Manchester Research Group for European Philosophy
Graduate Workshop: Kant, German Idealism and Romanticism
Date and Venue
Friday 28 November 2025
University of Manchester, Samuel Alexander Building, A7
09:30 to 09:50 Arrival
09:50 to 10:00 Welcome
Panel 1: Kant: Limiting Concepts and the Fact of Reason (10:00 to 11:30)
10:00 to 10:30 Zachary E. Altman (University of Pennsylvania), The Role of Limiting Concepts in Kant
10:30 to 11:00 Ying Xue (University of Warwick), The Reception and Transformation of Kant’s “Fact of Reason” Argument in Schelling and Hegel
11:00 to 11:30 Kutlu Tuncel (Bilkent University), Kantian Conceptualism and Nonconceptualism
11:30 to 11:45 Break
Panel 2: Early German Idealism: Freedom and System (11:45 to 13:15)
11:45 to 12:15 Jinhua Hao (University of Freiburg), From Moral Condition to Systematic Principle: Schelling on Freedom, 1794 to 1795
12:15 to 12:45 Dino Jakusic (Institute of Advanced Study, University of Warwick), Hegel’s Logic and Wolff’s Ontology: A Case for a Reformist Reading
12:45 to 13:15 Caterina Piccini (University of Roma Tre), Exploring the Transcendental: A Dialogue Between Kant and Hegel
13:15 to 14:15 Break
Panel 3: After Idealism: Post Kantian Receptions (14:15 to 16:15)
14:15 to 14:45 Octavio Andrés García Aguilar (University of Manchester), Hegel, Darwin, and the British Idealists: Reception and Adaptation
14:45 to 15:15 Fridolin Neumann (University of Warwick), Heidegger’s Realism and his Appropriation of Kant
15:15 to 15:45 Dominic Kearney (University of Southampton), Monism and Motivation: Schopenhauer’s Ontology of Intention
15:45 to 16:15 Aylin Yildirim (Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg), To Be Recognized by My Desire: Fanon, Hegel and the Colonial Relation
16:15 to 17:00 Keynote talk: Elisabeth Theresia Widmer (Postdoctoral Fellow at London School of Economics, Department of Government). Title and abstract to follow.
https://philevents.org/event/show/141486
Manchester Research Forum for European Philosophy (MRFEP)
Research Seminar Series – Autumn 2025
1. Wednesday 22 October 2025, 15:30–19:00
Parataxis, Adorno, Hölderlin, Identity
Sebastian Truskolaski (Lecturer in German Cultural Studies, University of Manchester)
📍 Samuel Alexander Building, Room A18
2. Tuesday 4 November 2025, 15:30–17:30
The Varieties of Vegetal Experience
Danielle Sands (Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature, Royal Holloway)
Daniel Whistler (Professor of Philosophy, Royal Holloway)
📍 Samuel Alexander Building, Room A104
3. Friday 7 November 2025, 15:30–17:30
The Psychosis of Race: Exploring the Post-Racial Imagination
Jack Black (Associate Professor of Culture, Media & Sport, Sheffield Hallam University)
📍 Samuel Alexander Building, Room A18
4. Friday 14 November 2025, 15:30–17:30
In Technology We Trust: A Critical Introduction to The Fundamental Tendency of Our Time by Emanuele Severino**
Antimo Lucarelli (PhD, SAS University of London)
📍 Samuel Alexander Building, Room A214
5. Wednesday 19 November 2025, 15:30–18:00
Artistic Reason and Imaginative Freedom: Yoko Ono’s Instruction Project qua Project of Autonomy
Gabriella Daris (PhD, Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University)
📍 Samuel Alexander Building, Room A112
6. Wednesday 26 November 2025, 15:30–19:00
Spectacle and Mourning: Guy Debord and Gillian Rose on Time and History
Tom Bunyard (Researcher, ‘Kantian Justice: A Responsibility-Enhancing Desert-Sensitive Theory’ , University of Liverpool)
📍 Samuel Alexander Building, Room A104
7. Thursday 27 November 2025, 15:30–17:30
Materialist Morphologies: Plants in Continental and Soviet Philosophy
Isabel Jacobs (Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences)
📍 Samuel Alexander Building, Room A112
8. Date TBA
Excrementally Us
Keith Crome (Principal Lecturer in Philosophy, Manchester Metropolitan University)
📍 Venue TBA
B) MRFEP Graduate Workshop
Friday 28 November 2025, 09:30–17:00
Graduate Workshop: Kant, German Idealism, and Romanticism
Keynote: Elisabeth Theresia Widmer (Postdoctoral Fellow, London School of Economics, Department of Government)
📍 Samuel Alexander Building, Room A7
We’re now the Manchester Research Forum for European Philosophy.
