Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy

2025 Berggruen Prize Essay Competition

May 2, 2025 /

2025 Berggruen Prize Essay Competition

Consciousness

Now Accepting Submissions

The Berggruen Institute invites you to participate in the 2025 Berggruen Prize Essay Competition — a unique opportunity to contribute to global philosophical and cultural discourse while competing for a $50,000 USD prize.

This annual competition seeks to foster groundbreaking ideas and embrace diverse perspectives across cultures, disciplines, and geographies. Inspired by the pivotal role essays have played in shaping intellectual thought—such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s seminal win at the Académie de Dijon in 1750—this competition aspires to serve as a modern-day platform for intellectual innovation. 

Competition Highlights

  • Prize: $50,000 USD
  • Languages: Open to essays in English and Chinese.
  • 2025 Theme: Consciousness. The nature of consciousness has enthralled philosophers for millennia. We seek original essays that offer fresh perspectives from all traditions and disciplines.
  • Deadline: July 31, 2025

By entering the Berggruen Prize Essay Competition, you are not only competing for a prestigious award but also contributing to a global conversation on the fundamental philosophical questions that shape our contemporary life and future. Winners will be celebrated at an award ceremony. Winning essays will be published via our award-winning publication channels, offering insightful perspectives from both East and West to a worldwide audience.

How to Participate:
Read the submission guidelines, eligibility criteria and submit your essay here.

Additionally, we would be grateful if you could help us spread the word. Share this email and our social media posts with friends, colleagues, and anyone in your network who might be interested in contributing their ideas to this vibrant dialogue.

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Together, let’s build a community of thinkers and innovators. Your contribution is essential to enriching this exciting conversation.

Sincerely,
Berggruen Institute

Call for Proposals: Comparative Approaches to Process Philosophy

April 24, 2025 /
Call for Proposals
Edited Volume of comparative process philosophy:
Weaving Together: Comparative Approaches to Process Philosophy
We invite proposals for an edited volume that explores the history, influence, and contemporary practice of process philosophy as a framework for comparative philosophy. This volume aims to illuminate how process thought can serve as subject, method, or application in engaging philosophical traditions across cultures. While the primary focus is on the process tradition developed by Alfred North Whitehead and his intellectual heirs, we also welcome contributions that engage other process-oriented figures and traditions.
These may include figures such as G.W.F. Hegel, Henri Bergson, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and Gilles Deleuze, as well as philosophical currents from Indian, Daoist, Confucian, Buddhist, and Indigenous thought. We especially encourage proposals that employ process philosophy as a methodological or conceptual tool in comparative contexts, or that highlight how process thought contributes to broader conversations across metaphysical, ethical, aesthetic, and socio-political domains.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
  • An intellectual history of one or more process philosophical approaches to comparison
  • The constructive use of process philosophy in cross-cultural philosophical analysis
  • The role of becoming, relationality, and dynamic change in comparative philosophy
  • A comparison of process philosophical traditions
  • Applications of process thought to comparative metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, and social theory
  • The contribution of process philosophy to comparative methodologies in philosophy
  • Process philosophy as a “bridge tradition” for cross-cultural understanding
  • The relevance of process thought for addressing contemporary global challenges through comparative philosophy
  • Ecofeminist and intersectional approaches to relationality: a process-philosophical contribution to comparative ethics and social theory
  • Process thought, AI, and posthuman becoming: comparative philosophical perspectives on technology, relational subjectivity, and the future of the human across cultural traditions
Submissions should be grounded in relevant historical and contemporary scholarship and engage meaningfully with comparative philosophical discourse. While interdisciplinary perspectives are welcome, each proposal should articulate its contribution to comparative philosophy in particular.
Submission Guidelines
Please submit a 500–750 word abstract with a working title, accompanied by a short CV (no more than three pages), by June 30, 2025. Selected contributors will be invited to submit full chapters of 6,000–8,000 words by March 30, 2026, with the anticipated publication of the volume scheduled for late 2026 or early spring 2027.
Send submissions and inquiries to:
Jea Sophia Oh (joh@wcupa.edu)
Robert Smid (robert.smid@curry.edu)
We look forward to receiving your proposals and to fostering a rich dialogue on the significance of process philosophy for comparative inquiry.

