arguments\, and comparative analyses.
\nWe will be happy to hear from both experienced scholars and young academics at the start of their careers\, as well as doctoral students. We also invite all individuals who wish to attend the conference as listeners\, without giving a presentation.
\nWe hope that due to its interdisciplinary nature\, the conference will bring many interesting observations on and discussions about the role of racism\, nationalism and xenophobia in the past and in the present-day world. \;
\n\; \; \; \; \;Our repertoire of suggested topics includes but is \;not restricted \;to:
\nI. Politics and History
\nColonialism / postcolonialism
\nAntisemitism: past and present
\nIslamophobia and terrorism
\nOrientalism
\nImperialism
\nCrimes against humanity
\nHuman rights violations
\nRacism\, nationalism and political correctness
\nNationalism and patriotism
\nXenophobia and cosmopolitism
\nRacism\, nationalism and religion
\nII. Anthropology and Philosophy \;
\nIdeologies of racism
\nNationalism and the &ldquo\;will of power&rdquo\;
\ncultural determinants of racism\, nationalism\, and xenophobia
\nNationalist states
\nXenophobic societies
\nRacist generations
\nIII. Psychology
\nStereotypes and prejudices
\nRacist myths and phantasms
\nRacism and scapegoat mechanism \;
\nXenophobia and sense of guilt
\nNationalism and narcissism
\nProjection and repression
\nIndividual and social susceptibility to hate ideologies
\nTherapy for victims of discrimination
\nIV. Memory and the Protection of Human Rights
\nOrganization for the protection of human rights \;
\nEducation against racism\, nationalism and xenophobia
\nMemory in the service of education
\nMemorial places
\nSolidarity with victims of violence
\nEmpathy toward the Other
\nV. Literature and the Arts
\nRacism\, nationalism and xenophobia in literature
\nRacism\, nationalism and xenophobia in film
\nRacism\, nationalism and xenophobia in theatre
\nLiterature and the arts against hate ideology
\nRacist artists
\nPlease submit abstracts (no longer than 300 words) of your proposed 20-minute presentations\, together with a short biographical note\, by \;10 May \;2026 \;to: \;inconferenceoffice@gmail.com
ORGANIZER: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260530T080000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260530T080000 SUMMARY:(Neo)Colonial Images and Literature: The Construction of the Other UID:20260430T010129Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/London LOCATION:Gibbet Hill Road\, Coventry\, United Kingdom\, CV4 7AL DESCRIPTION:SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
\nAbstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted between \;July 7th\, 2025\, and \;October 15th\, 2025.
\nPlease include a short biography (100 words) and institutional affiliation with your submission.
\nApproved abstracts will be informed by \;December 2025.
\nThe final paper must be sent by \;May 1st\, 2026\, for internal circulation.
\nWe invite scholars to submit proposals for our upcoming conference\, which will examine how colonial and neocolonial powers have influenced representations of non-Western countries and their peoples in literature\, the arts\, and the media. This event seeks to investigate how these representations have been instrumental in constructing negative stereotypes\, enforcing cultural hierarchies\, and sustaining hegemonic narratives that marginalise indigenous\, local\, and non-Western communities.
\nColonial and imperial discourses\, as &ldquo\;a cultural domination from abroad&rdquo\; (Da Silva &\; Matheus\, 2024)\, have long employed literary and artistic productions of Other Non-Western subjects\, portraying them as exotic\, primitive\, or even barbaric. From the portrayal of Native Brazilian Indigenous peoples as cannibals in Early Modern Portuguese colonial literature to the transformation of \;One Thousand and One Nights \;through Neoclassical French translations that distorted its original Arabic cultural context\, such narratives have served to reinforce Western dominance and justify subjugation.
\nMore recently\, in a postcolonial context\, various productions continue to operate in the shadows of (neo)colonialism and (neo)imperialism\, often carrying colonial overtones (Qiao\, 2018). Neocolonial cultural productions\, such as the French-directed \;Emilia Pé\;rez (a film about Mexican drug cartels cast with American actors)\, continue to generate controversy over who has the authority to tell certain stories and how these depictions are received by the communities they claim to represent. Western agents (e.g. translators\, producers\, directors\, editors\, publishers\, and reviewers) stillreframe productions from the Global South through a (neo)colonial and (neo)orientalist lens\, constructing Western-centric narratives about these works\, their countries\, and their people. For example\, American and British agents often situate Chinese personal stories within Western dominant narratives of a &ldquo\;dark&rdquo\; and &ldquo\;dystopian&rdquo\; China\, translating them according to their hegemonic standards (Tan\, 2024).
\nThis conference will examine the mechanisms through which (neo)colonial powers have influenced literary\, artistic\, and media portrayals of non-Western subjects\, as well as their impacts on their self-identification. We seek to explore questions such as:
\nWe welcome proposals from a range of disciplines\, including but not limited to Literature\, History\, Film Studies\, Philosophy\, Translation Studies\, Cultural and (Post)colonial Studies\, \;Journalism\, and Media Studies. Papers may address historical cases or contemporary examples and may take a comparative\, theoretical\, or case-study approach.
\nRELEVANT DETAILS \;
\nAs an interdisciplinary conference\, it aims to capture the attention of scholars examining (neo)colonial representations and how perceptions of the Others are shaped through various media.
