Association for Continental Philosophy

Association for Continental Philosophy
Name	Association for Continental Philosophy
Abbreviation	ACP
Formation	1980s
Type	Learned society
Headquarters	International
Region served	Global
Membership	Scholars, students, independent researchers
Leader title	President
Leader name	(varies)
Website	(official website)

Association for Continental Philosophy is a scholarly society dedicated to the study, promotion, and dissemination of continental philosophy traditions associated with figures such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Martin Heidegger, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Edmund Husserl. It brings together academics and independent scholars linked to institutions including University of Paris, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Cambridge, University of Chicago, and University of Toronto. The association interfaces with related organizations like the American Philosophical Association, Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, European Society for Phenomenology, International Association for Philosophy and Literature, and regional bodies across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

History

The organization emerged during intellectual exchanges among scholars at conferences such as the Salzburg Seminar, Wittgenstein Lectures, Spoleto Festival, and gatherings linked to journals like Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, Research in Phenomenology, and Diacritics. Early membership included contributors associated with research centers at Institute for Social Research, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Columbia University, and Princeton University. Influences and interlocutors represented within the association trace through dialogues with figures and movements tied to Arnold Schoenberg-era aesthetics, Frankfurt School theorists around Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, post-structuralists such as Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Gilles Deleuze, and later commentators working in contexts connected to Judith Butler, Slavoj Žižek, and Alain Badiou.

Mission and Objectives

The association advances study of canonical and marginal voices exemplified by Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Emmanuel Levinas, Paul Ricoeur, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Walter Benjamin, Georges Bataille, and Roland Barthes. Objectives include fostering comparative engagement with traditions cultivated at institutions like École Normale Supérieure, University of Heidelberg, University of Freiburg, Yale University, and New York University; supporting research projects linked to archives such as the Nietzsche Archive and the Husserl-Archives; and promoting pedagogy resonant with seminars modeled after those at Collège de France and New School for Social Research.

Membership and Organization

Members comprise professors from departments at Oxford University, University of Pennsylvania, University of California, Berkeley, University of Michigan, and King's College London; graduate students enrolled at programs like University of St Andrews and Brown University; curators from museums such as the Tate Modern and Museum of Modern Art; and independent scholars affiliated with institutes like the Brookings Institution and the Royal Institute of Philosophy. Governance typically involves an elected board with officers drawn from centers including the Institute for Advanced Study, European University Institute, Centre for Contemporary Studies, and regional sections connected to societies such as the Canadian Philosophical Association, Society for Continental Philosophy in North America, and the British Society for Phenomenology.

Conferences and Events

Annual and biennial meetings are hosted at venues ranging from Sorbonne University and Freie Universität Berlin to Rutgers University and University of Melbourne, often in collaboration with festivals and conferences like the Modern Language Association annual convention, the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy conference, and symposia sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation. Panels frequently address themes traced to works such as Being and Time, Capital, The Order of Things, Difference and Repetition, and The Postmodern Condition, and they attract keynote speakers from institutions like Harvard University, Princeton University, Cornell University, and Stanford University.

Publications and Research Activities

The association supports edited volumes, special issues of journals such as Telos, Continental Philosophy Review, Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, and monograph series published through presses like Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Routledge, Bloomsbury, and SUNY Press. Research clusters often pursue archival work on manuscripts at repositories like the Hannah Arendt Papers, the Walter Benjamin Archive, and the Jacques Derrida Papers, and collaborative projects intersect with programs at the Social Science Research Council, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

Awards and Recognition

The association administers prizes and fellowships honoring scholarship in continental traditions, echoing awards named after figures such as Hegel, Heidegger, Marx, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty, and offers dissertation prizes, early-career fellowships, and book awards judged by panels drawn from universities like University of Wisconsin–Madison, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Vanderbilt University, and University of California, Los Angeles. Its awardees have been invited to lecture in series held at venues including the Library of Congress, Bibliothèque nationale de France, British Library, and research colloquia at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.

Category:Philosophical societies Category:Continental philosophy