CFA – Phenomenology, Pragmatism, and Mysticism (NASEP 2024)

The North American Society for Early Phenomenology

Phenomenology, Pragmatism, and Mysticism

7-8 June 2024
University of New Brunswick
Saint John, New Brunswick

Keynote Speakers

Jason Bell (University of New Brunswick Fredericton)

Patrick Eldridge (University of New Brunswick Saint John)

The North American Society for Early Phenomenology invites abstracts for papers on phenomenological work related to phenomenological encounters with pragmatism and mysticism for our annual conference.

Phenomenology and pragmatism have often dealt with overlapping concerns while neglecting to communicate. While it has been surmised that the European phenomenologists were less than enthusiastic to engage with the North American pragmatists, we also know that Husserl and others were reading James and possibly other pragmatists. One of the most evident areas of overlap with significant room for collaboration (or possibly forceful disagreement) is the realm of mysticism. For this conference, we aim to promote work that engages directly with the intersections of phenomenology and pragmatism or mysticism (their mutual histories, their actual or potential agreements and disagreements), or work that advances an account of topics relevant to both disciplines, such as intentionality, the a priori, states of affairs, temporality, perception and judgment, embodiment, naturalism, psychologism, aesthetics, etc.

As always, we encourage submissions dealing with the thought of the full spectrum of early phenomenologists (including Edmund Husserl, Franz Brentano, Carl Stumpf, Theodor Lipps, Alexander Pfänder, Gerda Walther, Oscar Becker, Max Scheler, Fritz Kaufmann Moritz Geiger, Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Eugen Fink, Roman Ingarden, Edith Stein, Dietrich Von Hildebrand, Adolf Reinach, Maximilian Beck, Jean Hering, Henri Bergson, Emmanuel Levinas, et al.) as well as figures who were in conversation with or influenced the early phenomenological movement (including James, Royce, and Peirce).

We especially encourage submissions from individuals who identify as members of groups currently underrepresented in philosophy and academia more generally.

Abstracts should be 400-600 words and include a short bibliography. Abstracts must be prepared for blind review and sent to Charlene Elsby (celsby@ingarden.org).

Deadline for submissions is February 1st, 2024.

Decisions will be sent out no later than March 1st, 2024.

 

 

NASEP 2023 Conference – Intuition, Creation, Duration, and Relativity

The North American Society for Early Phenomenology

Intuition, Creation, Duration, and Relativity

2-4 June 2023
University of San Diego, San Diego, California Humanities Center

Keynote Speakers:

Michael Kelly (University of San Diego)
“Bergson’s intuitive Philosophy of Life?”

Clinton Tolley (University of California San Diego)
“Scheler, Stein, and the ‘Spiritual’ Dialectic of Phenomenology of the 1910’s”

Robin M. Muller (California State University Northridge)
“Merleau-Ponty on Movement and Relativity, or, the ‘Irrepressible Consciousness’ of Einstein’s Little Finger”

Theme

The concepts of intuition, creation, duration, and relativity pervade the work of early phenomenologists in their rejection of both rationalism and empiricism. This conference gives special attention to Bergson’s influence on phenomenology, particularly in relation to these themes, along with contemporary work related to these topics. Variations in phenomenological reduction and intuition, thematization of metaphor and analogy, metaphysics of creation and time, spirituality and religion, idealism and realism and the existence of the world—all of these phenomenological concepts made their appearances in conversations between and around Husserl and Bergson and other early phenomenologists a century ago, and return today.

We also represent the North American Roman Ingarden Society at this conference, with a session featuring talks by Mark Roberts (Franciscan University of Stubenville) and Jeff Mitscherling (University of Guelph) on, respectively, Ingarden’s ideas about hypothetical judgment and on the essence of the soul. The conference also highlights other figures from early phenomenology including Theodor Lipps, Adolf Reinach, Edith Stein, Theodor Conrad, Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Max Scheler, Nicolai Hartmann, Roman Ingarden, Emmanuel Levinas, Vladimir Jankélévitch, and Pierre Hadot.

Conference Program

For the conference schedule click here.

Conference Map

The conference will held in the USD Humanities Center. For a campus map click here.

Accommodations

NASEP has secured a group rate of $239 at the Best Western Plus Hacienda Hotel Old Town at 4041 Harney St. Should you wish to take advantage of the group rate, please make reservations by calling the hotel directly at (619) 298-4707, and make sure to mention that you are booking with the North American Society for Early Phenomenology, or use the booking link here: click here. The group rate will expire on May 11, 2023.

Conference Registration

Registration fees are payable in advance of the conference through PayPal. Individuals who don’t have a PayPal account may pay on site by cash or check. Registration fees allow us to provide coffee throughout the conference and support the society’s activities.

Registration fees are in USD:
$100 for full-time faculty participating in-person
$40 for students, postdocs and underfunded faculty members, including adjuncts participating in-person
$50 for full-time faculty participating virtually
FREE for students, postdocs and underfunded faculty members participating virtually

Individuals may use this link to pay in advance through PayPal (choose the amount appropriate to your category). Receipts will be provided at the conference (or by email for virtual participants):

Conference Registration

Virtual Participation through Eventbrite

Please register through Eventbrite to receive a link for virtual participation: Eventbrite

CFA – Intuition, Creation, Duration, and Relativity (NASEP 2023)

The North American Society for Early Phenomenology

 Intuition, Creation, Duration, and Relativity

2-4 June 2023
University of San Diego
San Diego, California

Keynote Speakers

Michael Kelly (University of San Diego)

Robin Muller (California State University Northridge)

Clinton Tolley (University of California San Diego)

The North American Society for Early Phenomenology invites abstracts for papers on phenomenological work related to intuition, creation, duration, and relativity for our annual conference.

In the phenomenological rejection of both rationalism and empiricism, the concepts of intuition, creation, duration and relativity pervade the work of early phenomenologists. For this conference, we invite work on these concepts, with special attention to Henri Bergson’s influence on phenomenology, along with contemporary work related to these concepts. Scholarly papers on the history of phenomenology are welcomed alongside work developed with an awareness of the method of reductions common to early phenomenologists. For example, intuition and how Husserl adapted it to the reception of the eidos his developing exegesis of the phenomenological method of reductions, creation and its attendant metaphysics, freedom and determinism, open and closed morality, static and dynamic religion, order and chaos, time and its relation to consciousness, and relativity in conversation with scientific pursuits, change, movement, unity and multiplicity—all of these phenomenological concepts bespeak a metaphysics (or perhaps epistemology) that diverges from more well-known analytic counterparts.

As always, we encourage submissions dealing with the thought of the full spectrum of early phenomenologists (including Edmund Husserl, Franz Brentano, Carl Stumpf, Theodor Lipps, Alexander Pfänder, Max Scheler, Moritz Geiger, Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Eugen Fink, Roman Ingarden, Edith Stein, Dietrich Von Hildebrand, Adolf Reinach, Maximilian Beck, Jean Hering, Henri Bergson, Emmanuel Levinas, et al.) as well as figures who were in conversation with or influenced the early phenomenological movement (Ravaisson, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, etc).

We especially encourage submissions from individuals who identify as members of groups currently underrepresented in philosophy and academia more generally.

Abstracts should be 400-600 words and include a short bibliography. Abstracts must be prepared for blind review and sent to Charlene Elsby (celsby@ingarden.org).

Deadline for submissions is February 1st, 2023.

Decisions will be sent out no later than March 1st, 2023.

