Fifth International Conference
Whitehead: The Next Generation
Date: December 1-3, 2011
Location: Claremont, California
In celebration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Alfred North Whitehead, the Whitehead Research Project will gather emerging Whitehead scholars both from Claremont and from the international community to present the burgeoning work of the next generation of Whiteheadian thought. This conference will be quite transdisciplinary in nature, as it embraces the variety of approaches taken by these young thinkers. In true Whiteheadian fashion, the conference seeks not to highlight a single focus for the future of Whitehead scholarship, but rather it aims at uncovering multiple trajectories through which the influence of Whitehead will carry us into the future. READ MORE »
Fourth International Conference
Metaphysics and Things: New Forms of Speculative Thought
Date: December 2-4, 2010
Location: Claremont, California
In keeping with its mission to analyze the relevance of Whitehead's thought in dialogue with contemporary philosophies, the Whitehead Research Project (WRP) is sponsoring a conference to explore some of the congruences and tensions between various recent attempts to return to speculative thought and to reorient the concept of the thing (or object). The conference will provide the opportunity to identify and work through shared elements and problems, which have been developed by those working in the philosophies of Whitehead and Deleuze, Actor-Network-Theory, and Speculative Realism. READ MORE »
Third International Conference
Becomings, Misplacements, Departures: Butler and Whitehead as Catalysts for Contemporary Thought
Date: December 3-5, 2009
Location: Claremont, California
This third International Conference of the Whitehead Research Project, "Becomings, Misplacements, Departures: Butler and Whitehead as Catalysts for Contemporary Thought," is the first set of formal conversations bringing together the dynamic philosophies of two eminent thinkers: Judith Butler and Alfred North Whitehead. Each has drawn from a wide palette of disciplines to develop distinctive theories of becoming, of syntactical violence, and of the creative opportunities of limitation. What contrasts and affinities exist between their modes of thought? What new questions, strategies, and critiques emerge by juxtaposing their distinctive perspectives? In line with the "initial aim" of WRP and the first two conferences, on Badiou, Deleuze and Whitehead, this conference seeks to generate novel interfaces, stimulate interdisciplinary innovation, and provoke unexpected impulses for philosophical discourse in our complex world. READ MORE »
Second International Conference
Beyond Metaphysics? Transcontinental Explorations in Alfred North Whitehead's Late Thought
Date: December 4-6, 2008
Location: Claremont, California
The Whitehead Research Project and the Society for the Study of Process Philosophies will hold a major international conference on December 4-6 at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California. This event will bring together leading scholars from Europe (Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain and Great Brittan) and the United States to engage Alfred North Whitehead's late work. The theme will bring participants to explore the question of whether Whitehead's system is completed with Process and Reality, or if instead his metaphysics only comes fully into view in his later works (esp. Adventures of Ideas and Modes of Thought). One could, for instance, argue that Modes of Thought captures his true metaphysics. The goal will be to recognize the differentiation of Whitehead's thought post Process and Reality and to learn to measure it on its own terms. READ MORE »
First International Conference
Event & Decision: Ontology & Politics in Badiou, Deleuze, and Whitehead
Date: December 6-8, 2007
Location: Claremont, California
The Whitehead Research Project, in conjunction with the School of Humanities at Claremont Graduate University and Pomona College will be hosting "Event & Decision: Ontology & Politics in Badiou, Deleuze, and Whitehead". In this interdisciplinary conference, the philosophies of Alain Badiou, Gilles Deleuze, and Alfred North Whitehead become sites for reflecting on Ontology and Politics in the many fields of its productive presence and novelty: philosophy, cultural studies, social and political theory, art, literature, and religion. READ MORE »