Copenhagen, Leuven, Budapest, etc.

The University of Copenhagen has announced two 2-year postdoc positions, both focused on twelfth-century logic. Applications are due October 15, 2021. Details here.

KU Leuven–more specifically, Christophe Geudens and Nicola Polloni–have organized a two-day seminar on Knowability and the Limits of Knowledge. It will be partly medieval in focus, and partly a general discussion of epistemology. It’s on Zoom, this Thursday and Friday (September 2-3, 2021), starting at 4pm in Leuven.

The energetic folk at Leuven have also organized a series of medieval colloquia, running through the fall and spring, and especially highlighting junior scholars. The format is hybrid, in person and on zoom.

Still more, there’s a large conference, which I don’t seem to have previously announced, on Aristotle’s De sensu in the Latin Tradition 1150-1650. It’s also a hybrid event, live and on Zoom, running from Pavia to Leuven. (September 13-14, 2021, in Pavia; September 17-18 in Leuven)

There are two major conferences on the Eucharist getting underway, in September, in Budapest. First there’s a philosophical conference, on the Metaphysics and Theology of the Eucharist, which starts tomorrow! (September 1-4, 2021). It’s another hybrid event, with the schedule available here. Then there’s the 52nd International Eucharistic Congress (September 5-12, 2021), which is aimed at a much wider audience.

The American Cusanus Society is holding their biennial conference in a month, on the theme of Mystical Theology and Renaissance Platonism in the Time of Cusanus (September 24-26, Gettysburg and Zoom). Information is on Twitter!

There’s a special issue in the works, for History of Philosophy and Logical Analysis, on Revisionary Metaphysics in the Middle Ages. The guest editors are Stephan Schmid (Hamburg) and Sonja Schierbaum (Wuerzburg), and they’ve put out a call for proposals. (The deadline is April 23, 2022.)

August 2021 News

The draft schedule is now available for the first of what will hopefully be a regular series of SMRP conferences (Notre Dame, October 3-6, 2021). It’s going to be a huge event; the largest medieval philosophy conference in North America since I’ve been in the field. Information available here.

The American Catholic Philosophical Association is inviting submissions from junior scholars for its annual essay contest. Details here.

The Franciscan Institute is sponsoring a conference on Roger Bacon’s Moralis Philosophia, in celebration of a new English translation of this text by Jeremiah Hackett and Thomas Maloney (July 21-24, 2022, St. Bonaventure, NY). Cfp deadline is October 4, 2021. Details here.

There’s a webinar series running this summer on the history and theology of encounters between Catholic and Muslims. It’s sponsored by the Lumen Christi Institute and the American Cusanus Society. Details here.

The 43rd Cologne Mediaevistentagung (Sept. 5-9, 2022) has extended its Cfp deadline until August 31, 2021. The topic, a rather timely one for our field, is “Consensus.”

Katja Kraus’s research group at the Max Planck Institute is advertising a position for a scholar of the premodern science of soul and body, with expertise in Syriac, Persian, or Hebrew. The application deadline is August 31, 2021. Details here.

The Institute for Research in the Humanities (Wisconsin-Madison) is again advertising the Solmsen Fellowship, a year-long fellow which “sponsors scholars working in the humanities on European history, literature, philosophy, politics, religion, art and culture in the classical, medieval, and/or early modern periods before 1700.” Applications due October 28, 2021.

Congratulations to Tobias Hoffmann, who has been named Professor of Medieval Philosophy at Sorbonne Université. (That’s the position at Paris IV that has been vacant since Pasquale Porro returned to Italy several years ago.)

Happenings in July

I’ve been very negligent in posting about a two-year postdoc in Prague, in medieval philosophy. The deadline is TOMORROW, July 15, 2021. Information here, at #4. The position starts in January 2022.

The deadline for submissions for the Res Philosophica Essay Prize has been extended until August 1, 2021. The topic is “Theological Dogma and Philosophical Innovation in Medieval Philosophy.” There’s fame and money to be won.