An open research forum for work in European philosophy (broadly construed).
Programme and events are in the work - details soon.
Follow this page for calls, announcement s of events, and reading groups.
Questions/interest: mrffep@gmail.com
Continental Philosophy Northwest Research Network – Graduate Workshop Series 2025–26 This year’s theme: Kant, German Idealism, and Romanticism.
The Continental Philosophy Northwest Research Network (CPNWRN) is a platform for research in the continental philosophical tradition, broadly understood. Our activities include lectures, symposia, and thematic workshop series, with contributions from both established scholars and graduate researchers.
As part of our 2025–26 programme, we are running a Graduate Workshop Series devoted to Kant, German Idealism, Romanticism, and their reception. The series will provide a forum for presenting work in progress, fostering rigorous and constructive discussion among researchers working within these traditions in their philosophical, philological, or historical dimensions.
Possible topics include: Kant’s critical philosophy, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Hölderlin, Schiller, Novalis, 19th-century reception, and subsequent engagements in phenomenology, critical theory, and contemporary thought that remain grounded in this tradition.
Workshops will take place in person at the University of Manchester campus, with the first series running in the first semester. We welcome proposals from researchers based anywhere in the UK and Ireland.
To propose a presentation, please email cpnwrnworkshop@gmail.com with:
• a short title,
• a 300-word abstract,
• your programme affiliation.
Proposals will be reviewed on a rolling basis until 15 September 2025, or until all slots are filled.
Yesterday's workshop at the University of Manchester marked the inaugural event of the Continental Philosophy Northwest Research Network.
The highlight was undoubtedly Howard Caygill’s keynote, “The Works of Madness: Foucault at Münsterlingen”, a radical re-reading of a familiar scene. Howard walked us through the contradictions of Foucault’s early years, his entanglement with Daseinsanalyse, and the overlooked testimony of the so-called “mad” themselves, patients resisting, performing, protesting through masks, art, and irony.
It meant a lot to have Howard with us, not just because of the talk, but because he’s been a mentor and someone whose work reminds us why we do this kind of philosophy at all.
Thanks also to Keith Crome and Sebastian Truskolaski for the sharp responses, and to everyone who came and made the conversation what it was. What began as a structured programme gradually unfolded into a genuinely dialogical exchange.
This was just the beginning. More events to come soon. Stay tuned.
First workshop of the Continental Philosophy Northwest Research Network.
Keynote speaker: Howard Caygill, CRMEP – Kingston University.
Keynote title: 'The Works of Madness: Foucault at Münsterlingen'.
Location: C1.18 conference room, 1st floor, Ellen Wilkinson building, University of Manchester Campus.
Institution: School of Arts, Languages and Cultures - University of Manchester.
Date: 16 May, 2025.
The Continental Philosophy Northwest Research Network is pleased to announce its inaugural workshop. The keynote speaker for this year’s workshop will be Howard Caygill, Professor of Modern European Philosophy at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University. Professor Caygill’s lecture examines Foucault's claim, in the 1961 preface to the History of Madness, that madness is 'nothing other than the absence of an oeuvre' by joining him on his 1954 visit to the mental hospital at Münsterlingen. By contemplating the photographic record of his visit Professor Caygill asks why Foucault was unable to see what was happening before his eyes in the works of the hospital inmates as they prepared for a carnival procession.
Following the keynote, responses will be offered by Keith Crome, Principal Lecturer in Philosophy and Director of Programmes in History, Politics, and Philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan University, as well as Sebastian Truskolaski, Lecturer in German Studies at the University of Manchester’s School of Languages, Arts, and Cultures. Their contributions will provide critical perspectives on Professor Caygill’s address and facilitate the subsequent discussion regarding the contemporary state of philosophy.
Program
11:00 - 11:15 | Opening Remarks
Welcome by the organizer/moderator and brief introduction to the workshop’s theme.
11:15 – 12:00 | Keynote Presentation
Speaker: Howard Caygill
Topic: 'The Works of Madness: Foucault at Münsterlingen'.
12:00 -13:30 | Response Panel
Discussion between the keynote Keith Crome and Sebastian Truskolaski.
13:30 – 14:00 | Break
14:00 – | Open Discussion & Closing Remarks
Audience participation, moderated discussion
Format: In-person. All students and interested parties are encouraged to engage in the discussion.
Workshop Organizer: Nikolaos Anapliotis, PhD candidate in German Studies. nikolaos.anapliotis@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk
Acknowledgments: This workshop is co-sponsored by the Postgraduate Research (PGR) budget and the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Arts and Languages at the University of Manchester.
We extend our support to our colleagues at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy.