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Organizers:
Dana Jalobeanu (University of Bucharest) and Cesare Pastorino (Essex University)

Call for papers: Issue no. 3/2013 of Studia UBB. Philosophia: “Descartes’s Scientific and Philosophical Disputes with his Contemporaries” 

 “I beg all who have any objections to take the trouble to send them to me,” wrote Descartes a number of times in his career. Descartes’s eagerness to impose his views, in the name of “the search after truth,” engaged him in various controversies, from 1637, the year of the publication of the Discourse on method, to the end of his life. Apart from the famous “Objections and Replies” to the Meditations (1641), the Cartesian correspondence presents a large number of equally interesting disputes, on both scientific and philosophical topics. The letters often resemble a battlefield in which an attentive observer can distinguish various defense strategies: Trojan horses, conceptual traps, misquotes, etc. Often the aim was to disqualify the opponent not only as a bad thinker, but also as a hidden atheist. By the late 1640s, Descartes’s position within the fragile intellectual circle composed of French Catholics, novatores of various persuasions or Calvinist theologians became very unstable. His decision to accept Queen Christina’s invitation to Stockholm appears like an escape attempt from this imbroglio. 

 The present issue of Studia UBB will be dedicated to these confrontations. It aims to show, on the whole, the historical and conceptual relevance of contemporary reactions to Cartesianism for an assessment of both the novelty and the consistence of Descartes’s project. 

 Papers should be written in English, French or German. Articles cannot be longer than 75.000 characters, including spaces and footnotes. Reviews cannot be longer than 25.000 characters. The deadline for submission is 15 September 2013. Papers should follow the guidelines for the authors (http://www.studia.ubbcluj.ro/download/instr/philosophia.pdf) and be prepared for blind review. Submissions should be sent both to the editor, Ion Copoeru: copoeru@hotmail.com, and the guest editor, Vlad Alexandrescu: valexandrescu@gmail.com. 

http://studiaphilosophia.wordpress.com/call-for-papers-2/cfp-for-the-issue-no-32013-descartes-scientific-and-philosophical-disputes-with-his-contemporaries/

COMPETITION

In order to complete the team of the CNCS founded project “MODELS OF PRODUCING AND DISSEMINATING KNOWLEDGE IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE: THE CARTESIAN FRAMEWORK” (code PN-II-ID-PCE-2011-3-0998), implemented at the New Europe College, under the supervision of Prof. Vlad Alexandrescu, a competition is opened for 2 full-time positions at the level of Research Assistant.

The jobs are temporary, covering the entire duration of the project, which ends on December the 15^th, 2014.

Requirements:

1. Applicants should be enrolled in a MA or PhD programme in a discipline related to intellectual history (philosophy, philology, history, political science, etc.) or have completed such programmes.
2. Applicants should document their interest and knowledge in the field of intellectual history and to be willing to enter an international programme devoted to Cartesian studies.
3. Applicants should possess French and English at an advanced level. Notions of Latin are an advantage, yet there are not mandatory.
4. Applicants should have organisation and communication skills.
5. Applicants should be available for research stages abroad.

In order to apply, please send a letter of intent and a CV at the e-mail address: valexandrescu@gmail.com. Applicants can send any documents that they consider to be relevant to this position (scientific writing samples, MA dissertation, diplomas, recommendations etc.)

Applicants who meet the requirements will receive an e-mail, in order to attend an interview with the Project director, which will be held at the beginning of January 2012, at the New Europe College in Bucharest.

COMPETITION

In order to complete the team of the CNCS founded project “MODELS OF PRODUCING AND DISSEMINATING KNOWLEDGE IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE: THE CARTESIAN FRAMEWORK” (code PN-II-ID-PCE-2011-3-0998), implemented at the New Europe College, under the supervision of Prof. Vlad Alexandrescu, a competition is opened for 2 full-time positions at the level of Researcher.

The jobs are temporary, covering the entire duration of the project, which ends on December the 15^th, 2014.

Requirements:

1. Applicants should have completed a PhD programme in a discipline related to intellectual history (philosophy, philology, history, political science, etc.).
2. Applicants should document their interest and knowledge in the field of intellectual history and to be willing to enter an international programme devoted to Cartesian studies.
3. Applicants should possess French and English at an advanced level. Notions of Latin are an advantage, yet there are not mandatory.
4. Applicants should have experience in writing scientific publications at a high standard.

We invite colleagues to express their interest in these positions by sending (i) a letter of intent, (ii) a professional CV and (iii) the PhD dissertation to the project director’s e-mail address: valexandrescu@gmail.com.

The professional CV should contain the following topics:

a) education – degrees, diplomas, postdoctoral specialization periods;

b) professional experience – former employers, job description;

c) main research results – prizes, grants;

d) list of publications.

Applicants can send any documents that tey considere to be relevant to this position (scientific papers, diplomas, recommendations etc.)

Applicants who meet the requirements will receive an e-mail, in order to attend an interview with the Project director, which will be held at the beginning of January 2012, at the New Europe College in Bucharest.

A well known metaphor of the early European modernity and an important instrument in the understanding of seventeenth-century thought, the “Republic of Letters” was, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, primarily a label for new projects of intellectual and scientific association. Various models for the Republic of Letters have been investigated and described as closed circles or open networks, shaped around a variety of elements: scientific societies, intellectual networks, formal or informal circles of intellectuals, proponents of the new and old philosophies. What all such models had in common was a an ideal of shaping communities around a moral, intellectual and sometimes a religious project understood as a reformation of the (whole) human being.

JEMS is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal of intellectual history, dedicated to the exploration of the interactions between philosophy, science and religion in Early Modern Europe. It aims to respond to the growing awareness within the scholarly community of an emerging new field of research that crosses the boundaries of the traditional disciplines and goes beyond received historiographic categories and concepts.

JEMS publishes high-quality articles reporting results of research in intellectual history, history of philosophy and history of early modern science, with a special interest in cross-disciplinary approaches. It furthermore aims to bring to the attention of the scholarly community as yet unexplored topics, which testify to the multiple intellectual exchanges and interactions between Eastern and Western Europe during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

JEMS is edited by the Research Centre “Foundations of Modern Thought”, University of Bucharest (http://modernthought-unibuc.blogspot.com/), and published and distributed by Zeta Books (http://www.zetabooks.com/).