\nThis conference is tailored for national and international scholars\, students\, and early-career researchers interested in Literature\, Art\, Cultural Studies\, History\, Philosophy\, Sociology\, etc. As our conference will follow the \;Society for Latin American Studies&rsquo\; \;Climate Action Plan\, we also warmly invite colleagues to endorse the \;BPA/SWIP Good Practice Scheme \;and follow the \;BPA Environmental Travel Policy.
\nThe conference will take place in person at the University of Warwick on \;May 30th\, 2026.
\nWe look forward to your contributions and an engaging discussion.
\nPlease\, send your abstract to both emails: \;
\nGustavo Ruiz da Silva: \;gustavo.da-silva@warwick.ac.uk
\nXiaoyan Tan: \;xiaoyan.tan@warwick.ac.uk
\nNo fees will be charged for this conference.
\nPUBLISHING OPPORTUNITY
\nThe \;Warwick Series in the Humanities (with Routledge) \;publishes the varied and multidisciplinary outcomes of projects funded by the HRC. Following this tradition\, our conference will organise an edited volume based on the presented papers\, and offer its publication to Routledge.
ORGANIZER;CN=Gustavo Ruiz da Silva;CN=Xiaoyan Tan: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260530T090000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260530T170000 SUMMARY:(Neo)Colonial Images and Literature: The Construction of the Other UID:20260430T010130Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/London LOCATION:Gibbet Hill Road\, Coventry\, United Kingdom\, CV4 7AL DESCRIPTION:SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
\nAbstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted between \;July 7th\, 2025\, and \;October 15th\, 2025.
\nPlease include a short biography (100 words) and institutional affiliation with your submission.
\nApproved abstracts will be informed by \;December 2025.
\nThe final paper must be sent by \;May 1st\, 2026\, for internal circulation.
\nWe invite scholars to submit proposals for our upcoming conference\, which will examine how colonial and neocolonial powers have influenced representations of non-Western countries and their peoples in literature\, the arts\, and the media. This event seeks to investigate how these representations have been instrumental in constructing negative stereotypes\, enforcing cultural hierarchies\, and sustaining hegemonic narratives that marginalise indigenous\, local\, and non-Western communities.
\nColonial and imperial discourses\, as &ldquo\;a cultural domination from abroad&rdquo\; (Da Silva &\; Matheus\, 2024)\, have long employed literary and artistic productions of Other Non-Western subjects\, portraying them as exotic\, primitive\, or even barbaric. From the portrayal of Native Brazilian Indigenous peoples as cannibals in Early Modern Portuguese colonial literature to the transformation of \;One Thousand and One Nights \;through Neoclassical French translations that distorted its original Arabic cultural context\, such narratives have served to reinforce Western dominance and justify subjugation.
\nMore recently\, in a postcolonial context\, various productions continue to operate in the shadows of (neo)colonialism and (neo)imperialism\, often carrying colonial overtones (Qiao\, 2018). Neocolonial cultural productions\, such as the French-directed \;Emilia Pé\;rez (a film about Mexican drug cartels cast with American actors)\, continue to generate controversy over who has the authority to tell certain stories and how these depictions are received by the communities they claim to represent. Western agents (e.g. translators\, producers\, directors\, editors\, publishers\, and reviewers) stillreframe productions from the Global South through a (neo)colonial and (neo)orientalist lens\, constructing Western-centric narratives about these works\, their countries\, and their people. For example\, American and British agents often situate Chinese personal stories within Western dominant narratives of a &ldquo\;dark&rdquo\; and &ldquo\;dystopian&rdquo\; China\, translating them according to their hegemonic standards (Tan\, 2024).
\nThis conference will examine the mechanisms through which (neo)colonial powers have influenced literary\, artistic\, and media portrayals of non-Western subjects\, as well as their impacts on their self-identification. We seek to explore questions such as:
\nWe welcome proposals from a range of disciplines\, including but not limited to Literature\, History\, Film Studies\, Philosophy\, Translation Studies\, Cultural and (Post)colonial Studies\, \;Journalism\, and Media Studies. Papers may address historical cases or contemporary examples and may take a comparative\, theoretical\, or case-study approach.
\nRELEVANT DETAILS \;
\nAs an interdisciplinary conference\, it aims to capture the attention of scholars examining (neo)colonial representations and how perceptions of the Others are shaped through various media.
\nThis conference is tailored for national and international scholars\, students\, and early-career researchers interested in Literature\, Art\, Cultural Studies\, History\, Philosophy\, Sociology\, etc. As our conference will follow the \;Society for Latin American Studies&rsquo\; \;Climate Action Plan\, we also warmly invite colleagues to endorse the \;BPA/SWIP Good Practice Scheme \;and follow the \;BPA Environmental Travel Policy.
\nThe conference will take place in person at the University of Warwick on \;May 30th\, 2026.
\nWe look forward to your contributions and an engaging discussion.
\nPlease\, send your abstract to both emails: \;
\nGustavo Ruiz da Silva: \;gustavo.da-silva@warwick.ac.uk
\nXiaoyan Tan: \;xiaoyan.tan@warwick.ac.uk
\nNo fees will be charged for this conference.
\nPUBLISHING OPPORTUNITY
\nThe \;Warwick Series in the Humanities (with Routledge) \;publishes the varied and multidisciplinary outcomes of projects funded by the HRC. Following this tradition\, our conference will organise an edited volume based on the presented papers\, and offer its publication to Routledge.
