History of Women Philosophers and Scientists

New Voices Women's Ideas in the History of Medicine
2025-03-19 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin)
Irene Calà: Aspasia and the Others: Women and Medicine in Late Antiquity

Medical texts from Late Antiquity are invaluable for our understanding of lost medical sources. This is particularly true for the medical work of Aetius, a physician native to Amida, lived in the first half of the sixth century AD, and author of a 16-book treatise known as Libri medicinales. This compilation is considered one of the most significant and source-rich works of its time. While female sources in medical texts appear quite limited or entirely absent—such as in the works of Oribasius of Pergamum—they undoubtedly represent one of the primary sources for the last of the Libri medicinales, where Aetius lists a certain Aspasia as a specialist in various medical practices related to gynaecology and obstetrics.

The prominence of Aspasia seems, at times, to overshadow that of the more renowned Soranus of Ephesus, who is considered the foremost authority on women’s diseases. From this observation, we will attempt to trace the remnants of a medical literature written by women, echoes of which are preserved in the medical texts of Late Antiquity. The selected passages related to fertility, pregnancy, and childbirth management will be discussed, highlighting the physical and psychological approach that characterizes Aspasia’s medical practice and the concrete role played by women in the care of women.

About the Speaker…

Irene Calà is research associate at the Institute for Ethics, History, and Theory of Medicine at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. She is specialist of Greek medicine in Late Antiquity, with a focus on the continuity of medical knowledge from antiquity through the Renaissance. She is currently working on the first critical edition of the unpublished books of Aetius of Amida, in the DFG project led by Mathias Witt.

Everyone is welcome to attend. Please register here and you will get the Zoom-Link after registration.

New Voices Women's Ideas in the History of Medicine
2025-04-02 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin)
Anna Gili: Women’s Health in Early Islamic Medical Works: Contextualising al-Maǧūsī’s “Kitāb al-malakī”

Al-Maǧūsī, a Zoroastrian physician from the Fārs province, composed his Kitāb al-malakī during the second half of the tenth century. This medical encyclopaedia in ten books which aims to synthesize and systematize all earlier medical knowledge into a unified whole also devotes great attention to women’s health issues. Al-Maǧūsī’s analysis encompasses topics such as foetal formation, growth, and female anatomy along gynaecological diseases, the diet of pregnant women and the role of midwives, while also examining cures for gynaecological ailments and specific surgical operations.

Based on the assumption that the Kitāb al-malakī should be studied as an organic treatise, my talk will present an overview of how and why reproduction, maternity, and fertility were considered relevant in the tenth century. I will also be assessing to what extent the Kitāb al-malakī relies on earlier sources and which innovations are contributed by al- Maǧūsī himself.

About the Speaker…

Anna Gili is a PhD student in Latin and Arabic philology at the University of Padua and the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (cotutelle de thèse). Her main research interest is the transmission of medical knowledge from Greek into Arabic and from Arabic into Latin during the Middle Ages. Her PhD project aims to critically edit and study the books on pathology in the medical encyclopaedia al-Kitāb al-Malakī, composed by ʿAlī ibn al-ʿAbbās al-Maǧūsī (10th c.) and in its two Latin translations, namely the Pantegni by Constantine the African and the Liber regalis by Stephen of Antioch.

Everyone is welcome to attend. Please register here and you will get the Zoom-Link after registration.

Open Day at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists
2025-04-03 14:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Technologiepark 8, Technologiepark 8, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
On 3 April 2025, the Center will open its doors from 2 to 6 at its new location: Technologiepark 8, 1st floor. We would like to provide insights into our work in a relaxed atmosphere and look forward to inspiring conversations. Registration is not required – just come along and be inspired!

Find out more about our courses this summer semester that deal with the history of ideas of female philosophers.
Discover our current research projects and events. Take a sneak peek into our event calendar!
Get to know our research networks, cooperation partners and Erasmus opportunities.
Browse one of the largest digital databases on female philosophers and our online encyclopaedia for your next paper.

We are also happy to offer you the opportunity to complete an internship with us and actively participate in our projects.
Come and get to know the team at the Center.

