News from the Beginning of October 2026

The application deadline of November 15, 2026 is nearing for the 2027 World Congress of the SIEPM, to be held in Zagreb (Aug. 23-27, 2027). These meetings, which occur only every five years, are by far the largest in the field of medieval philosophy. A website is now live, with details about the event.

The Medieval Logic Reading Group, founded by Stephen Read (St. Andrews), begins its fall series of meetings on Monday (October 5, 2026). The group has been meeting for decades, and now takes place online. Basic details are here, but those interested should contact Graziana Ciola. (I should note that the meeting time is mornings in the U.K., and so is not well suited for would-be participants from the Americas.)

The European Diploma in Medieval Studies (DEEM) is now inviting applications for their spring program in Rome (Jan-May). The program is aimed at students with an undergraduate degree and in possession of good Latin who wish to receive a thorough education in paleography and text editing. The fees are modest, and some scholarships are available. Details here.

The Centre Pierre Abélard (Sorbonne) is organizing a doctoral seminar for students working in medieval philosophy. The group will meet monthly, starting this fall. Meetings will be conducted in French. Details here.

Graduate students at Charles University (Prague) are organizing a conference this fall on Nicholas of Cusa, open to anyone but aimed especially at early career scholars. The cfp deadline was early September, but interested parties might still try reaching out to the organizers (Prague, Nov. 19-20, 2026).

Ed Buckner is looking for someone to take over the Logic Museum, that extremely useful repository for all sorts of ancient and medieval philosophy, including logic and more besides. He explains what sort of help he’s looking for, and what the logic museum is, in this open letter.

Thanks to Scott Williams (Lyon College), the Henry of Ghent website has a new location. Among much else, it’s got free electronic versions of the critical edition (published with permission on the condition that the critical apparatus is omitted).

Under the heading of you don’t know what you’ve got ’til its gone, OUP recently announced that it is abandoning the dust jacket for most of its hardcover books. Going forward, cover designs will be printed directly on the hardcover binding. It will occur to you that, for a while now, this is how most academic books have been printed, but OUP has been holding onto tradition. No longer.

Here’s something you probably weren’t expecting. Carolyn Dicey Jennings (UC Merced) has analyzed placement trends among doctoral students in philosophy and made a startling discovery. For the years from 2021-2026, among the roughly 30 sub-fields containing a significant number of graduating PhDs in philosophy, students in the sub-field of Medieval and Renaissance were the second most likely to find a permanent position. Of 23 recipients of a PhDs in medieval and renaissance during this time, 52% found a permanent position. Only Philosophy of Law did better, at 60%. (The Daily Nous offers a summary of these results.) The data is certainly not comprehensive. Though it is international, it seems focused on English-language universities. And it covers only 5 years. But still!!

News from August 2026

Just a few items this time of year, but they’re all BIG!

First up is a junior tenure-track position in medieval philosophy at the University of Toronto. The ad posting is here. The application deadline is November 3, 2026.

Also seeking to fill a junior tenure-track position in medieval philosophy (or early modern) is the University of Vienna. Details here. The application deadline is September 15. The successful candidate will be given three years to acquire proficiency in German.

More news from Toronto: this year’s Toronto Colloquium in Medieval Philosophy will be a celebration of Deborah Black, who has just retired. That will happen on September 18-19, 2026. Details here.

Anthony Kenny (1931-2026)

I am sorry to report that Anthony Kenny died earlier this week. The range of his scholarly work was immense, with his work in medieval philosophy being just one among his many intellectual interests. He spent his entire career at Oxford, where, beyond his scholarly achievements, he served in prominent administrative roles, for instance as master of Balliol College and warden of Rhodes House.

News from July 2026

The Medieval Philosophy Network in the UK is holding a summer meeting that is online only. The meeting runs on the afternoon (UK time) of July 22, 2026. Details here.

The Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy is inviting submissions for two sponsored sessions at the 2027 Central Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, to be held in Denver, February 24–27, 2027. The submission deadline is August 15. Details here.