ORGANIZER;CN=Gustavo Ruiz da Silva;CN=Xiaoyan Tan: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Bucharest:20260531T090000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/Bucharest:20260601T170000 SUMMARY:Conceptualising the Self UID:20260430T010131Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/Bucharest LOCATION:Splaiul Independentei nr. 204\, Bucharest\, Romania DESCRIPTION:New approaches and advances in philosophy\, psychology\, neuroscience\, and rising interest and development in alternative views regarding the concept of self\, gave rise to novel discussions and debates about what constitutes the self\, or even if there is such a &ldquo\;thing&rdquo\; as a self. Therefore\, Conceptualising the Self aims to bring together researchers working in fields such as (but not limited to): philosophy\, cognitive science\, psychology\, neuroscience\, sociology\, anthropology\, in order further our understanding and promote interdisciplinary dialogue concerning novel developments that have implications for how the self is conceived.
\nWe encourage contributions addressing the following questions:
\nIf you want to attend the event may register at the ubphilosophymasters@gmail.com (or by RSVP here on PhilEvents) on or before the 31st of May in order to receive the Zoom connection details if you want to attend online.
\nThe conference will take place on May 31st and July 1st in Bucharest\, Romania. It will have a mixed format\, in that speakers may choose whether they present online only or face to face at the event's location (if so\, their session will enjoy a live audience\, but it will also be streamed to remote participants).
ORGANIZER;CN=Daniel Cristian Stancu;CN=Sandra-Catalina Branzaru: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260601T090000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260601T090000 SUMMARY:Elvis and Philosophy: Essays Concerning the King UID:20260430T010132Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/London DESCRIPTION:Call for Abstracts!
\nElvis and Philosophy: Essays Concerning the King
Edited by Joshua Heter and Richard Greene
Abstracts are sought for a collection of essays on any philosophical topic related to Elvis Aaron Presley to be published with Wallace &\; Jacobs Press. We hope to receive a number of submissions concerning his music and movies as well as his persona\, life\, relationships\, cultural impact\, legacy\, mythos\, etc. Abstracts and eventual essays should be written for an educated but non-specialized audience (with an approximate length of 3\,000 &ndash\; 3\,500 words). Potential topics include (but are not limited to!)&hellip\;
Conspiracy Theories: Why do we believe in conspiracy theories? Can we explain why so many folks have claimed to see Elvis after he died?
Cultural Appropriation: What is cultural appropriation\, is it always a bad thing\, and was Elvis guilty of it?
Celebrity: What is celebrity worship\, and why do we worship celebrities? Is it irrational to have admiration for Elvis and Elvis types? Does philosophy have anything interesting to say about fame?
Ethics: Is it at all ethically dubious to ignore Elvis&rsquo\;s more problematic relationships (e.g.\, with Priscilla)? Is there ever a line where consuming the art of a person of poor character is morally unacceptable?
Mythology: Who was Elvis\, really? Can we distinguish between Elvis the man and Elvis the Legend?
Legacy: What is Elvis&rsquo\;s Legacy? How was it affected by his untimely death?
Philosophy of Love: What makes for a good love song? Why are so many songs centered around (romantic or other types of) love?
Psychology: Why do we listen to such sad Elvis songs (e.g.\, &ldquo\;Heartbreak Hotel\,&rdquo\; &ldquo\;Blue Christmas&rdquo\;)?
Social Justice: What sort of legacy does Elvis and/or his songs have in regard to social justice?
Aesthetics: What makes Elvis&rsquo\;s brand of rock and roll so aesthetically appealing? Does his crossing of genres make him a more significant artistic figure?
Authorship: When judging Elvis as an artist\, does it matter that he didn&rsquo\;t write hardly any of his own songs?
Spirituality / Religion: What are we to make of Elvis as a messenger for the Gospel? Who was Elvis the seeker?
Civil Rights: Did Elvis do enough to promote civil rights (given his connection to African American music)?
History of Philosophy: What would philosophers from history think of Elvis\, his movies\, and the music he created? Would any of them have been a fan?
Contributor Guidelines:
Mail abstracts (and any questions) to: elvisandphilosophy@gmail.com.
1. Abstracts should be between 100 &ndash\; 500 words.
2. Potential contributors must include a resume/CV for each author/coauthor.
3. Initial submissions should be made by e-mail as either a Word doc. or a PDF.
4. Deadlines:
Abstracts due by: June 1\, 2026
First drafts due by: September 14\, 2026
Final drafts due by: October 26\, 2026
(Early submissions are encouraged and welcomed!)
Call for Papers for the Fourth Philosophy and Religion Graduate Student Conference at the University of North Texas (UNT) \;
\nIn a time of crises overshadowed by impressions of the precarity and contingency of the plurality of worlds we live in\, we invite interdisciplinary\, critical reflection on the meaning and stakes of our senses of world and ending. While totalizing narratives of crises oscillate between techno-optimistic visions of geoengineering and dystopic pessimism\, this conference seeks to contextualize dominant understandings of endings to envision new conceptions of time\, relations\, and finality beyond the hegemonic imaginaries.
