Conferences

Second Critical Edition of Whitehead Conference:
Whitehead’s Harvard Lectures, 1925-1927
Date: September 16-17, 2022
Location: Virtual, via Zoom
With the January 2021 publication of the second volume of Whitehead’s Harvard lectures as The Harvard Lectures of Alfred North Whitehead, 1925–1927: General Metaphysical Problems of Science (HL2), scholars now have access to the laboratory of Whitehead’s classroom for his second and third years in America, from the time just after the publication of his Science and the Modern World, through his delivery of the 1926 Lowell lectures that would become Religion in the Making, and up to his delivery of the Barbour-Page lectures that would become Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect. What do these two years of lectures reveal about the development of Whitehead’s philosophy?
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Tenth International Conference
Astrobiology, Exo-Philosophy and Cosmic Religion: Toward a Constructive Process Cosmotheology
Date: May 5-7, 2022
Location: Salem, Oregon
The possibility of a truly biological universe has not ceased to haunt the human imagination. Over the past three decades, the discovery of thousands of exo-planets has spurred novel research programs integrating science, philosophy and theology in exciting new ways. Indeed, a variety of stimulating proposals have drawn together convergent insights in physics, cosmology and astrobiology; metaphysics and the philosophy of mind; the philosophy of religion and philosophical theology. Ever-more-relevant questions as to the status and implications of wide-ranging life in the universe continue to be raised. These questions in turn spark deeper questions about the necessary philosophical assumptions or presuppositions of a bio-centric universe; and wider constructive considerations as to how theology, religion, and society must change in light of the impact of discovery.
Little attention, however, has been explicitly directed toward the valuable resources inherent in the philosophies of Alfred North Whitehead, Teilhard de Chardin, Henri Bergson and other process philosophers when approaching these questions. What constructive dimensions do pervasive themes of process, organism, temporality, novelty, experience, value, and mind, harbor for the interrelated concerns of astrobiology, philosophy, and theology?
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Ninth International Conference
Whitehead Revealed: Examining Whitehead’s First Year of Harvard Lectures
Date: November 30 – December 2, 2017
Location: Claremont, California
After more than ten years of work, the Whitehead Research Project has produced the first volume in the Edinburgh Critical Edition of the Complete Works of Alfred North Whitehead: The Harvard Lectures of Alfred North Whitehead, 1924-1925: Philosophical Presuppositions of Science, edited by Paul Bogaard and Jason Bell. The focus of the conference will be exploring the significance of this recently published material, which throws new light upon the development of Whitehead’s philosophy. With the publication of this new material, long-standing theories about Whitehead’s early philosophical efforts may now be challenged or overturned, and signals the beginning of a whole new era in Whitehead scholarship.
You can view recordings of all sessions of the conference over on the WRP YouTube channel, here.
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Eighth International Conference
A Whiteheadian Laboratory: Featuring Erin Manning, Brian Massumi, and the SenseLab
Date: December 1-3, 2016
Location: Claremont, California
This year’s conference asks: How does the work of A.N. Whitehead help us to not just think differently, but also act, live, communicate, and learn differently? A more specific way of putting this question is to ask: How Do We Make Ourselves a Proposition? During the course of this conference, we will try to develop new approaches not by presenting completed ideas or arguments, but by activating propositions.
You can view recordings of all sessions of the conference over on the WRP YouTube channel, here.
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Seventh International Conference
Rethinking Symbolism: Whitehead and the Problems of Thought, Language, and Culture
Date: December 4-6, 2014
Location: Claremont, California
The theme of this year’s conference will be a reconsideration of Whitehead’s Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect. Given the scientific, cultural, and technological changes that have taken place since 1927 it seems quite appropriate to examine, in the spirit of Whitehead, the current attitude towards symbolism that we find in our current, early twenty-first century epoch. It is in this spirit that we will convene a number of the leading figures who work on Whitehead and who also acknowledge importance of symbols more generally. By drawing from a number of disciplines we shall set the stage for a fruitful series of discussions on the contemporary meaning and effects of symbolism.
You can view recordings of all sessions of the conference over on the WRP YouTube channel, here.
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Sixth International Conference
Experience & Reality: Thinking with Whitehead and American Pragmatism
Date: November 29-December 1, 2012
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 hosting a conference to explore current lines of congruence and tension between American pragmatism, classical American philosophy, and contemporary Whitehead scholarship. Accordingly, questions that may be addressed include: Is Whitehead a Pragmatist and/or an American philosopher? What contrasts and affinities exist between American Pragmatism and Whitehead’s thought? What new questions, strategies, and critiques emerge by juxtaposing their distinct perspectives? READ MORE »

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.
You can view select recordings of sessions of the conference over on the WRP YouTube channel, here.
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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.
You can view select recordings of sessions of the conference over on the WRP YouTube channel, here.
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