Nominations for the SIEPM Lifetime Achievement Award are open until August 24, 2026. The prize will be awarded at the International Congress in Zagreb in 2027. Details here.

The Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus project is advertising short-term visiting research fellowships (1-3 months), in Munich, in 2027. The application deadline is September 4, 2026. Details here.

Caleb Cohoe (Denver) has created a calendar that gives quite a full inventory of ancient and medieval philosophy events. The full version is here. A streamlined version showing only CFPs is here.

Another useful source for medieval philosophy on social media: Lukáš Lička posts on X about new medieval articles appearing in the journals.

Finally, if you’re working on improving your conversational ability in English or any of various other prominent languages, here’s a useful AI application: Praktika, which is kind of like Duolingo, but vastly superior. You can have real conversations with an AI tutor, complete with grammatical and pronunciation tips. Get it on your phone.

News from June 2026

The University of Hamburg is advertising a three-year postdoc in the history of philosophy. Given the department’s strength in medieval philosophy, they are likely to welcome applicants in that area. The application deadline is June 14. Details here.

The Founders’ Prize, sponsored by the SMRP, is now open to papers from junior scholars. The deadline is August 15, 2026. Details here.

The SIEPM is soliciting nominations for its lifetime achievement award. Nomination letters should be submitted by August 24, 2026. Details here.

KU Leuven is hosting a conference at the end of August on Matter and Material Causation. This is the second in a series of four conferences on the four Aristotelian causes, sponsored by the Society for the European History of Ideas (SEHI). I regret to say that the cfp deadline was May 30, but perhaps they would accept a slightly late submission. (Leuven, August 28-30, 2026)

Civitas Augustiniana (Porto) is planning a special issue on the subject Consciousness and Intentionality – The Mark of Augustine in the Philosophy of Mind, edited by Eduarda Machado (Porto) and Rituparna Roy (Kolkata). They are interested not just in Augustine but in the Augustinian influence throughout later philosophy. The submission deadline for papers is July 31, 2026.

Symposium Thomisticum IX runs this October in Santiago Chile, on the theme of Creation and Divine Government (October 22-24, 2026).

Quite a few journals at DeGruyter Brill are now part of an open-access program, through which all new papers published in these journals are entirely open access. For historians of philosophy, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie is the only relevant journal that I noticed as included. For the interesting details of how this project works, see here.

I was sorry to learn recently that David Burr died last December at the age of 91. He was a longtime professor at Virginia Tech, and was known particularly for his work on Franciscan poverty, especially Peter John Olivi. A Festschrift in his honor came out with Brill in 2023, and there is a nice discussion of Professor Burr, as well as that volume, in a recent review at TMR.

A little while back I stumbled on a Facebook page on Medieval Logic, which claims to have 5.6K members! It is, moreover, reasonably active. In particular, it seems that if you post suitably relevant questions there, there’s a good chance you’ll get expert answers. As someone who essentially never uses Facebook, I found this pretty astonishing, and it made me wonder whether there are other groups of this nature on social media that would be of interest to readers of this blog. I’d love to know about them.

News from April 2026

Therese Cory (Notre Dame) will be giving an online lecture later this month, as the spring installment in the online series sponsored by the Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy. Her topic is “On Phenomenal Consciousness: What Was It Like to Be a Medieval Bat?” Tuesday, April 28, 6pm in Rome / 12pm in New York / 10am in Boulder. Details on the SMRP webpage.

The Averroes Edition project, at the University of Cologne, is looking to fill a PhD student position. According to the ad, “a high level of proficiency in Arabic or Hebrew or Latin is required, as is a strong command of English.” The application deadline is May 15, 2026. Further information here.

The Reassessing Aristotelian Science project (Lund) has funding for a six-month project assistant, open to recent graduates who have at least an MA in medieval Latin philosophy. The project is directed by Ana María Mora-Márquez. The application deadline is April 30, 2026. For details see here.

Matt Wennemann, a PhD candidate at CU Boulder, is interested in organizing an online discussion group, this summer, aimed at PhD students in medieval philosophy interested in discussing their dissertation work in progress. To learn more, email Matt directly.