CFP – Essences and Ideas (NASEP 2022)

The North American Society for Early Phenomenology

Essences and Ideas:
Metaphysics and Religion in Early Phenomenology

28-30 April 2022
Dominican University College
Ottawa, Ontario

Keynote Speakers

Christina M. Gschwandtner (Fordham University)

Antonio Calcagno (King’s University College, Western University)

Call for Abstracts

“Already now we can name a basic tenet, recognized in like manner (though not adopted as untested presupposition) by all phenomenologically oriented philosophers: the existence of entities that are not given empirically [nichtempirischer Gegebenheiten] and that make so-called a priori research possible.” —Jean Hering, tr. Arthur Szylewicz

Phenomenology developed with an attendant metaphysics that is highly informed by concepts shared with religion. Dichotomies such as empirical and a priori, finite and infinite, temporal and atemporal, essence and idea, mundane and divine, material and immaterial, subsistence and existence, non-being and being (along with others), are constitutive of early phenomenology’s methods and tenets. While Husserl envisioned phenomenology as “metaphysically neutral” and attempted to keep his personal religious views separate from his scientific work, figures such as Stein and Scheler did not hide the fact that their metaphysical and religious views informed their investigations. Brentano and members of his school were deeply influenced by Aristotelian metaphysics, and this legacy can be seen in the works of Reinach and Ingarden. The presence of Platonism in early phenomenology and the implications of phenomenological idealism remain topics of debate. This conference will explore the metaphysical currents within early phenomenology, as well as the role that religious convictions played in their development.

As always, we encourage submissions dealing with the thought of the full spectrum of early phenomenologists (including Edmund Husserl, Franz Brentano, Carl Stumpf, Theodor Lipps, Alexander Pfänder, Max Scheler, Moritz Geiger, Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Eugen Fink, Roman Ingarden, Edith Stein, Dietrich Von Hildebrand, Adolf Reinach, Maximilian Beck, Jean Hering, Henri Bergson, Emmanuel Levinas, et al.) as well as figures who were in conversation with the early phenomenological movement.

We especially encourage submissions from individuals who identify as members of groups currently underrepresented in philosophy and academia more generally.

Abstracts should be 400-600 words and include a short bibliography. Abstracts must be prepared for blind review and sent to Charlene Elsby (celsby@ingarden.org).

Extended deadline for submissions is February 20th, 2022.

Decisions will be sent out no later than March 1st, 2022.

Conference cancellation

Dear Friends of the North American Society for Early Phenomenology and the Max Scheler Society of North America,

The executives of both societies have been closely monitoring both governmental and institutional responses to the COVID-19 virus. The continued health and well-being of our members and conference participants is our paramount concern. It is important to take this pandemic seriously, but also avoid unnecessary panic. Given the developments of the last 24 hours and after thoughtful deliberation, we have determined that the upcoming conference at St. John’s University will be cancelled.

St. John’s University has already closed its campuses for March and may decide to close for April as well. There are no known cases of COVID-19 at this time on any of the St. John’s University campuses or locations. However, given the declaration of a state of emergency in New York state and the lockdown of New Rochelle, New York City may well begin to shut down more fully in the weeks ahead. As many of you know, President Trump has effectively banned travel from Europe to the US. While this is only in place for 30 days, we cannot be confident that the ban will be lifted before our conference. This means that many of our attendees may not be able to travel to New York in April.

Concerning domestic travel, while there are no such bans in place, many universities in North America have suspended funding for conference travel. This again means that many of our planned attendees will not be able to come to New York. While we considered postponing the conference to a later date, there will certainly be other factors by then that will necessitate significant changes to the program. Therefore, we thought it best to cancel and try again next year.
For those of you who have already arranged travel and accommodations, we sincerely hope that these arrangements can be undone, or put to some other good use.

CFP – Phenomenology as Method (NASEP 2020)

The North American Society for Early Phenomenology | Max Scheler Society of North America

Phenomenology as Method

22-24 April 2020
St. John’s University
Manhattan Campus, 101 Astor Place
New York, New York

Keynote Speakers:

David Carr (New School for Social Research)
Crina Gschwandtner (Fordham University)
Wolfhart Henckmann (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich)

Call for abstracts

Since its inception, phenomenology has been understood as a method of philosophizing or philosophical attitude rather than a system of philosophy. Husserl encouraged his students to apply this method to all types of philosophical questions and across all fields of research. As a result, phenomenological analysis was used by a wide range of disciplines, from philosophy and psychology to literature, history, sociology, mathematics, cosmology, and religious studies. The phenomenological method itself has been refined according to the insights achieved as a result of its interdisciplinary nature. However, the core tenets of this method and characterization of this attitude have long been a point of debate among phenomenologists.

