2019/20 Newsletter

APA Sessions

  • EASTERN APA: The Philadelphia 201 Hotel, Philadelphia, PA (January 8–11, 2020)
  • LSNA Group Session: Thursday, January 9, 5:30–7:30 p.m.
    • Title: “The Guise of the Good in Leibniz”
    • Chair: Daniel Garber (Princeton)
    • Speaker: Julia Jorati (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
    • Commentator: Nabeel Hamid (Concordia University)

 

LSNA Essay Contest

  • 2019 Leibniz Society Essay Competition: The winner of the 2019 essay competition is Jen Nguyen (Harvard), for her paper “Leibniz on Place.” Congratulations!
  • Thirty-eighth annual competition (2020): In an effort to encourage the study of the philosophy of Leibniz in North America and to give recognition to deserving scholars, the Leibniz Society of North America (LSNA) is continuing its annual Essay Competition. Submitted essays should be on some aspect of the philosophy of Leibniz (including his reception and his various correspondences, e.g. with female philosophers). They should be from twelve to twenty-five pages in length (double-spaced), and should be submitted by June 1, 2020. The author of the winning essay will have the option of publishing it in the Leibniz Review. To facilitate anonymous judging, the author’s name should be given only on a separate title page or cover sheet and should not appear in the body or footnotes of the paper; neither should identifiable information such as full references to publications by the author. Judges reserve the right not to name a winner in the event that none of the submissions is deemed to be of sufficient quality or suitability for the award. Full scholarly apparatus is preferred but not required; sufficiently developed works-in-progress will, therefore, have a chance in the competition and may be submitted. Previous one-time winners are encouraged to re-enter, but a given person can win the competition at most twice. Essays in French may be submitted as well as in English.  Please send submissions by email attachment (Word or pdf format) to the Coordinator of the LSNA Essay Competition: Professor John Whipple, Department of Philosophy, University of Illinois at Chicago: jwhipple@uic.edu

 

Fourteenth Annual Conference of the Leibniz Society of North America

The Fourteenth Annual Conference of the Leibniz Society of North America will be held at the University of Illinois at Chicago, on September 12–13, 2020. Papers on any aspect of Leibniz’s philosophy will be considered (including his reception and his correspondences) and should have a reading time of approximately 45 minutes. Submissions should take the form of abstracts of about 500 words, prepared for blind review. They should be submitted, as attachments to emails in either Microsoft Word or PDF format, to jwhipple@uic.edu. The deadline for the receipt of submissions is February 23, 2020. There will be commentators on the papers that are selected for the conference.  Presenters will be asked to provide a draft of their paper to their commentator by July 1st.

 

Minutes of Business Meeting, LSNA conference in Atlanta, GA, May 18, 2019

In attendance: Ursula Goldenbaum, Daniel Garber, Brandon Look, Jeff McDonough, Sam Levey, Juan Garcia, Martha Bolton, Julia Jorati

President Brandon Look opens the meeting and makes the following announcements:

Future meetings:

  • The 2020 conference will be in Chicago, organized by John Whipple. Dates TBD.
  • The 2021 conference will be in Boston/Cambridge, organized by Jeff McDonough, possibly the first weekend of November
  • The 2022 conference might be in Princeton, organized by Dan Garber

Doctoral Seminars: The LSNA hopes to (co-)organize doctoral seminars about every 3 years to promote the study of Leibniz. Ursula Goldenbaum and Brandon Look will talk to Thomas Leinkauf from the Münster Leibniz edition this summer about the possibility of co-organizing a doctoral seminar (maybe in collaboration with some other European Leibniz societies).

Elections: there will be LSNA board elections next year. Members will get a chance to submit nominations beforehand.

Group meeting at the Eastern APA: Richard Arthur is working on a program and it will be announced soon.

Funding for graduate student travel: We will continue to try providing funding for graduate students who present or comment at our conferences, if they do not have support from their home institutions. Calls for papers will say that we may be able to support graduate students who do not have support from their own institutions.

Change in dues structure: the Executive committee is considering a change to the LSNA dues structure, charging more for members who would like a hard copy of the Leibniz Review in addition to electronic access through PDC. If we decide to do this, more information will follow.

President Brandon Look closes the meeting

 

Decisions by the Executive Committee

The Executive Committee has decided the following:

  • To cover the cost of mailing the Leibniz Review, especially internationally, the EC is implementing a new dues structure, starting in 2020:
    • $20/year for online-only subscriptions for student members
    • $30/year for online-only subscriptions for non-student members
    • $35/year for print+online subscriptions within the U.S. and Canada
    • $40/year for print+online subscriptions outside of the U.S. and Canada
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