New URL for LSNA Website
We now have a new URL for the LSNA website: leibnizsociety.org. (The old URL should redirect to the new one).
Winner of 2023 Essay Contest
The winner of the LSNA’s 2023 Essay Contest is Yual Chiek (St. John’s University), for his paper “Leibniz on the Contingency of the Laws of Motion: The Transference Thesis and the Equality of Cause and Effect.” This paper will be published in the 2023 issue of the Leibniz Review. Congratulations to the winner! And many thanks to the contest’s coordinator, Larry Jorgensen, and the panel of judges.
Call for papers, Forty-Second Annual Essay Contest (2024)
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, 2024. The author of the winning essay will have the option of publishing it in the Leibniz Review.
Previous one-time winners are encouraged to re-enter, but a given person can win the competition at most twice. 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.
Submission Guidelines: 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. 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. 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 Larry Jorgensen, Department of Philosophy, Skidmore College: ljorgens@skidmore.edu
Eighteenth Annual Conference
The Eighteenth Annual Conference of the Leibniz Society of North America (LSNA) will be a held jointly with the sixth conference of the Société d’etudes leibniziennes de langue française (SELLF). The conference will take place at the Sorbonne (in Paris, France), June 13–15, 2024. The goal of the joint conference is to share research and increase interaction between the two scholarly communities. Half of the papers will be in French, the other half in English. Each talk (30 minutes) will be followed by comments (15 minutes) in the other language. They can address any aspect of Leibniz’s work, including influences on his thought, or its reception. Discussion will be in both languages, where flexibility will be paramount. Submissions should take the form of an abstract (max 450 words) and title, and sent to Leibniz.sellf@gmail.com. The deadline was December 12, 2023. The submissions will be evaluated by a joint committee composed of representatives of both societies. The decisions for the program will be made by the end of January, 2024. The LSNA has some funding to help early career scholars who would have difficulty covering travel expenses. Speakers are asked to send their papers to their commentators 4 weeks ahead of the conference, by May 15, 2024. Commentators are asked to send their response to the speaker one week before the conference, by June 6, 2024. For submissions in English, we ask that authors join the Leibniz Society of North America. Membership dues fund the operation of the LSNA and subsidies for travel by early career scholars. For participation in the conference, membership in one of the two societies will be mandatory. While the LSNA is based in North America, membership is open to all those with a scholarly interest in Leibniz, regardless of country of residence. Joining the Society requires payment of annual dues, which include a subscription to the Leibniz Review.
Robert M. Adams (1937–2024)
Robert M. Adams, who has arguable shaped recent Leibniz scholarship more than anyone else, passed away in April 2024. For more information, see Daily Nous.
Minutes of LSNA Business Meeting at Harvard, September 30, 2023
Attending: present: Marleen Rozemond, Don Rutherford, Julia Borcherding, Julia Jorati, Jeff McDonough, Matthias Armgardt, Chloe Armstrong, Brandon Look, Henry Straughan, Andrew Burnside, Kristen Irwin, Steven Puryear, Chris Noble
President Marleen Rozemond opened the meeting at 5:37pm EST.
Announcements:
- Our next LSNA meeting is in Paris, June 13–15, 2024, joint with SELLF (the Francophone Leibniz society).
- The location for our meeting in 2025 is not confirmed yet, but it might be in California.
- Funding for Paris meeting: we have set aside some funds for people who don’t have travel funding from their own institutions.
- There will be an LSNA session to commemorate Maria Rosa Antognazza on January 16, 2024, 7–10pm, in New York City at the Eastern APA, followed by a small reception. “Faith and Reason: In Memory of Maria Rosa Antognazza.” Chair: Marleen Rozemond (University of Toronto). Speakers: Kristen Irwin (Loyola University Chicago), “Rational and Theological Grounds for Religious Toleration in Leibniz;” Larry Jorgensen (Skidmore College), “‘God as Architect Satisfies God as Legislator’: Leibniz on the Natural Consequences of Injustice.”
- Request / Suggestion: the Central APA 2025 will be online; we could do one or two LSNA sessions there; if anybody is interested in organizing the session, please get in touch! The online format might make it easier for some people to attend the session.
- Question: Maybe we could go back to going back to inviting the winners of the contest to present at our conferences? Maybe they could present the following year? The organizers of the 2024 meeting could consider doing this.
- Membership numbers: unfortunately, these numbers are in decline. Please renew your membership! There are benefits, such as getting the journal, getting email updates, supporting Leibniz scholarship, being able to vote in our elections and run for office, etc. We’ll also explore whether we can offer the option of renewing for 3 years at a time. Moreover, we will start requiring speakers at our conferences to become members.
- Suggestion from Julia Borcherding and Tzuchien Tho: maybe we can periodically hold meetings in the UK, in addition to our regular meeting. That way, members from Europe wouldn’t have to travel so far. This could be particularly important when we have our North American meeting on the West coast.
- At the end of the meeting, Don Rutherford, Brandon Look, Julia Borcherding, and Marleen Rozemond offered some reflections about Maria Rosa Antognazza, who passed away earlier this year.
President Marleen Rozemond closes the meeting at 6:09pm EST
Leibniz Society of North America 