\nFor whom and what do the apocalyptic bells of the end of the world sound? What does it even mean to conceive of &ldquo\;our&rdquo\; world as ending? Who&rsquo\;s included and excluded from this sense of world? What does it mean for traditions in which the end of the world is inevitable\, cyclical\, or has already come to pass? What would this so-called &ldquo\;end of the world&rdquo\; even mean for people who&rsquo\;ve already endured innumerable ends to their ways of life? \;
\nTaking up the gauntlet thrown by Thomas Nail in Theory of the Earth\, we ask for submissions that problematize static\, dominant conceptions of world and think with him on what it means\, in the context of crises\, to imagine how &ldquo\;this stable ground is becoming increasingly unstable&mdash\;for some of us more than others.&rdquo\; In this spirit\, the conference seeks to engage with forms of thought that emphasize the radically plural character of sense-making\, ways of knowing\, and temporal existence. We welcome submissions that build upon these critical and marginalized perspectives to challenge assumptions of crisis and delimit what worlds are at stake. Within these broad thematic horizons\, we aim to bring together a diverse set of perspectives into dialogue and reconceptualize our relationship to planet Earth. \;
\nWe cordially invite graduate students from all fields and disciplines to submit their research and perspectives on the following themes:
\nIndigenous &\; non-Western conceptions of world-making\, cataclysm\, and/or time
\nFeminist/Queer theories on resistant subjectivities and spaces in the face of precarity
\nGeophilosophical approaches from traditions historically excluded from philosophy (ex. Sikhism\, Buddhism\, Hinduism\, etc.) \;
\nPhilosophies of science and normative theories that utilize a planetary approach \;
\nRelational ontologies\, specifically those with nonhuman and more-than-human beings
\nPhenomenological accounts of temporality\, &ldquo\;world collapse\,&rdquo\; and futurity
\nCritical theories on the &ldquo\;Anthropocene&rdquo\; and the role of capitalism in the ongoing environmental crisis
\nEcocritical perspectives on the role of technology and natural science in organizing our sense of the Earth
\nConference Details
\nThe conference will be held in-person at the University of North Texas\, Denton\, TX\, from November 13th-15th. This conference does not require registration fees. \;
\nThe conference will feature Thomas Nail\, a Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Denver\, as the keynote speaker\, whose materialist interventions in conceptions of earth and planet\, particularly in Theory of the Earth\, pose deep and transformational reflections on imaginaries of time\, space\, and world for our context of apocalypse and crisis.
\nSubmission Guidelines Prepare an abstract of 500 words to be submitted to prgraduateconferenceUNT@gmail.com by June 1\, 23:59 PM CST for review by the graduate conference committee. In the body of your email\, please include author affiliation including your current year and place of graduate study as well as your preferred email for conference communications.
\nEach accepted presenter will have the opportunity to deliver a 20-minute presentation\, followed by a 10-minute response from a UNT Philosophy and Religion graduate student\, culminating in a 15-minute Q&\;A session.
\nKey dates:
\nAbstract Submission Deadline: June 1\, 23:59 PM CST \;
\nNotification of Acceptance: July 31\, 23:59 PM CST \;
\nFinal Paper Deadline: October 1\, 23:59 CST
\nFor inquiries and clarifications\, please contact prgraduateconferenceunt@gmail.com. \;
ORGANIZER: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260602T163000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260602T180000 SUMMARY:Talk 9: Autonomy Beyond Kant: Butler\, Tronto\, and Interdependence. Talk 10: ntervening Assemblages of Trans-formation/Action: Beatriz Nascimento (1942–1995) UID:20260430T010134Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/London DESCRIPTION:Register here: https://indico.uni-paderborn.de/event/156/
\n02.06.2026\, 4.30-6pm (Paris time)
\nJake Nicholas Brooks - Autonomy Beyond Kant: Butler\, Tronto\, and Interdependence
\nThe aim of this contribution is to highlight - from a standpoint of intersectional critique &ndash\; the limitation of the Kantian conception of autonomy\, grounded on a male and autonomous subject\, that has shaped Western philosophical and theological discourses. The contribution will develop along two complementary lines. First\, drawing on Butler&rsquo\;s critique of the State of Nature tradition\, it will show how the subject of modern philosophy has always been conceived as already adult\, male\, and autonomous\, thus masking the condition of dependency inherent to human beings. Butler&rsquo\;s analysis reveals how this framework is produced through exclusions of those identities\, which are shaped by gender oppression and racialization. Butler&rsquo\;s work demonstrates that dependency is not a deviation from the norm\, rather a constitutive feature of human life. Secondly\, relying on Tronto&rsquo\;s care ethic\, the contribution will argue that humanity is better understood as grounded on interdependence\, where care relationships are not only fundamental for democratic societies\, but also for a responsible and adequate care of human beings. Tronto&rsquo\;s analysis highlights how the unequal distribution of care labor - which is historically borne by women or racialized and marginalized groups - is grounded on &ldquo\;passes&rdquo\; given to men\, that exempt them from care responsibilities. Through Tronto&rsquo\;s theory it will become clear that a model of humanity grounded on interdependence and responsibility is necessary for a more equal ethical and political life. Through this two-fold analysis\, this contribution aims at demonstrating the necessity for an ontological shift: it is necessary to overcome the conception of humanity as male-centered\, autonomous and self-made\, to a vision of humanity as interdependent\, needy\, vulnerable\, and relational.
