50TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL MERLEAU-PONTY CIRCLE
October 15-17 | Université de Strasbourg | CFP
The 2026 conference of the International Merleau-Ponty Circle is going to be special on several counts: first, it is the 50th edition of a collective endeavor that started back in 1976, and it’s going to take place in the very European city of Strasbourg. The chosen topic is the relationship between bodies and landscapes, their chiasms, their solidarities, and their interdependencies.
Acknowledging the link between a subject and his/her landscapes is also key to discerning the power relations between subjects: indeed, colonial domination always also implies crushing the landscapes of the submitted peoples, importing one’s own landscapes and imposing them upon the conquered territories, even preventing the colonized from having a landscape by keeping his/her back bent. Highlighting this link also helps us to better understand the situation of humans in the more-than-human world, in a constant exchange with other living beings, and earthly beings. The notion of landscape aims at the active dimension of the milieu and opens to the discernment of interdependencies.
The conference call for papers is available to view here (Appel à contributions ici). The conference will be hosted by the University of Strasbourg, by two research centers ACCRA (arts) and CREPhAC (philosophy). More information about the conference, including hotel accommodations, can be found here. We expect the submission of completed papers (max. 3500 words), in English or French, and anonymized for blind review. Please submit to arts-impc@unistra.fr by May 15, 2026. As is custom, submissions on any aspect of Merleau-Ponty’s work, in addition to the conference theme, are also welcome. Decisions concerning the selection of participants will be sent out by the end of the month of May.