Claude Panaccio may have retired, but you can see him on YouTube, speaking about “Ockham on Substance” at a Brazilian conference in honor of Carlos Arthur Ribeiro do Nascimento.

There’s an international conference this fall on Arnau of Villanova, organized at Barcelona, but online, on October 4-8, 2021. Details here.

Bloomington, Dublin, Rio

The Richard Rufus Project is looking for a research associate. It’s a one-year position, with a possible extension. A PhD and training in medieval manuscripts are essential. Applications should be received by June 20, 2021. Details here.

The SMRP is organizing a session for the Renaissance Society of America’s annual meeting, on the theme of “Identity and Agency in Renaissance and Medieval Thought.” The meeting is scheduled for March 30th to April 2, 2022, in Dublin. The cfp deadline is July 16th, 2021. (Details here. The dates currently on the SMRP website, March 3-April 2, are doubtless wishful thinking brought on by a bad case of COVID-fever.)

The 6th Rio Colloquium on Logic and Metaphysics in the Later Middle Ages will take place on July 1st, July 8th and July 22nd. The theme of the meeting will be When Things Go Wrong. Failure and Error in the Later Middle Ages. Alas, it is entirely online.

Summer Happenings

Nicola Polloni (Leuven) has organized a complex online initiative, The Elusive Substrate, which over the next year will study prime matter and hylomorphism “from ancient Rome to early Qing China” (via the Middle Ages). The first event–“Roman Preludes”–is this Friday (May 14, 2021) and activities will run, roughly every month, into summer 2022.

Monika Michałowska (Łódź) and Riccardo Fedriga (Milan) are organizing an international conference on The Will and Its Acts in Late Medieval Ethics and Theology (online, June 17-18, 2021). The format of the conference is interesting: the talks will be prerecorded and prewatched, and the conference itself will be devoted to discussion.

The program for this summer’s Women on Medieval Philosophy conference has been finalized. The online event runs July 8-10, 2021. All are welcomed to attend.

Graziana Ciola (Nijmegen) and Paul Bakker (Nijmegen) are organizing a conference for next spring on Marsilius of Inghen and His Legacy (March 3-5, 2022, in Nijmegen). Cfp deadline June 1, 2021.

The University of Geneva is advertising an “assistant” position in medieval philosophy. This is what, in the American context, would be called a “teaching assistant” position: it’s open to students who have their MA and wish to pursue a PhD. The ability to teach in French is required. The application deadline is the end of this week, May 15, 2021.

There’s an International Conference on Philosophical Anthropology in Ibn Sina scheduled for this coming December in Tehran (December 26-28, 2021). Cfp deadline July 22, 2021.

Stephen Ogden (Catholic University of America) is moving to a position at the University of Notre Dame, which he will begin next fall.

Preview of coming attractions: my next blog post is going to depart from my usual narrow focus on medieval philosophy, and look at the dominance of Oxford University Press in the field of philosophy.

(The Post Previously without a Title)

Deadlines are approaching for various SIEPM initiatives:

• The application for one-to-one stipends is the end of this week (May 1, 2021). These are stipends for junior scholars to work directly with senior individual scholars.
• Submissions for the annual SIEPM junior scholar award are due June 1, 2021.
• You also have until June 1 to nominate your favorite senior scholar for an SIEPM Lifetime Achievement Award.

All this and more can be found at the SIEPM website.

Juhana Toivanen is advertising a three-year postdoc position at the University of Jyväskylä. The project concerns the social and political dimension of moral vices from medieval to early modern philosophy.

The SMRP is advertising its annual Founder’s Prize, aimed at younger scholars. The deadline for submissions is June 1, 2021. There doesn’t yet seem to be up-to-date information on the web, but I am told the deadline is June 1, 2021.

A conference next month in Stockholm, on the history of final causation, has succumbed to the inevitable and is going online. But that means anyone can listen! May 20-22, 2021, details here.