\nAbout the Speaker: Jake Nicholas Brooks is MA graduate with honors in Philosophy at University of Rome &ldquo\;La Sapienza&rdquo\;. His research interests revolve around Political Philosophy\, Feminist Theories\, and Gender Studies. He carried out a thesis on the Habermasian conception of progress. He has published an article in double-blind peer review for Quaderni Leif - ethical and moral journal from the University of of Catania - on Tronto&rsquo\;s ethics&rsquo\;s of care and Simone Weil&rsquo\;s perspective on war. He is currently working on a paper for Etica-Mente\, another journal of University of Catania\, concerning Tronto&rsquo\;s conception of interdependence
\n\;
\nKaimé\; Guerrero Valencia - Intervening Assemblages of Trans-formation/Action: Beatriz Nascimento (1942-1995)
\nThis paper examines the intellectual\, artistic\, and political contributions of Beatriz Nascimento (1942&ndash\;1995)\, a leading figure of Brazil&rsquo\;s Black Movement. It situates her work at the intersection of historiography\, aesthetics\, and political theory\, showing how she developed innovative conceptual and methodological tools to contest colonial structures of knowledge and create new practices of Black autonomy. Through an interdisciplinary analysis of her essays\, poetry\, archival materials\, and the documentary Ô\;rí\; (1989)\, the paper argues that Nascimento\, by mobilizing writing\, film\, and activism as intertwined strategies\, elaborates a distinct theoretical\, methodological\, and ethical approach that redefines Black historiography\, advances the conception of a Black utopia\, and reconfigures the quilombo (maroon societies) as a political and existential category. At the core of Nascimento&rsquo\;s oeuvre is the concept of trans-formaç\;ã\;o/aç\;ã\;o\, a neologism that denotes processes of transformation enacted through language. She theorizes language not as a neutral medium but as a site of material and historical change\, capable of unsettling hegemonic orders and generating new forms of collective subjectivity. The paper demonstrates how she strategically combined academic\, poetic\, and cinematic registers to transform language itself into an instrument of resistance. Nascimento&rsquo\;s work establishes the conditions for new forms of Black historiography in which freedom is articulated not as an abstract universal but as a lived and collective practice. Her oeuvre constitutes an embodied\, aesthetic\, and political historiography of the Black diaspora\, in which the quilombo functions as both archive and horizon of freedom\, and Black utopia materializes through collective practices of memory\, writing\, and resistance.
\nAbout the Speaker: Kaimé\; Guerrero Valencia were born in Quito\, Ecuador\, and has been living in Berlin for ten years. They studied sociology and political science at the Pontificia Universidad Cató\;lica del Ecuador\, followed by a MA degree in interdisciplinary Latin American studies with a gender profile at the Free University of Berlin. They are currently completing their PhD in the Collaborative Research Center Intervening Arts in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Their research interests include the intersections between aesthetic\, political and scientific processes in the production of alternative forms of word-making
ORGANIZER;CN=Marguerite El Asmar Bou Aoun;CN=Jil Muller;CN=Daniel Fischer;CN=Katia Raya Rami: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260608T090000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260612T170000 SUMMARY:ISTP 2026 Conference: Theorizing in Dark Times – Art\, Narrative\, Politics UID:20260430T010135Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:America/New_York LOCATION:200 Willoughby Ave \, New York\, United States\, 11205 DESCRIPTION:STP 2026 Conference &ndash\; &ldquo\;Theorizing in Dark Times &ndash\; Art\, Narrative\, Politics&rdquo\;
\nJune 8 &ndash\; June 12\, 2026
\nPratt Institute\, Brooklyn\, NY\, USA
\nwww.pratt.edu/ISTP-2026
\nCALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS
\nThe International Society for Theoretical Psychology (ISTP\, www.istpsychology.org) will host its 2026 conference at Pratt Institute&rsquo\;s Brooklyn\, New York Campus\, which is located on Lenapehoking\, the traditional and unceded homeland of the Lenape people\, past\, present\, and future.
\nThe conference theme &ldquo\;Theorizing in Dark Times &ndash\; Art\, Narrative\, Politics&rdquo\; invites scholars\, artists\, and practitioners to critically reflect on the ways in which theory operates not only as an intellectual tool but as a form of political engagement.
\nAt the heart of the conference lies the question: What is the role of theory in dark times? Theoretical psychology has long sought to understand the human condition\, yet in moments of global crisis\, theory itself becomes a site of political resistance. The conference will examine how theory functions as a political force\, shaping narratives of power\, ideology\, and agency. It will address the political implications of psychological theory\, asking how psychological concepts\, often regarded as neutral or apolitical\, become entangled with broader social and political dynamics.
\nThe conference will also provide the room to explore how the arts\, through their ability to create alternative narratives and question existing power structures\, play a pivotal role in advancing theoretical inquiry in times of crisis. Art\, in this context\, is not merely reflective\; it is transformative\, offering new ways to theorize human experience and political realities.
\nWe warmly invite scholars from theoretical psychology and neighboring disciplines&mdash\;philosophy\, sociology\, anthropology\, literature\, the arts\, and beyond&mdash\;to submit their contributions and join us at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn\, New York\, from June 8 to June 12\, 2026. Whether through theoretical reflection\, conceptual analyses\, or creative interventions\, we seek diverse perspectives that critically engage with the conference theme. Contributions beyond the conference theme are also welcome. Submit here: www.pratt.edu/ISTP-2026. The deadline is December 10\, 2025.