Fifth Lecture in the Miki Kiyoshi Lecture Series: Ecstasis and Redemption

March 4, 2025 /

Hello Everyone,
I am pleased to announce that the fifth lecture in the Miki Kiyoshi Lecture Series, titled Ecstasis and Redemption, will be delivered by Takushi Odagiri, Associate Professor at Kanazawa University, on March 12, 19:00–21:00 EDT (March 13, 8:00–10:00 JST).
This lecture promises a thoughtful and insightful exploration of two key figures in critical theory and 20th-century Japanese philosophy. Takushi Odagiri will explore the intersections between Walter Benjamin’s and Miki Kiyoshi’s conceptions of history, particularly their critiques of historical formalism and their alternative visions of temporality. By bringing these two figures into dialogue, the lecture will shed light on how their ideas inform contemporary debates on historical consciousness, political action, and the role of imagination in shaping our understanding of the present.
For more information, please email Gerald Nelson Jr. at gkn5069@psu.edu
📺 Zoom Link:
https://psu.zoom.us/j/93310489524
📄 Flyer Link:
https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:US:ab2dc35c-07d7-4673-b238-3f80d4827fba
✉️ Sign Up for Email Notifications:
https://forms.gle/ppsmT9qjYF5qqHnU8
📘 Facebook Event Page:
https://www.facebook.com/share/19tqhkt61y/
📅 PhilEvents Page:
https://philevents.org/event/show/133414
Looking forward to seeing you there!
Abstract:
Ectasis and Redemption
Benjamin’s Theses on the Philosophy of History (1940) is contemporaneous with Miki’s Logic of Imagination (1937-1938 and 1939-1943). There are significant resemblances in their historical thought. Both Benjamin and Miki reject causal conceptions of history, being critical of historical formalism. They both inquire into certain openture of time called the present (or what Benjamin calls “a monad”). They conceive of philosophy from the standpoint of action rather than that of knowledge. However, despite these similarities, whereas Benjamin’s Theses revolve around redemption of the subdued, Miki pursues an ecstatic/techno-ontological conception of history. This study clarifies both Benjamin’s and Miki’s theses on historical openture in their texts dating from the overlapping period. Despite his recurring statement that an action should be understood as creation of things, Miki’s presentist thought is essentially metaphysical rather than physical or material. Since we live in the world in which fiction bears more importance than material objects, metaphysics for Miki is related to the faculty of imagination. Therefore, unlike for Benjamin, the standpoint of action for Miki does not necessarily entail a materialist view. This (potentially contradictory) idea of action cuts across Miki’s philosophy of history and imagination. It explains the difference between Benjamin’s redemptive and Miki’s ecstatic presentism. Miki examines this correlation between imagination and metaphysics throughout Logic of Imagination.

CFP: SACP at AAR 2025

March 3, 2025 /

Call for Proposals
The Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy welcomes proposals for our two 90min panels at the American Academy of Religion annual meeting, to be held November 22–25, 2025 at Boston, whose presidential theme is freedom. Proposals regarding any aspect of Asian or comparative philosophy are welcome.

Please submit through AAR PAPERS system. Typically, AAR submission site opens at the end of January, proposals due early to mid-March 2025. You can find instructions here, https://papers.aarweb.org/sites/default/files/uploads/PAPERS_Instructions_1.pdf 

For AAR 2025, one of our allotted two panels will be co-sponsored with Global-Critical Philosophy of Religion on the following theme. The other panel will be open to any aspect of Asian or comparative philosophy.

Title – Translational Feminisms for Philosophers of Religion

CFP description – How might philosophers of religion constructively approach the unresolved, intractable, transcultural issue of patriarchy and gender-based oppression from the theoretical resources of resources typically marginalized by the field? We seek papers and panel proposals that clearly articulate a specific problem, outline arguments in response, and philosophically evaluate the arguments’ merits. Our session will thereby produce a mutually illuminating conversation.

SACP CFP 2025 (deadline extended)

January 2, 2025 /

Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy
57th Annual Conference
July 9-11, 2025
Leiden University

From Human to Humane:
Nature, Nurture, and Narrative

Featuring Keynote Speakers

Johannes Bronkhorst
and
Peter Hershock

Call for Proposals

The 57th annual Conference of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy will be held at Leiden University from July 9-11, 2025.

We invite individual and panel proposals on any topic consistent with the SACP mission of advancing intercultural philosophy. The SACP board especially welcomes paper and panel submissions that reflect diverse Asian and comparative approaches to traditional philosophical concerns, as well as critical engagement with contemporary issues of global concern.

Submissions: Paper and panel proposals can be submitted via the submission portal.

Individual proposals should include: (1) title; (2) abstract of 200-300 words; (3) presenter’s name, email, and institution.

Panel proposals should include: (1) panel title and description; (2) title and abstract of each paper; (4) name, email, and institution of each participant, including the panel moderator.

The deadline for submission has been extended to February 10, 2025. Notice of acceptance of proposals will be emailed by March 10, with instructions for registering and submitting the conference registration fee. Further details of the conference will appear on the SACP conference website.

Graduate Student Essay Contest Awards: To encourage student participation, the SACP awards prizes for the top three papers presented by graduate students: US$1,000 for first prize, US$750 for second prize, and US$500 for third prize. Students must attend the conference to be eligible for Essay Contest Awards.

More Information: Additional queries about any aspect of the conference can be directed to SACPcontact@gmail.com.

Click here to view as Word document – SACP CFP 2025

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