UNSW Philosophy and the School of Humanities and Languages invite you to a seminar by Dr Campbell Rider, University of Sydney.
Title: Animal and Plant Worlds in Hedwig Conrad-Martius’ Naturphilosophie Abstract: Hedwig Conrad-Martius was a prominent member of the Göttingen-Munich circle of phenomenologists which formed around Edmund Husserl in the first decades of the twentieth century. In 1912, she became the first woman to win the prestigious Göttingen essay prize, and was among the first women to receive a doctorate from a German university. Like many of her contemporaries, she eventually broke with Husserl over his turn towards transcendental idealism, and instead pursued a “realist” phenomenology. Conrad-Martius’ subsequent work privileges organic nature, elaborating an extensive phenomenological description of worldhood and embodiment in both animals and plants. While recent interest in expanding the philosophical “canon” has produced new scholarship on the contributions of women to the history of philosophy, questions remain about which historical and intellectual narratives are most appropriate to this work. Rather than merely rehabilitating Conrad-Martius within the canon of early phenomenology, I claim it is more fruitful to consider her work in the context of a broader tradition of “Romantic” philosophy of nature and biology, which has significant continuities with the work of Goethe and Schelling. Dr Campbell Rider is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the School of Humanities at the University of Sydney, and a member of the “Extending New Narratives in the History of Philosophy” research network. 15 September 2026 12:00-1:30pm Morven Brown Building Room 209 UNSW Kensington Online on Teams Join the meeting now<https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/477628665727341?p=GXTILFXDTvC774sRGl> Meeting ID: 477 628 665 727 341 Passcode: XJ9hA9sg Contact: Timothy O’Leary [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> _______________________ Timothy O’Leary Professor and Convenor of Philosophy School of Humanities & Languages UNSW Sydney https://www.unsw.edu.au/staff/timothy-o-leary Latest Publication: O’Leary, T. (2026). Fiction’s critique: Gray’s Poor Things and the conduct of sensibility. Textual Practice, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/0950236X.2025.2608009 Free Copy available here: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/GUYXZTGIYKNJKPIAJNUV/full?target=10.1080/0950236X.2025.2608009 UNSW is located on the unceded territory of the Bidjigal (Kensington campus), Gadigal (City and Paddington Campuses) and Ngunnawal peoples (UNSW Canberra) who are the Traditional Owners of the lands where each campus of UNSW is situated. This email and any files transmitted with it may contain confidential information. If you believe you have received this email or any of its contents in error, please notify me immediately by return email and destroy this email. Do not use, disseminate, forward, print or copy any contents of an email received in error. --------- SydPhil mailing list To unsubscribe, change your membership options, find answers to common problems, or visit our online archives, please go to the list information page: https://mailman.sydney.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/sydphil