\n&mdash\;&mdash\;&mdash\;&mdash\;&mdash\;&mdash\;
\nThe Conference Registration Opens September 2025
\nRegistration Fees: Regular $630/ISTP Member $570/Reduced $310
\nPratt Institute provides affordable accommodations: Single: $135 first night\, $65 each additional night/Full conference stay $510/ Double accommodation: $125 first night\, $55 each additional night/Full conference stay $400 per person.
\nWebsite: www.pratt.edu/ISTP-2026
\nContact: istp-2026@pratt.edu
ORGANIZER;CN=Martin Dege: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260609T163000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260609T180000 SUMMARY:Talk 11: Beneficent Communication as Power. Talk 12: Women’s Digital Voices and the Reconfiguration of Public Debate. UID:20260430T010136Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/London DESCRIPTION:Register here: https://indico.uni-paderborn.de/event/156/
\n09.06.2026\, 4.30-6pm (Paris time)
\nMarianne Najm Abou-Jaoude - Beneficent Communication as Power
\nThis presentation proposes a three-level framework&mdash\;safe\, responsible and beneficent&mdash\;to analyse and foster constructive forms of women&rsquo\;s agency in contemporary digital media ecologies. &ldquo\;Safe&rdquo\; designates not engaging in practices and structures that include violence\, exploitation and manipulation online and offline. &ldquo\;Responsible&rdquo\; refers to doing no harm\, ensuring fairness and structural justice. &ldquo\;Beneficent&rdquo\; goes further\, namely actively promote the flourishing of others\, create conditions for dialogue and build the common good\, and is presented as the key to reimagining women&rsquo\;s power in and through media. \;Drawing on case studies of women communicators in religious\, civic and grassroots community contexts\, this research examines digital practices through the three cumulative levels of positive ethics in communication to illuminate how such engagements challenge exclusionary structures in theology and philosophy. \; \;A few case studies examples would be first\, women moderating encrypted messaging groups that coordinate neighborhood mutual aid and emotional support while establishing clear norms of safety and verification. A second examines women leaders in faith-based digital communities who use livestreams and social media to host spaces of shared discernment\, interreligious encounter and reconciliation. A third considers women running community radio and podcast collectives that platform the voices of migrant\, indigenous or otherwise marginalised women\, combining journalistic rigour with participatory storytelling. \;
\nAbout the Speaker: \;Marianne Najm Abou Jaoude is a telecom engineer finishing her doctoral research at Sophia University Institute near Florence in Italy. Her thesis concerns ethics of AI and the responsibility of everyone in building a safe and peaceful future. She developed a framework about a digital oath that includes beneficence in communication and systems design\, and the role of technology such as generative AI in peacebuilding and depolarization. Her work examines progressive ethical levels and the concept of collaborative positive ethics to foster human-centric innovation and inclusive digital communication
\n\n\nRoula Azar Douglas &ndash\; Women&rsquo\;s Digital Voices and the Reconfiguration of Public Debate
\n\nIn the contemporary digital landscape\, social media platforms\, blogs\, and online communities have emerged as significant spaces where women articulate political\, philosophical\, religious\, or secular positions. Far from being peripheral\, these digital arenas are vital sites for rethinking legitimacy\, influence\, and participation in public discourse. This paper examines how women &mdash\; from secular thinkers and educators to feminist digital activists\, as well as Christian pastors in Europe and Muslim scholars in the Arab world &mdash\; use digital media to challenge traditional frameworks\, reinterpret doctrines or social norms\, and create alternative spaces for reflection\, critique\, and debate. Through selected case studies\, the paper analyzes strategies these women employ to reach diverse audiences: the mobilization of storytelling and personal narrative\, the use of pedagogical tools\, and the deliberate cultivation of online communities that function as safe spaces for questioning and dissent. It also considers aesthetic and rhetorical choices &mdash\; such as visual branding and accessible language &mdash\; that enhance the effectiveness of their digital presence. Particular attention is devoted to how these actors navigate visibility in environments where religious\, cultural\, or political expectations can restrict women&rsquo\;s public expression. This includes facing harassment\, censorship\, or community backlash\, while leveraging alliances\, digital solidarity networks\, and transnational audiences to amplify their voices. The study highlights how digital platforms enable women to bypass traditional gatekeepers and establish new forms of authority rooted in experience\, authenticity\, and community engagement. Ultimately\, it sheds light on how online spaces are reshaping women&rsquo\;s participation in intellectual and spiritual debates\, highlighting both persistent obstacles and emerging opportunities for more inclusive\, plural\, and transformative dialogue.
