Dates:  April 4-6, 2024

Place: Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD

The symposium will offer the opportunity to discuss Kant’s Toward Perpetual Peace as one of his most timely contributions to political issues such as hospitality, cosmopolitanism, human rights, the inherent value of cultural and religious difference, the critique of colonialism, the essential role of a global public sphere, international law and the rules of armed combat. Featuring leading scholars of philosophy, literature, and political science, it will also address fundamental questions about the ways in which a theoretical text can relate to the mode, time, and timing of its realization. Themes include: utopia and practicality; the temporality of theory; teleology and the “guarantee” of peace; publicity and secretiveness; form, genre, and format; faith and the philosophy of the as-if.

Speakers include: Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky (Bochum University, Germany), Peter Gilgen (Cornell University), David Martyn (Macalester College), Jan Mieszkowski (Reed College), Sarah Pourciau (Duke University), Marc Redfield (Brown University), Thomas Schestag (Brown University)

Hosts: Max Kade Center for Modern German Thought and Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, Johns Hopkins University

Organization: Christiane Frey (Johns Hopkins) together with Luke Beller (Johns Hopkins) and Glen Gray (Johns Hopkins)