New Voices Women's Ideas in the History of Medicine
2025-04-16 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin)
Shannon McHugh: Women’s Reproductive Lives in Renaissance Italian Lyric Poetry

What can a sonnet teach us about the history of women’s reproductive bodies? For the early modern world, notions about pregnancy and childbirth have been well documented by historians, who have combed through archival and print materials composed by the period’s medical, religious, and humanist authorities. Literary texts, however, have been consulted less, including lyric poetry; short, emotional poems are not normally among the historian’s go-to objects. Yet lyric is rife with representations of motherhood. Examples appear in verse written in vernacular and in Latin, in poems of Marian worship and of autobiographic account, such as the prolific poet Francesca Turina (1553–1641), who composed numerous poems on miscarriage, childbirth, and early motherhood.

The details captured in her descriptions both complicate standard historical narratives and flesh out our understanding of family practices in this period, shading in scholarly models with affective dimensions. This paper expands our understanding of the history of women’s reproductive autonomy by tracing depictions of pregnancy, abortion, miscarriage, birth, and nursing in Renaissance Italian lyric poetry. Unlike texts by medical and theological authorities, lyric provides access to personal experience and can do so on a wider scale: it was the most democratic of literary genres, practiced by men of various social stripes, and, in early modern Italy, by numerous women.

About the Speaker…

Shannon McHugh is Assistant Director of Research at The Huntington Library. Her research focuses on early modern Italian and French lyric poetry and gender. Publications include Petrarch and the Making of Gender in Renaissance Italy (Amsterdam UP, 2023) and the co-edited volume Vittoria Colonna: Poetry, Religion, Art, Impact(Amsterdam UP, 2021). She was the 2023–24 Molina Fellow in the History of Medicine at The Huntington, where she researched her current book project, “Women’s Reproductive Lives in Renaissance Lyric Poetry.”

Everyone is welcome to attend. Please register here and you will get the Zoom-Link after registration.

Research Colloquium - Dr. Dagmar Pichová (Masaryk University, Brno), Czech Women Philosophers: Anna Pammrová and Albína Dratvová
2025-04-30 11:00 - 13:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Building E, Paderborn University, Warburger Straße 100, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Dr. Pichová is giving a guest lecture in the seminar Radical Feminism (led by Ana Rodrigues).
The lecture will take place on campus in room E2.316.
Interested guests are welcome! However, due to limited room capacity, prior registration is requested: please email to ana.rodrigues@uni-paderborn.de

Dr. Pichová will present the life and work of two Czech women philosophers, Anna Pammrová (1860–1945) and Albína Dratvová (1892–1969).
Albína Dratvová was among the first women to graduate from Charles University in Prague. She was the first Czech woman philosopher to pursue an academic career, publish a philosophical monograph, and earn her habilitation in philosophy. Dratvová was also deeply engaged with psychology and ethical issues. In Smutek vzdělanců (The Sadness of Scholars, 1940), she explored the nature and causes of the distinct melancholy experienced by scholars as a consequence of their intellectual work.
Anna Pammrová spent most of her life in seclusion in the forest, living in extremely modest conditions. Despite her unconventional and largely self-directed education, she acquired extensive knowledge of foreign languages and translated philosophical texts into Czech. Her interests spanned Ancient Indian wisdom, theosophy, and the philosophy of Tolstoy, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche.
Dagmar Pichová argues that studying their work is valuable not only as a case study of Central European women philosophers but also for its broader intellectual contributions. Pammrová’s thought can be examined through the lens of contemporary ecofeminism, while Dratvová developed a complex perspective on the status and role of scholars in modern society.

New Voices Women's Ideas in the History of Medicine
2025-04-30 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin)
Karine Durin: Fluids as Dynamic and Organic Forces. Medical knowledge in Oliva Sabuco de Nantes

This work will examine the study of organic fluids and movements in the Nueva filosofía de la naturaleza del hombre, published by Oliva Sabuco de Nantes in 1587. The representation of the internal anatomy shows the dynamics that flow back and forth, combining the power of emotions and affects, the processes of digestion and the influence of the environment, all of which are expressed in Sabuco’s vision through the ebb and flow of movements of growth and decay. The categories of dry and wet are themselves governed by the emotions, in particular tristeza y descontento, when the soul and body are in discord. The regulating role of the emotions on the movement of fluids and even on the principles of digestion brings us back

back to the centre of the vital composition, which for Sabuco is the brain. From then, the flow of fluids in all their forms (milk, semen, bile, gastric fluid, tears, white blood, chyle) led us to follow Sabuco’s project of medical reform. But what happens in this text with the legacy of ancient and galenic physiology’s theories on fluids and humours? What philosophical interpretation stems from this interpretation of the bodily fluidity, which affects men, women and animals equally? The bodily fluidity in Sabuco gives rise to a rich metaphorical expression and highlights a vitalism correlated with a global vision of society whose reform project concludes the 1587 work.