\n\nAbout the Speaker: Roula Azar Douglas is a Lebanese-Canadian researcher\, journalist\, writer\, and academic interested in the role of media in shaping social realities. She is the founder and president of the Union de la presse francophone &ndash\; Liban (UPF Liban)\, a mentor with the Global Thinkers Forum in London\, and serves on the editorial board of the Middle East edition of the scientific journal Hermè\;s. Douglas coordinates the National Observatory of Women in Research (CNRS-L) and contributes to a research project on gender equality with the Diane Chair at USJ and the French Institute for Research and Development (IRD). She also oversees a weekly page on universities\, research\, and youth for L&rsquo\;Orient-Le Jour and is the author of Le jour où\; le soleil ne s&rsquo\;est pas levé\; (2018) and Chez nous\, c&rsquo\;é\;tait le silence (2007)
\n\n\;
\n ORGANIZER;CN=Marguerite El Asmar Bou Aoun;CN=Jil Muller;CN=Daniel Fischer;CN=Katia Raya Rami: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Budapest:20260610T090000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/Budapest:20260611T170000 SUMMARY:Chosen Nation(s): Historical and Cultural Interpretations of Exceptionalism UID:20260430T010137Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/Budapest LOCATION:Ludovika tér 2.\, Budapest\, Hungary\, 1083 DESCRIPTION:The Ludovika University of Public Service (NKE) and the Jewish Theological Seminary &ndash\; University of Jewish Studies (OR-ZSE) are pleased to announce a joint academic conference on \;&ldquo\;Chosen Nation(s): Historical and Cultural Interpretations of Exceptionalism&rdquo\;\, to be held in Budapest\, Hungary.
\nKeynote speaker: \;DR. CHRISTINA LITTLEFIELD\, Associate Professor of Communication and Religion at Pepperdine University\, author of "Chosen Nations: Pursuit of the Kingdom of God and its Influence on Democratic Values in Late-Nineteenth Century Britain and the United States" (Fortress Press\, 2013)\, and \;"Christian America and the Kingdom of God" (University of Illinois Press\, 2025\, with \;Richard T. Hughes).
\nThe aim of this interdisciplinary conference is to present the elements of various religious\, group\, national\, and imperial identities that refer to chosenness\, historical vocation\, and uniqueness in world history. This includes everything from the religious formulation of the chosen people\, through the sense of civilizational mission\, to the martyrdom concepts of individual groups and nations. We are particularly interested in examining how claims of chosenness function as instruments of legitimacy\, exclusion\, and moral hierarchy\, and how they are contested\, transformed\, or inverted in different historical and cultural contexts.
\n\;
\nConference Themes
\nWe invite proposals for papers that engage with the following topics\, among others:
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; the concept of the chosen people in Jewish religious tradition and in modern Jewish secular thought
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; the concept of chosenness in Christian and Muslim religious understanding
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; secularized chosenness and political theology
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; victimhood\, sacrifice\, and negative exceptionalism
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; the Christian empire as the embodiment of universalism
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; the civilizing mission of modern empires
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; the religious foundations of the American republics
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; the Russian World and Eurasianism
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; American exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; the German Sonderweg and tragedy
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; the vanguards of Communism and liberal democracy in the 20th century
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; aesthetics of chosenness
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; canon formation and cultural chosenness
\nThere is no conference participation fee\, and accommodation is provided for speakers.
\nKey Details
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Date: \;10-11 June 2026
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Location: \;Nemzeti Kö\;zszolgá\;lati Egyetem\, Orszá\;gos Rabbiké\;pző &ndash\; Zsidó\; Egyetem\, Budapest\, Hungary
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Language: \;English
\n\;
\nSubmission Guidelines
\nWe welcome abstracts of no more than 300 words\, accompanied by a brief biography (100 words)\, including current institutional affiliation. Individual presentations will be 20 minutes\, followed by discussion. Proposals for individual papers and thematic panels are both encouraged.
\nSubmissions should be sent to \;chosennations2026@gmail.com by \;1 May 2025. Notification of acceptance will be sent on a rolling basis\, at the latest by \;10 May 2025.
\n\;
\nPublication Opportunities
\nSelected papers from the conference may be considered for publication in a peer-reviewed volume.
\nContact
\nFor further information\, please contact \;chosennations2026@gmail.com.
\nWe look forward to your contributions and to welcoming you to a stimulating dialogue on chosenness and exceptionalism in religion\, history\, and culture.
ORGANIZER: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260423T162348Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260610T090000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260612T170000 SUMMARY:Fiction and Lies: the ASIFF/SIRFF Fourth International Congress UID:20260430T010138Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6b96c54f56-bljdq TZID:Europe/London LOCATION:Edinburgh\, United Kingdom DESCRIPTION:KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
-Professor Eileen John (Philosophy\, University of Warwick)
--Professor Pierre Bayard (Literature\, Université\; Paris 8 - Saint-Denis)
From Plato&rsquo\;s indictment of the tragic poets as misrepresenting the truth\, to Sir Philip Sidney&rsquo\;s famous claim in the Defence of Poesy that &lsquo\;the Poet\, he nothing affirms\, and therefore never lieth&rsquo\;\, to current debates about fictionality and factuality\, the relationship between \;fiction \;and \;lies \;has been a focus of scholarly attention. Both \;fiction-makers and liars make things up and misrepresent the truth. But it is traditionally assumed that with \;fiction\, the invention is non-deceptive. As Margaret Macdonald (1954\, 170) put the point\, &lsquo\;The conviction induced by a story is the result of a mutual conspiracy\, freely entered into\, between author and audience. A storyteller does not \;lie\, nor is a normal auditor deceived&rsquo\;. Macdonald proposed that instead\, \;fiction-makers engage in a non-deceptive pretence of assertion\; but other approaches also distinguish between fictionality and deception\, from philosophers who associate \;fiction \;with an invitation to make-believe rather than to believe to narratologists who treat fictionality as a rhetorical mode of communication that overtly signals fabrication. If \;lies \;are assertions aimed at deception\, perhaps \;fictions \;are incapable of \;lying.