This conference will explore the nature of the phenomenological method, its interdisciplinary applications, and how research in parallel fields informed the work of the early phenomenologists.

As always, we encourage submissions dealing with the thought of the full spectrum of early phenomenologists (including Edmund Husserl, Franz Brentano, Carl Stumpf, Theodor Lipps, Alexander Pfänder, Max Scheler, Moritz Geiger, Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Eugen Fink, Roman Ingarden, Edith Stein, Dietrich Von Hildebrand, Adolf Reinach, Martin Heidegger, Maximilian Beck, Jean Hering, et al.) as well as figures who were in conversation with the early phenomenological movement.

Abstracts should be 400-600 words, and include a short bibliography. Abstracts must be prepared for blind review and sent to Charlene Elsby (elsbyc@pfw.edu)

Deadline for submissions is 26 January 2020.

Decisions will be sent out no later than 7 February 2020.

Click here to download this call

CFP – Religious Experience and Description

Second Regional Conference of the Society for the Phenomenology of Religious Experience

10-12 October, 2019 Valparaiso University, Indiana, USA

http://sophere.org/conferences/regional-conference-indiana-2019/

Keynote Speakers:
Bruce Ellis Benson (Logos Institute, University of St. Andrews)
Peter Costello (Providence College)

The purpose of this conference is to examine possibilities and difficulties, and the  theoretical problems and hands-on solutions arising in the description of religious experience.  Does religious experience harbor concealed empirical and phenomenological complexity, and how do we address complexity in a focused description which aims at revealing the essence of experience? We invite an interplay between pragmatics of describing religious experience, philosophical and theological issues involved in creation of description, and theoretical models of how religious and spiritual experience may be described.  The conference accepts papers dedicated to description of perception, imagination, body-awareness, recollection, social cognition, self-experience, temporality, etc., in the context of religious experience. How does phenomenological description of religious experience translates into ecology, history, or natural science? What are cultural influences in the description of religious experience? The papers should provide not just the description of experience per se, but an analysis of the process or outcome of description and reflection on what description of religious experience per se entails.  Such reflections must employ phenomenological philosophy, such as e.g. in the work of Anthony Steinbock or Jean-Luc Marion, but can also draw on contemporary dialogues between phenomenological philosophy and other philosophical and theological traditions, such as we see in the work of researchers like Espen Dahl, Matthew Ratcliffe, Dan Zahavi, Stanley Cavell, or Evan Thompson, to name a few.  We welcome paper proposals related to but not necessarily bound by the initial themes which are listed below:

Creating Descriptions of Religious Experience

    • How does one actually describe religious experience? What difficulties and delights are in this process? How do we clarify such descriptions?
    • How does the process/outcome of describing religious experience differ from of ordinary experience?
    • How does one approach the negative (absences) and the positive (presences) in these descriptions?
    • How does description capture embodied, affective, and metaphysical aspects of experience?
    • What are the relationships between the description and the essence of religious experience. What determines experience as religious, or spiritual, and gives it a unique character, intelligible to others?
    • How do the questions of otherness or strangeness play out in description and understanding a description of religious and spiritual experience?
    • Who can understand a description of religious experience? Academic researchers?  Religious practitioners or authorities?  Informed consumers?  Contemporaries or successors?
    • Can religious and spiritual experience be described by means of natural language, or does it require some kind of special language?Do neologisms clarify or do they obfuscate religious experiences?
    • What are the functions of language in description of religious or spiritual experience?
    • How does historicity impact a description of religious experience?
    • What are the communicological virtues in description of religious experience?
    • What are the relationships between the description and the phenomena “in excess”?
    • What are the purposes of description of religious experience, and how intentions in communication already presuppose the structure of description of religious experience we find in texts?