The 3rd Porto Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy Summer School, on Petrus Hispanus Tractatus: Logic and Philosophy from the Middle Ages to Modernity, will be held in Porto from 15 to 19 June 2026. The application deadline is closing in just a few days (April 20, 2026). Some financial support is available to participants.

The Thomistic Summer Conference in New England runs from July 30 to August 2, 2026, on the theme of “Metaphysics and Theology in St. Thomas Aquinas.” Details here.

Olga Weijers has created quite an impressive website that provides an overview of her career’s work, including many resources not otherwise available, such as a detailed study of the work of John of Jandun.

Congratulations, belatedly, to Giulio Navarra and Robert Zambiasi, who were named co-winners of the SIEPM’s Jacqueline Hamesse Award for 2025, for the best paper by a junior scholar. Honorable mention went to Dominic LaMantia and Pablo Gabriel Quintana.

News from March 2026

Magdalena Bieniak (Warsaw) is advertising a postdoc devoted to the study of logical paradoxes in the Latin Middle Ages. The application deadline is May 19, 2026. Details here.

The new ERC synergy project MOSAIC (mapping occult sciences across Islamicate cultures) is advertising two post-doc positions at Louvain-la-Neuve, both aimed at specialists in classical Arabic thought. The application deadline is June 10, 2026. Details can be found here.

Russell Friedman’s new ERC project TRANSFORM (on late scholastic hylomorphism) is advertising a four-year PhD position in Leuven. (This is not a postdoc, but funding for someone with an MA who seeks to pursue a PhD.) The application deadline is April 6, 2026. Details here.

The London International Paleography School is running a one-week in-person summer school (June 8-12, 2026). Various classes are on offer, most notably one on Textual Editing, focused on philosophical and theological texts, led by Zita Toth (KCL) and Daniel Hadas (KCL). The application deadline is May 22, 2026. The tuition fee is fairly modest. LIPS also runs various online courses each spring.

The Max Planck Institute is hosting a one-week summer seminar on Albert the Great’s De anima. Some funding to cover expenses is available (June 6-10, 2026, in Berlin). The application deadline is March 30.

The Angelicum Thomistic Institute is again sponsoring a summer seminar on Asian philosophy and scholasticism, on the topic “Mind in Neo-Confucianism and European Scholasticism.” The seminar will be led by Giorgio Pini (Fordham) and Bryan Van Norden (Vassar). Dates are June 18-17, 2026, in Rome. Funding to cover expenses is available. The application deadline is April 15. Details here.

The Global Scholasticism Academic Network is sponsoring an online talk in one week by Fabrizio Amerini (Parma), on “Interpreting Aristotle: Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, and Gregory of Rimini on Matter.” Details on this and other lectures in the series are available here.

In 10 days, Tatiana Barkovskiy (Cambridge) will be giving an online talk, as part of the Cambridge Festival, on the question, “Did women do philosophy in the Middle Ages?” That’s Monday, March 23, 2026. Details here.

The annual Journées Incipit runs in Paris on March 27-28, 2026, featuring a keynote lecture by William Duba (Fribourg).

On July 20-21, 2026, there is a two-day conference in Freiburg on the subject of The Human–World Relationship in the Islamic Mystical–Philosophical Tradition. The cfp deadline is April 15, 2026. Nothing yet seems available on the web, but inquiries can be sent here.

The Thomas Aquinas College of New England is running a Thomistic Summer Conference on the theme Metaphysics and Theology in St. Thomas Aquinas (July 30-August 2, 2026, in Northfield, Massachusetts). The cfp deadline is April 19. Details here.

The Society for the European History of Ideas is sponsoring a conference at the end of August on Matter and Material Causation. Anna Marmodoro (SLU) will be giving the keynote address (August 28-30, 2026, in Leuven). Details here.

Julian Giglio (Buenos Aires) is offering an online doctoral seminar, beginning in April, on political and economic philosophy at the University of Paris in the 13th and 14th centuries. The seminar will be held in Spanish, but interested participants with merely intermediate-level Spanish are welcomed to enroll. Details here.

The Brepols series, Philosophy in the Abrahamic Traditions of the Middle Ages, has now published six volumes, and general editor Richard Taylor (Marquette) has put out a call for further proposals. The aim of the series is to publish work that engages with two or more of the Abrahamic traditions.

Congratulations to Gregory Doolan (CUA), who was been appointed the inaugural Msgr. John F. Wippel Endowed Chair in Thomistic Metaphysics. There is a ceremony to honor his installation on April 23, 2026.

Alfred L. Ivry (1935-2026)

Professor Alfred Ivry died yesterday at the age of 91. A graduate of Brooklyn College, Brandeis and Oxford, he taught over the years at Cornell, Ohio State, Brandeis and NYU, where he was the Skirball Professor of Jewish Thought until his retirement in 2005. His nine books and hundred-some articles contribute both to Jewish and Islamic scholarship, in Hebrew and Arabic, ranging from careful scholarly editions to introductory guides, as for instance his Philosophical Guide to Maimonides’ Guide, published by Univ. of Chicago Press in 2016.

News from January 2026

The Australian Catholic University is advertising two positions at the level of lecturer or senior lecturer, one in the history of philosophy and the other in the history of ethics. The application deadline for each is February 2, 2026.

Back in the fall, Irene Binini (Parma) won an ERC starting grant worth around 1.5M euros, on the topic Fictional and Impossible entities, Counterpossible reasoning and Thought Experiments. A study of medieval theories of impossibility and their contemporary relevance. (Congratulations!) She’s now advertising three postdoctoral positions in Parma, two of which are aimed at medievalists working on logic, natural philosophy, or mathematics. The positions can run for up to five years, and knowledge of Italian is not required. Details here.

Next year it’s time again for the SIEPM’s international congress, which is by far the largest event in the field, and which happens only once every five years. This meeting will be held in Zagreb (August 23-27, 2027). The theme is Philosophy in Dialogue in the Middle Ages. Preliminary details here. (This year’s colloquium, as previously announced, will be in Lisbon on September 2-4. You’ve still got until February 7th to put in a proposal for this year.)

The project Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus (Munich) is offering a three-year doctoral position starting in October 2026. An MA degree is required, as well as English and an excellent command of Latin and/or Arabic. The application deadline is March 31, 2026. Details here.

The NEH continues to fund philosophy, and this coming summer they are funding a Summer Institute on Aristotle’s Psychology and Contemporary Philosophy (Texas A&M, June 1-12, 2026). These are funded research opportunities aimed at both faculty and advanced graduate students, and there’s an impressive list of senior faculty involved in running the Institute. It’s being organized by Jose Luis Bermudez (Texas A&M) and Victor Caston (Michigan). The application deadline is March 6.

The Centre for the History of Philosophy at Notre Dame Australia is advertising a fully funded graduate research position (MA or PhD) to study Jewish philosophy and intellectual history. Details available here.

The History of Philosophy Forum at Notre Dame USA is advertising the grant programs it has offered in previous years: one small grant to fund a research stay at Notre Dame for international researchers, and a second for a one-month summer research stay. The deadline is February 1, 2026. Details here.

Jason Aleksander (San Jose State) is collaborating with some folk at UC Santa Cruz to hold a two-day conference next month, Of Body and Soul: Politics and Eschatology in the Pre-Modern Mediterranean (Santa Cruz, February 18-19, 2026). The whole conference will be live-streamed on Zoom. The program is here.

Henrik Lagerlund and Alexander Stöpfgeshoff are organizing a conference on Nature and Normativity from the 14th to the 17th century (Stockholm, May 28-29, 2026). This is part of the Nature & Norms project. The cfp deadline is February 20, with some funding possible for travel and accommodation.

This year’s Journées Incipit again runs over two days in Paris (March 27-28, 2026), with the keynote lecture by William Duba (Fribourg).

Milo Crimi (Univ. of Montevallo) has recently made the case, on the APA blog, for the place of Marguerite Porete in the philosophical curriculum. See his essay here.