Olivier Boulnois (Paris) will be giving the Stanton lectures, virtually, at Cambridge University, throughout May 2021. His topic will be Paul and Philosophy.

The Journal of the History of Ideas is searching for a new co-executive editor to join the current editorial team. Applications should be received by June 1, 2021.

The 23rd European Symposium of Medieval Logic and Semantics has been postponed: it will now be meeting in June 2022, still in Warsaw.

The 43rd Kölner Mediaevistentagung will take place September 5-9, 2022. The topic will be consensus. Proposals, with a brief abstract, are due July 31, 2021.

Congratulations to Khaled El-Rouayheb (Harvard), whose won the 2020 best-article prize at the British Journal for the History of Philosophy, for a paper on “The Liar Paradox in Fifteenth-Century Shiraz.”

Although I don’t generally announce new publications individually, I cannot refrain from calling to your attention the beautiful new two-volume tribute to Irène Rosier-Catach, published this spring by Aracne. By my count, it contains chapters from 87 different scholars!

More Spring Announcements

Res Philosophica is sponsoring an essay prize on the topic Theological Dogma and Philosophical Innovation in Medieval Philosophy. There’s a cash prize to be won, and of course publication in the journal. Papers must be received by July 1, 2021.

The long-awaited third meeting of the Avicenna Study Group, originally scheduled for last June, has now been reorganized by Andreas Lammer (Trier) as a weekly series, beginning June 1, 2021. Details here.

The Roger Bacon Research Society has scheduled a series of online talks over the next 12 months, each on a different aspect of Bacon’s scientific theory. Next up (March 19, 2021) is Alexander Fidora (Barcelona) on “The Division of Science.”

The Graduate Student Chapter of the Aquinas and the Arabs International Working Group is meeting on March 19-20, 2021. Details here.

The Medieval Philosophy in the UK Network is holding its next meeting online, on March 26, 2021. Details here.

The University of Würzburg has rescheduled, for the coming summer, last year’s summer school on Affective Intentionality in Medieval Philosophy and Phenomenology (July 26-30, 2021). Application deadline is March 31, 2021.

Trinity College Dublin is sponsoring an online course in Byzantine Greek: both a beginners and a more advanced class. The price is quite reasonable, with further financial support available. Details here.

Doctor Virtualis is planning a special 20th-anniversary issue on Analogy and the Middle Ages. Deadline for submissions is April 30, 2021.

There’s a conference in honor of Miguel Cruz Hernández scheduled for September: Pensamiento del Islam: fundamentos, instituciones y sociedades (Alcalá la Real, September 24-25, 2021).

Congratulations to Jari Kaukua (Jyväskylä), who won the Journal of the History of Philosophy‘s prize for best article, for his paper on “Avicenna’s Outsourced Rationalism.”

Latest News in the Field

I ought to have posted before now that the Franciscan Institute (St. Bonaventure, NY) is advertising a tenure-track assistant–professor position in theology. They seek candidates whose doctorate is in theology, with a strong knowledge of the Franciscan tradition. The soft deadline was March 1, 2021, but I should think it’s not too late to get an application in.

Christophe Geudens (Leuven) and Nicola Polloni (Leuven) have formed MeLO, the Medieval Logic and Ontology Seminar. They’ve scheduled online talks throughout this spring.

The Max Planck Institute’s research group on premodern sciences is holding a series of online talks this spring, many of interest to medievalists. Details here.

The British Society for the History of Philosophy holds its annual conference, online, on April 21-23, 2021. This year’s topic is Women in the History of Philosophy.

The postponed inaugural conference of the Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy has been rescheduled for October 3-6, 2021 (U. of Notre Dame). Already, they’ve received around 70 proposals for talks, but they’re open to receiving still more, until April 11. Details here.