Models for Descriptions of Religious and Spiritual Experience

    • How do phenomenological theories and frameworks influence description of religious experience? For example, would a description intended to serve as a ground of phenomenological analyses along the lines of Husserl’s phenomenology be identical with a description of experience in the phenomenology of Jean-Luc Marion or non-intentional phenomenology of Michel Henry?  Or can such a description reflect a “view from nowhere”?
    • What role do religious beliefs play in religious experience, and can phenomenology provide a clarification of religious presuppositions?
    • How, and to what extent, can disciplines other than phenomenology (e.g. psychology, psychiatry, neurology, anthropology, theology) provide person-level descriptions of phenomenological relevance?
    • How can the phenomenological description of religious experience change existing models and theoretical assumptions in other fields of knowledge or in phenomenology itself? For instance, can empirical findings in religious experiencing refine and improve classical phenomenological analyses?
    • Can religious experience be subjected to constitutive phenomenological analysis, and can a phenomenological account of any given aspect of religiosity provide an accurate or adequate description of religious phenomena? How do claims to presuppositionlessness affect such accounts?
    • How does the question of authority play out in first person description and the analysis of second person description in texts? What ethical limitations exist in descriptions or discussions of religious experience from either a first or second-person standpoint?
    • Can common-sense metaphysics support the demands in description of religious experiencing?

Description of religious experience,  and ecology, environmental studies, health sciences, natural sciences, history, business studies, etc. 

Scientific Committee:
Jason Alvis (University of Vienna), Michael Barber (Saint Louis University), Peter Costello(Providence College), Neal DeRoo (The King’s University, Canada), Olga Louchakova-Schwartz (Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University and UC Davis), Kristof Oltvai (The University of Chicago)

Presidential address: Martin Nitsche (Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences)

Conference Directors: Jim Nelson, Ph.D., Psychology (Jim.Nelson@valpo.edu), Aaron Preston, Ph.D., Philosophy (Aaron.Preston@valpo.edu)

Submission:  abstract of approximately 300 words to conferencevalpo@sophere.org . You can also enclose a paper of 3000 words (i.e. 30 min reading time). Submissions with ready papers will be given a priority. Session proposals with at least three presentations are also welcome, and must include abstracts of at least three presentations, a clear title of the session, a name of its chair, and a short description of the session. Abstracts have to be written in English. Submission should have two copies of the abstract: a .doc file which includes your name, paper title, affiliation, up to five key words, and full contact information, and a .pdf file formatted for anonymous review.  Submission deadline July 1, 2019. Notifications of acceptance will be issued by August 1, 2019.

Selected papers from the conference will be invited for publication in the topical issue of Open Theology, De Gruyter, “Phenomenology of Religious Experience IV: The Description”, planned for 2020.  For more information on the conference or the OT publication, email Olga Louchakova-Schwartz  at olouchakova@ucdavis.edu.

Extended Deadline – NASEP 2019. Early Phenomenology in Context

The North American Society for Early Phenomenology is extending the deadline for submissions to their upcoming conference, Early Phenomenology in Context, to Monday, February 11th, 2019.

The conference will be held Wednesday, May 22 through Friday, May 24 at Memorial University, St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Keynote Speakers:
Thomas Vongehr (KU Leuven)
Smaranda Aldea (Kent State University)
Peter Trnka (Memorial University)

Abstracts should be 400-600 words, and include a short bibliography. Abstracts must be prepared for blind review and sent to Charlene Elsby (elsbyc@pfw.edu)

Decisions will be sent out no later than March 1st, 2019.

Download the call for papers here.

CFP – Pragmatism and Phenomenology: Female Figures

King’s University College (UWO), London, Ontario, 27 – 28 April 2019.

