Symposia, Events, and Conferences

Symposia, Events, and Conferences

The Department of Philosophy features various events throughout the academic year, including colloquia to workshops, symposia, and conferences, as well as thesis defenses and events from the Student Philosophy Association Student Speaker Series [SPA] and Minorities in Philosophy Speaker Series [MAP]. The department also sponsors interdisciplinary events through CLA Scholarly Intersections [CLA] with other cognate programs and departments, including History [HIST], Political Science [POSC], Geography [GEOG], German [GERM], the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies [MRS], Classics [CLSC], and the Italian [ITAL] and Translation Studies [TRSL] programs.

The Applied Ethics Forum [AEF] is the university’s primary intellectual venue for extracurricular ethical programming. Its purpose is to foster CSULB’s fundamental mission—the production (research) and dissemination (teaching) of knowledge—regarding ethical issues in applied, practical, professional settings for the benefit of all faculty, students, and community members. The Applied Ethics Forum is funded by a generous grant from the Andre Family Foundation, and features an array of speakers, conferences, and projects on topics in applied ethics each year.

Current Events

2024–2025

  • Symposium: SP25 Philosophy Day! • tbd, location tbd
    Guest Speaker: Robert Gressis (California State University Northridge)
    Guest Speaker: Allison Merrick (California State University San Marcos)
  • Reading Group: Nietzsche [For information, contact organizer Joe Gordon.]
  • Intersections [CLA]: Gil Anidjar (Columbia University), ‘On the sovereignty of mothers: the political as maternal‘ • 20 Mar 2025, 3:30pm–4:45pm, AS–119 [Co-sponsored with HIST, CWL, & RGRLL.]
  • Thesis Defense: Travis Barnett (Cal State Long Beach), ‘All the luster and light: Malebranche on the problem of moral evil and the image of God‘ • 07 Mar 2025, 2:00pm–4:00pm, MHB–915
  • Symposium: FA24 Philosophy Day! • 06 Dec 2024, 12:00pm–5:30pm, LA4–105
  • Keynote: Sara Protasi (University of Puget Sound), ‘The value of sleeping‘
    Faculty Speaker: Torsten Odland (University of California Los Angeles), ‘Counting many as one: the ontological insignificance of grammatical number’
  • Student Speaker Series [SPA]: Daniel Mangandi-Escobar, ‘Determinism and compatibilism’; Margaret Welch; ‘B-theories of time’; Anna Rikshpun, ‘Julien Offray de La Mettrie on the mind/body problem’; Brandon Beller; ‘Sensorimotor enactivism’ • 17 Nov 2024, 5:00pm–7:00pm, LA5–165