The Catholic Theological Faculty of Prague has organized a conference in honor of of Professor Stanislav Sousedík’s 90th birthday, focusing on three subjects: Second Scholasticism, Analytical Metaphysics, and Christian Apologetics (October 27-29, 2021). Details here.

A conference on Augustine’s De civitate Dei is being organized in Leuven/Brussels for next January, focused on political doctrine, textual transmission and early medieval reception. Details here; cfp deadline is March 31, 2021.

There’s a new, open-access tool available for the “accurate machine-reading of medieval Latin texts.” The folk who have developed this tool are holding an online training session on March 10, 2021. As I understand it, there are two things here: the Transkribus platform, designed in general for historical texts, and a specialized “model” for medieval Latin. If anyone out there knows more about this program, and how useful it might be for our world, comments to this post would be warmly welcomed.

Finally, I’m sorry to report the death of Fabrizio Mondadori (1943-2021), a longtime professor at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, and the author of a series of brilliant papers on modality, especially the work of John Duns Scotus. There’s a nice obituary here.

News for a Cold Planet

Globally, we’re in no position to object to cold weather but, still, it’s cold here! It’s also, unaccountably, been a long time since I posted anything, so here’s an attempt to catch up:

A online conference showcasing the work of female scholars working in medieval philosophy is being held on July 8-10, 2021. It’s being organized by folk at KU-Leuven. Details here. The cfp deadline is March 1.

The SIEPM has two colloquia tentatively scheduled for this summer, which may or may not happen in person (details here):

• June 7-9, 2021, in Ramat Gan, Israel, on “Dialectic in the Middle Ages: Between Debate and the Foundation of Science”;
• June 14-15, 2021, in Porto, on “Per cognitionem visualem. From the Visual Exegesis to the Visualization of Cognitive Processes in the Middle Ages and Beyond” (originally scheduled for 2020).

The International Congress of the SIEPM, which meets only once every five years, is scheduled for August 23-27, 2022, in Paris. Further details to come.

There’s an online summer school scheduled for July 5-9, 2021, organized out of Groningen, on Methodologies in the History of Philosophy. Applications are due by March 14.

Thomas Hibbs (University of Dallas) is directing a summer program for PhD students on Justice in Thomistic Ethics (July 18-24, 2021, in Washington DC). Application deadline March 31.

The American Philosophical Association has announced an annual Alvin Plantinga Prize, awarded for “original essays that engage philosophical issues about or in substantial ways related to theism.” The prize money is significant, but you must be an APA member. The deadline is March 30, 2021.

Scott Williams (UNC Asheville), in collaboration with Gordon Wilson, has created an extremely useful webpage on Henry of Ghent, complete with extensive links to online texts, an up-to-date account of where the critical edition stands, and a comprehensive bibliography.

There’s an interview with Ana Maria Mora Marquez (Gothenburg) at the blog 3:16.

I’ve got more material to share, but that’s all for this post. Will be back soon.

More of What We’ve Come to Expect from 2020

Silvia di Donato (CNRS Paris) has organized, this Thursday, a daylong conference on La prophétie et la révélation dans les traditions philosophiques arabo-islamique et juive. It’s a mix of French and English papers, all online of course (December 10, 2020).

Antoine Côté (Ottawa) has organized a great series of online talks for this spring, starting with Scott MacDonald (Cornell) on January 15, 2021. Details here.

Next fall, the Sociedad de Filosofía Medieval will hold its 8th International Congress on the subject De cognitione (Porto, September 6-8, 2021). The cfp deadline is March 15, 2021.

Schabel and Duba have concluded their editorship at Vivarium with an issue that seems perfectly suited to 2020. When I unwrapped my hard copy yesterday, I swear that a little smoke came off the thing. It begins with a series of Retraction Notices and ends with an extended review by Mark Thakkar (St. Andrews) that forecasts “a gathering crisis in medieval studies.” I won’t be publishing reader comments here—this isn’t that sort of blog—but suffice it to say that volume 58:4 is a memorable read.