2018/19 Newsletter

APA Sessions

  • EASTERN APA: The Sheraton New York, Times Square, NY (January 7–10, 2019)
  • LSNA Group Session: Tuesday, January 8, 5:15–7:15 p.m.
    • Title: “The Pedagogical Character of Leibniz’s Grounding Arguments”
    • Chair: Daniel Garber (Princeton)
    • Speaker: John Whipple (University of Illinois at Chicago)
    • Commentator: Julia Borcherding (New York University)

 

LSNA Essay Contest

  • 2018 Leibniz Society Essay Competition: There was no winner in 2018 because only one entry was submitted.
  • Thirty-seventh annual competition (2019): 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, 2019. 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 Laurence Carlin, Department of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh: carlin@uwosh.edu

 

Thirteenth Annual Conference of the Leibniz Society of North America

The Thirteenth Annual Conference of the Leibniz Society of North America will be held at Emory University in Atlanta, on May 17–19, 2019. Papers on any aspect of Leibniz’s philosophy will be considered (including his reception and his various correspondences, e.g. with female philosophers) 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 ugolden@emory.edu. The deadline for the receipt of submissions has been extended to December 31st, 2018. Authors will be notified by January 15, 2019 of the program committee’s decision.

 

Minutes for LSNA Business Meeting, University of Montréal, October 13, 2018

In attendance: Ursula Goldenbaum, Daniel Garber, Larry Jorgensen, John Whipple, Brandon Look, Douglas Blue, Donald Rutherford, Richard Arthur, Marleen Rozemond, Robert Mason, Julia Jorati

 

President Ursula Goldenbaum opens the meeting at 5.51pm

  1. The process for this year’s elections: because of our new electronic election system, the election no longer takes place during the business meeting. All members will be sent an electronic ballot by email through the Philosophy Documentation Center (PDC) after the meeting.
  2. Approval of the list of candidates for the election: Brandon Look as candidate for president; John Whipple, Marleen Rozemond, and Paul Lodge as candidates for board members. Richard Arthur has agreed to be vice president. The members approve this list; no further nominations were added.
  3. President Goldenbaum thanked Donald Rutherford for his service on the Executive Committee.
  4. Finances: The LSNA will now keep its membership fees in an account that is separate from the account of the Leibniz Review; we want to use that modest income primarily to recruit young Leibniz scholars. Suggestions are welcome. We could for instance offer financial assistance for travel costs to the next conference.
  5. The next LSNA conference (2019) will be in Atlanta, organized by Ursula Goldenbaum; the one in 2020 will be in Chicago, organized by John Whipple. The tentative plan for 2021 is Boston, organized by Jeffrey McDonough. Dan Garber suggested that at some point we could again have a joint meeting with another Leibniz society.
  6. In conference announcements, we will make it clear that e.g. papers on Leibniz’s correspondence with women can be included. This might be a good way to encourage younger scholars—including women—to submit papers. We should also consider thematic conferences in the future.
  7. Essay competition: no prize was awarded this year because only one paper was submitted. We need to advertise this competition more widely.
  8. Marleen Rozemond suggested promoting research on female early modern philosophers. We could do this by explicitly encouraging submissions on Leibniz’s reception by, and correspondence with, female philosophers in calls for papers for our conferences and essay competition.
  9. Don Rutherford suggested organizing a doctoral seminar every few years, either in Germany or in the U.S. or Canada. That would be a good way to encourage young scholars to work on Leibniz; we could use some of our funds for such a seminar. Perhaps we could collaborate with the Akademie Edition or other Leibniz societies. Dan Garber suggested applying for a grant from the NEH or another source, because our own funds may not be sufficient.
  10. Dan Garber thanked Ursula Goldenbaum for her service as president.

President Ursula Goldenbaum closes the meeting at 6.13pm

 

Decisions by the Executive Committee

The Executive Committee has decided the following:

  • A member of the EC will run the LSNA Essay Competition, beginning in 2020; Laurence Carlin kindly agreed to run the competition again in 2019.
  • The EC will advertise the Essay Competition more widely.
  • The winner of the essay competition will continue to get a chance to publish their essay in The Leibniz Review (but will not automatically get a chance to present it at the upcoming Leibniz Conference).
  • Submissions in German will no longer be considered for the Essay Competition; only French and English submissions will be considered. (One EC member abstained, all others were in favor.)
  • The new budget of the LSNA will be used in particular for graduate students giving papers at the yearly Leibniz conferences.

 

Election Results

The results of our electronic elections are as follows (all positions are effective December 1, 2018):

  • Brandon Look (the current vice president) was elected President
  • Richard Arthur was appointed (by Ursula Goldenbaum) to serve as Vice President until the next election in 2020
  • Paul Lodge was elected for another term as executive board member
  • Marleen Rozemond was elected for another term as executive board member
  • John Whipple was elected for another term as executive board member

 

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