CROATIA LIBORI SUMMER SCHOOL 2023
Women Philosophers and Scientists on Psychology, Mind, and Body Awareness
Zagreb and online, 19–20 June 2023

Lecturers

Luka Boršić wasn’t kidnapped by the Caribbean pirates and marooned on an island without a name. He was also not abducted by aliens and used for experiments. But nevertheless, there are some things he’s done in his life which might be worth mentioning. He loves music and thus renounced an opportunity to become a professional musician out of fear he might lose this love. He has also renounced an opportunity to become an engineer, a decision causing a lot of worries to his parents. Instead, he decided to go, first, for ancient languages and then philosophy. He obtained his degree in classics from the University in Zagreb (an equivalent of a MA degree, in 2000). The academic vagabondage took him high up in the Alps, where he obtained a PhD degree in philosophy from the Internationale Akademie für Philosophy, in the Principality Liechtenstein (in 2001). The thesis was on Socratic irony and in essence more philological than philosophical, which reflects his teetering between philology and philosophy at the time. After his return to Croatia, he got employed at the Institute of Philosophy and he obtained his second PhD from the University of Zagreb, in 2010, this time really in philosophy. The topic was on the emergence of modern science out of the Renaissance critique of Aristotle. He defended the idea that the emergence of modern science is, primarily, not a product of an apple that fell on Newton’s head or Galileo watching the sky, but of some not so famous guys writing against Aristotle. This has led him into a more than a decade long research on, mostly, Francesco Patrizi. Some five or six years ago, a dissatisfaction with the present philosophical canon conjoined with a felicitous event – a random finding in an antique bookstore in Vienna – resulted in his ever-growing interest for women philosophers. The passion for discovering new and further analyzing already known women philosophers resulted in getting a project financed by the Croatian Science Foundation: “Croatian women philosophers in the European context”. The “Research Centre for Women in Philosophy”, which is the organizer of the summer school, is a child of this project. Luka Boršić’s almost complete bibliography can be found at this site.

Ankica Čakardić (Croatia) is an Associate Professor and the chair of Social Philosophy and Philosophy of Gender at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zagreb. Her research interests include social and political philosophy, contemporary philosophy, Marxism, and Marxist-feminist critique of political economy. She is an author of three books: the Specters of Transition. Social History of Capitalism (2019), Like a Clap of Thunder. Three Essays on Rosa Luxemburg(2019) and Rebellious Mind. Essays in Radical Social Philosophy (2021). She is a member of The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg Editorial Board (Verso, London/New York) and a member of the advisory board of The International Marxist-Humanist Journal (Chicago).

Ruth Edith Hagengruber holds a chair dedicated to the philosophy of Economics and Information Science at Paderborn University. She is also Director of the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists. She got her PhD with a thesis on Tommaso Campanella at Ludwig Maximilian-University Munich. From 2011-2019 she served in the Advisory Board of Technology in Society for the Technical University Munich and became Life-member of the International Association of Philosophy of Information Science in 2011.  On 2020 she became elected member of the Leibniz-Sozietät der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. She serves as chief editor of the German Springer series Frauen in Philosophie und Wissenschaft and as co-editor of the International Springer series Women in the History of Philosophy and Science. With Mary Ellen Waithe, she co-edits the Encyclopedia of Consice Concepts by Women Philosophers and the Journal for the History of Women Philosophers at Brill’s. Publications: Von Diana zu Minerva (2010); Émilie Du Châtelet between Leibniz and Newton (2011) History of Women’s Ideas, coedited with Karen Green (2015);  Emilie Du Châtelet und die deutsche Aufklärung, coedited with Hartmut Hecht (2019). With Sarah Hutton, she coedited the British Journal for the History Philosophy, dedicated to Early Modern Women Philosophers. In cooperation with Sigridur Thorgeisdottier Methodological Reflections on Women’s Contribution and Influence in the History of Philosophy was published (2020). In 2022, Epoque Emilienne. Philosophy and Science in the Age of Emily Du Châtelet 1706-1749, was published.

Chelsea C. Harry is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Assistant Chairperson at Southern Connecticut State University (USA). She is a philosopher of nature specializing in ancient Greek and 18th-19th century figures and themes, especially Aristotle and F.W.J. Schelling.  She is particularly interested in questions about temporality and the human-animal relationship.  Her general interest in the history of philosophy has led her to investigate philosophical reception and non-canonical and “hidden” sources of the philosophical tradition.   She is the author of various articles, book chapters, and books on these topics, is the winner of awards and grants for her scholarship, and has held visiting research posts in Cologne, Thessaloniki, and Kassel.  She is committed to community engagement and philosophical outreach, having taught philosophy to high school students and to incarcerated individuals.

Jil Muller is, since 2022, deputy head of the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists in Paderborn, Germany, and Assistant Professor for Philosophy at Paderborn University. Her research especially focuses on French Women Philosophers and Scientists in the early modern period, such as Marie de Gournay, Sophie Germain and Émilie du Châtelet, and she is mainly concerned with their moral theories and their understanding of man in society.  Furthermore, she is interested in medical and anatomical theories in the early modern period, in the functioning of the human body and in the connection between dysfunctions of the body and the moral behaviour: https://historyofwomenphilosophers.org/jil-muller/

Daniel Neumann is, since 2022, head of the phenomenology division of the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists. His research concerns the metaphysical nature of phenomenology as it was developed by the early Göttingen and Munich phenomenologists. He is specifically interested in reconstructing a systematic account of Hedwig Conrad-Martius’ phenomenology of reality according to which phenomena are interpreted within an ontological and metaphysical framework, instead of an epistemological one (concerning, that is, being in itself, not the consciousness of being).
For more information on phenomenology at the Center please visit: https://historyofwomenphilosophers.org/project/women-in-early-phenomenology/

Ivana Skuhala Karasman graduated in philosophy and Croatology from the Centre for Croatian Studies at the University of Zagreb. In 2003 she received her master’s degree in philosophy, and in 2011 she defended a PhD thesis in philosophy under the title Prediction in Medieval and Renaissance Natural Philosophy. Since 2005 she has been employed at the Institute of Philosophy in Zagreb. She is executive editor of the journal Contributions to the Research Into the Croatian Philosophical Heritage. Her areas of interest include Renaissance philosophy, Croatian philosophy, gender philosophy and the free will problem. Ivana’s complete bibliography can be found here.

Michele Vagnetti graduated in Philosophy from the University of Florence. He then obtained a scholarship for the PhD in Philosophy (University of Florence and University of Paderborn). He defended his doctoral dissertation in April 2020. In 2021 he became a postdoctoral fellow of the Heinrich Hertz Foundation and is currently a fellow of the same foundation. His areas of specialization are 19th-century German philosophy and psychology, post-Kantian German philosophy, and William James’s pragmatism. He came into contact with the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists through his interest in Emily Elizabeth Constance Jones, translator of Rudolph Hermann Lotze’s “Mikrokosmos”.