This two-day workshop is a follow-up to the March 2017 Pragmatism and Phenomenology event at the University of Waterloo, in Waterloo, Ontario. Like its predecessor, this workshop presents an opportunity for scholars of both phenomenology and pragmatism to engage in a sustained round-table discussion on topics relevant to both groups. This year we wish to focus on the women of both movements, the significance of their ideas and the relevance they hold for philosophy today. This is not to say you cannot discuss a female figure or work from either movement in relation to a male figure or work, but the focus we wish to pursue is on the female figures and their contributions to these movements. A list of suggested figures for both pragmatism and phenomenology can be found below. The ways you engage these female thinkers is open and multifarious:  whether you compare or contrast ideas of a female phenomenologist and pragmatist or offer an exposition of one female thinker from either camp and show how their work/ideas are of importance for philosophers today, it’s all good and so valuable. Many of these female figures have received far too little attention. This workshop seeks to be a positive step in changing this. The organizers are interested in all topics and themes likely to be of interest to both pragmatists and phenomenologists.

The workshop is meant to be a discussion-type format and is not meant to be a formal presentation of papers. Workshop participants will be asked to lead or co-lead discussions on a topic of their choosing with discussion material circulated in advance. In order to facilitate this process, we ask that you submit a 150-word abstract of your discussion topic and one or two suggested readings for participants. It is not expected that participants are experts in both traditions, but merely that there is an interest in both and a willingness to learn more.

Submission due date: Abstract and supplementary reading deadline is 16 February 2019.

Please email your submission to Kimberly Baltzer-Jaray at kbaltzer@uwo.ca

Female Figures in Pragmatism:

Anna Julia Cooper
Jane Addams
Mary Parker Follett
Marietta Kies
Susan Blow
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Ella Flag Young
Elsie Ripley Clapp
Lucy Sprague Mitchell
Jessie Taft

Two figures who probably don’t count as pragmatists but who worked closely with Peirce on logic and semiotic, respectively, are:

Christine Ladd-Franklin
Lady Welby

Female Figures in Phenomenology:

Edith Stein
Gerda Walther
Hedwig Conrad-Martius
Else Voigtländer
Hannah Arendt
Margarete Calinich
Käte Hamburger
Betty Heimann
Adelgundis Jaegerschmid
Zagorka Mićić
Erica Sehl
Edith Landmann-Kalisher
Gertrud Kuznitsky

We can also extend to later figures:

Simone Weil
Simone de Beauvoir

CFP – Early Phenomenology in Context

Annual conference of The North American Society for Early Phenomenology

22-­24 May, 2019
Memorial University, St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada

Keynote Speakers:
Thomas Vongehr (KU Leuven)
Smaranda Aldea (Kent State University)
Peter Trnka (Memorial University)

The theories, methods, and applications of early phenomenology arose within a complex context. For this meeting, we invite papers on the historical aspects of the phenomenological movement, broadly construed. The history of phenomenology has been heavily influenced by personal, political, and social factors. Women phenomenologists existed, but faced certain professional barriers. The rise of phenomenology during the First World War meant that its history would be indelibly marked by the political situation in Germany. The concepts of early phenomenologists developed out of personal relations between Husserl’s students, and Husserl’s phenomenology would itself be reframed under the varying interpretations of students like Edith Stein and Roman Ingarden. The theme of this meeting is to analyze the development of phenomenology within all of these contexts. We welcome papers on the development of particular concepts within phenomenology, analyses of how the early phenomenological period was influenced by external factors, and historical exposition of any aspect of the early phenomenological movement. We encourage submissions on Franz Brentano, Edmund Husserl, Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Eugen Fink, Roman Ingarden, Edith Stein, Dietrich Von Hildebrand, Adolf Reinach, Max Scheler, Martin Heidegger, Gerda Walther, Theodor Lipps, Moritz Geiger, Alexander Pfänder, Maximilian Beck, Jean Hering, et al. (As always, we welcome papers that deal with the full spectrum of early phenomenologists.)

Download the call for papers here.

Abstracts should be 400-600 words, and include a short bibliography. Abstracts must be prepared for blind review and sent to Charlene Elsby (elsbyc@pfw.edu)

Deadline for submissions is February 1st, 2019.
Decisions will be sent out no later than March 1st, 2019.

Organizers: Charlene Elsby, Rodney Parker
Host: The Department of Philosophy, Memorial University Newfoundland