Yet a sharp distinction between fictionality and deception confronts numerous challenges. Scholars across disciplines have considered the many ways in which \;fictions \;can affect our beliefs\, for good or ill. Even if \;fictions \;cannot \;lie \;in some technical sense\, they can certainly mislead\, insinuate\, obfuscate and so on. Works of \;fiction \;may be instances of propaganda which misrepresent the facts\; think of Oliver Stone&rsquo\;s film JFK (1991) or Michael Crichton&rsquo\;s \;novel \;State of Fear (2004). And the distinctions between the \;fictional \;and factual are under increasing pressure in the current culture of disinformation and &lsquo\;fake news&rsquo\; &ndash\; a category not so easy to distinguish from &lsquo\;fictional \;news&rsquo\;.
This three-day international conference aims to explore the relationship between \;fiction \;and \;lies \;from a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives\, including philosophy\, literary history and theory\, narratology\, film and media studies\, psychology and cognitive science. \;
In January 1907\, the founder of phenomenology\, \; Edmund Husserl\, wrote a letter to the Viennese Modernist playwright and poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal\, suggesting that the phenomenologist&rsquo\;s and the artist&rsquo\;s methods are closely connected. Husserl&rsquo\;s suggestion remains provocative to this day\, as its full implications are yet to be fully grasped. Undeniably\, for more than a century now\, the tradition of phenomenology has cleared a path for philosophy that departs from argument-centric approaches in favor of firsthand corporeal experiences rooted in the lifeworld. This also entailed suspending or &ldquo\;bracketing&rdquo\; the question of whether our metaphysical\, ethical\, or aesthetic beliefs are justified\, focusing instead on the way things appear to us: phenomenology sets aside the &ldquo\;what&rdquo\; (the mind-independent nature of things) to home in on the &ldquo\;how&rdquo\;&mdash\;the mode in which things are given in our experience.
\nIf this is a valid characterization of the phenomenological method\, it aligns it closely with the discipline of aesthetics\, as founded by A.G. Baumgarten in the 18th century. Aesthetics too\, one might argue\, predominantly leaves aside the nature of what is being depicted or expressed to focus on the &ldquo\;how&rdquo\;: on how things are presented to us by artworks or other aesthetic objects and\, correspondingly\, on what it is like to sense them in aesthetic experience. Gü\;nter Figal even went as far as to claim that aesthetics could never be anything but phenomenological. Be that as it may: uncontestably\, what phenomenology and aesthetics have in common is a shared interest in the &ldquo\;style&rdquo\; of appearing.
\nAlthough Husserl himself hinted at this proximity in his letter to von Hofmannsthal\, his own writings on art and literature are remarkably sparse. While Husserl never wrote a formal work on aesthetics\, Jacques Derrida
\nmaintained that his thinking yields a &ldquo\;latent aesthetics.&rdquo\; This claim seems applicable to the phenomenological movement as a whole: while attempts to develop a systematic phenomenological aesthetics are surprisingly rare&mdash\;with Roman Ingarden and \; Mikel Dufrenne as the exceptions that prove the rule &mdash\;the aesthetic dimension however takes center stage in the work of numerous other authors\, from Eugen Fink\, Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty through Erwin Straus\, Henri Maldiney\, and Bernhard Waldenfels. What happens\, then\, when we look at phenomenology through an aesthetic lens? And in turn\, what is the outcome of practicing aesthetics as a kind of phenomenology?
\nThe ninth iteration of the Aesthetics &\; Critique workshop will address the complex and layered relationship between aesthetics and phenomenology. Topics for discussion include:
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; What does it mean to ground aesthetics in phenomenological analysis rather than other approaches? Conversely\, could an aesthesiological approach&mdash\;as required by aesthetic objects and situations&mdash\;offer a refinement to phenomenology as a method?
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; What is the relationship between sensible experience and artistic experience\, and how does a phenomenology of art relate to the phenomenological analysis of sensible experience in general?
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Can the concept of style help describe different modes of appearing (and of reacting to it)?
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; How is sense-making inextricably connected to corporeal sensing?
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \;What possibilities does the artist&rsquo\;s encounter with the world offer the phenomenologist&mdash\;perhaps a heightened sensitivity to the nuances of lived experience?
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \;How can aesthetic as well as aesthesiological categories help reconceptualizing the multisensorial mediascapes of our contemporary condition?
\n·\; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; How can experimental aesthetic practices become test sites\, both individually and collectively\, for transformative embodied experiences?
\n\nConveners: Emmanuel Alloa\, Alessandro De Cesaris\, Masoud Olia
\n\;
\nInvited Speakers
\n\nCharles Bobant (Paris)
\nMauro Carbone (Lyon)
\nMaud Hagelstein (Liè\;ge)
\nAdnen Jdey (Louvain)
\nHarri Mä\;cklin (Helsinki)
\nMarcia Sá\; Schuback Cavalcante (Stockholm)
\nAlessandra Scotti (Torino)
\n\nHow to participate
\n\nParticipants are invited to send a proposal (max 400 words) and a CV to Alessandro De Cesaris (alessandro.decesaris@unifr.ch) by April 30th. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by May 5th.
\n\n\nTravel\, accommodation and meal costs will be covered for all speakers. \;
ORGANIZER;CN=Alessandro De Cesaris;CN=Emmanuel Alloa: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR