Winner of 2025 Essay Contest
The winning essay of the 2025 Essay Contest was Aaron Wells (Metropolitan State University of Denver) for “Situations, Congruence, and Leibniz’s Relationalism.” Congratulations to Aaron! And many thanks to the contest’s coordinator, Adam Harmer, and the panel of judges.
Call for papers, Forty-Third Annual Essay Contest (2026)
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, 2025. 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: Adam Harmer, Department of Philosophy, University of California, Riverside: (adam.harmer@ucr.edu).
Twentieth Annual Conference
The Twentieth Annual Conference of the Leibniz Society of North America will be held at the University of California, Riverside, October 23–October 25, 2026. Jeffrey McDonough will provide a keynote address at the conference. Papers on any aspect of Leibniz’s philosophy will be considered and should have a reading time of approximately 45 minutes. Commentators will be paired with accepted submissions.
Proposals that explore connections between Leibniz’s thought and other non-canonical early modern philosophers, especially women, are particularly welcome. Papers on figures within the loosely Leibnizian orbit, including (but not limited to) Masham, Conway, Wolff, Du Châtelet, etc., will also be considered.
Submissions from graduate students and early career scholars will be given special consideration. Along these lines, the LSNA may be able to offer some travel funding to accepted submissions from graduate students and early career scholars, who do not have sufficient funding from their home institutions, in order to offset the costs of attending the meeting.
Submissions should take the form of abstracts of approx. 500 words in length, prepared for anonymous review. They should be submitted, as attachments to emails in PDF format, to Adam Harmer (adam.harmer@ucr.edu). The deadline for the receipt of submissions is May 1, 2025. Authors will be notified by June 1 of the program committee’s decision. Selected authors will be expected to send complete drafts of their presentations to their commentators by September 1, 2025.Nineteenth Annual Conference of the Leibniz Society of North America will be held at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC, October 17–19, 2025. In person attendance is strongly preferred, but for this conference we wish to offer the opportunity to participate online, especially for participants from outside the U.S.
Papers on any aspect of Leibniz’s philosophy will be considered. Proposals that explore connections between Leibniz’s thought and other non-canonical early modern philosophers, especially women, are particularly welcome. Papers on figures within the loosely Leibnizian orbit, including (but not limited to) Masham, Conway, Wolff, Du Châtelet, etc., will also be considered.
Presentations should have a reading time of approximately 45 minutes. Commentators will be paired with accepted submissions.
Our keynote speakers will be Julia Borcherding (University of Cambridge) and Andrew Janiak (Duke University). Borcherding’s talk is tentatively titled Missed Connections: Leibniz and the “English Ladies”. Janiak’s talk is titled The Vis Viva Debate in Leibniz, Clarke and Du Châtelet.
Submissions from graduate students and early career scholars will be given special consideration. The LSNA may be able to offer some travel funding to speakers in these categories who do not have sufficient funding from their home institutions, in order to offset the costs of attending the meeting.
Submissions should take the form of abstracts of approx. 500 words in length, prepared for anonymous review. They should be submitted, as attachments to emails in PDF format, to Stephen Puryear (smpuryear@ncsu.edu). The deadline for the receipt of submissions is June 1, 2025. Authors will be notified by June 15 of the program committee’s decision. Selected authors will be expected to send complete drafts of their presentations to their commentators by September 15, 2025.
Open Submissions for the Leibniz Review
Larry Jorgensen, the editor of the Leibniz Review, would like to highlight that the journal now has an open submission policy. Please consider submitting your original research papers to the Leibniz Review. It is a well-established publication that can effectively reach the international community of Leibniz scholars. The journal is also currently looking for a book review editor. If you are interested in that position, or have ideas about possible book reviews, please contact Larry.
New Membership Model for the LSNA
The executive committee of the LSNA decided to change the membership model from a calendar year subscription to a twelve month subscription. Now if someone signs up for membership late in the year, their membership will continue for twelve months rather than ending at the end of the calendar year. This new model for membership is not up and running. We hope that this new model will encourage people to renew their membership at any time of the year. As before, every membership comes with one edition of the Leibniz Review.
Minutes of Business Meeting, October 18, 2025
Meeting starts 5:17 on October 18, 2025
Treasurer report: John Whipple
- In 2024 there were 2,310 from membership and donations, 1,341.12 in service fees from the Philosophy Documentation Center, for a net gain of 968, which was deposited to the LSNA membership account.
- In 2025 the LSNA provided one travel grant to a graduate student for 500.
- The current balance in the membership account is 10,715.
- The current balance of the Leibniz Review account is 33,339 (Larry reported this number)
Numbers of LSNA Membership and a Change to Membership Structure
- 2022: 80; 2023: 69; 2024: 85; currently 76.
- The current model for membership is that when someone signs up their membership lasts until the end of the calendar year (this always includes one edition of the Leibniz Review). The downside of this is that if someone signs up for membership later in the year, then their membership might only last for a few months. John has spoken with Pam Swope from the Philosophy Documentation Center about a new model for membership where the new membership will last for one year from the date the new membership begins. So if someone signed up in November of 2025, their membership would last until November of 2026. The executive committee voted to implement this new membership structure. Pam Swope will make the change, which will take around a month.
LeibnizReview report: Larry Jorgensen
- Larry reminded us that the Leibniz Review now has an open submission policy.
- The Leibniz Review does not currently have a book review editor. If you are interested in that position or have an idea for a book review, please contact Larry.
Future LSNA Conferences
- 2026, Adam Harmer at UC Riverside
- 2027, Hao Dong (Johns Hopkins)
- 2028, Marleen Rozemond (Toronto) (possibly a themed conference?)
In person Summer event for graduate students?
- There was some discussion of hosting some kind of summer event for graduate students and younger scholars working on Leibniz. Paul Lodge and Julia Borcherding are currently hosting an online colloquium for graduate students and younger career scholars to present their research
The meeting adjourned at 5:31pm
Minutes taken by John Whipple
Leibniz Society of North America 