About the Speakers…

Karine Durin is Full-Professor at the University of Nantes (France). She is a specialist of intellectual history in the Early Modern Iberian World. She recently published a chapter on Sabuco de Nantes, between Epicureanism and Stoicism (“A Female Dissenter in Counter-Reformation Spain”, De Gruyter, 2024) and a contribution on feminine reading of Baltasar Gracián in XVIIth century France (Classiques Garnier, 2024). She is currently working on the first translation of Sabuco’s treatise in French.

Everyone is welcome to attend. Please register here and you will get the Zoom-Link after registration.

Research Colloquium - Michael Walshots: JOHANNA CHARLOTTE UNZER (1725–82): THE FIRST FEMALE GERMAN PHILOSOPHER
2025-05-05 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Technologiepark 8, Technologiepark 8, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Dr. Michael Walshots, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, will introduce us into his research on Johanna Charlotte Unzer (1725–82): The first female german philosopher.
The talk is part of the regular research colloquium held at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists. The research colloquium is organized by Prof. Dr. Ruth E. Hagengruber.
The talk will start at 4 pm.
Everybody is welcome to attend.
Room: TP8.1.46
Building Technologiepark 8
Adress: Technologiepark 8, 33098 Paderborn, Germany

Research Colloquium - Fatima Zohra Iflahen - Women’s Rights Theories and Movements in Morocco and North Africa: Coming of Age or Tutorship?
2025-05-09 11:00 - 13:30 (Europe/Berlin) | zoom
Prof. Dr. Fatima-Zohra Iflahen, Full Professor at Cadi Ayyad University, Marrakesh, Morocco, will introduce us into her research on Women’s Rights Theories and Movements in Morocco and North Africa: Coming of Age or Tutorship?
The talk is part of the regular research colloquium held at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists. The research colloquium is organized by Prof. Dr. Ruth E. Hagengruber.
The talk will start at 11 am (CEST).
Everybody is welcome to attend.
The talk will be held via zoom:
Zoom-Link https://uni-paderborn-de.zoom-x.de/j/92100765408

New Voices Women's Ideas in the History of Medicine
2025-05-14 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin)
Viktorya Vasilyan: A History of Breastfeeding: Its Iconography and Medical Importance

During human history, infants were fed human milk for survival, either through breastfeeding by their mothers or adoptive breastfeeding by other women. From antiquity to today, breastfeeding has been valued, reflected in mythology, philosophy, art, and religion worldwide. In ancient Armenia, it was prized for its health benefits, with wet nurses serving the upper classes while rural women breastfed for economic reasons. Colostrum was once deemed harmful but gained recognition in 1699 through Michael Ettmüller. During the European Renaissance, breastfeeding saw renewed appreciation in art, with depictions like suckler Lady and suckler Eve symbolising respect for motherhood.

Figures such as Hildegard of Bingen and Regina Areshian, founder of the Research Center of Maternal and Child Health Protection in Armenia, studied maternal hygiene and wet nursing. This work explores sociological, medical, and moral treatises on these themes, informed by research on the Virgo Lactans and Virgin of Humility. Iconography studies, such as those by Williamson, Sperling, Rivera, and Bergmann, provide critical insights into the Eve-Mary relationship and sacred images, though scholarly consensus on breastfeeding and wet nursing in the Middle Ages remains elusive.

About the Speaker…

Viktorya Vasilyan holds a PhD in History and serves as a researcher and the head of the Scientific Organisational Department at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, NAS RA. Additionally, she is a lecturer at the Traditional Medicine University of Armenia. Currently, she manages the “100 Archaeological Monuments of Armenia” project, an initiative aimed at exploring and documenting significant archaeological sites across the nation. More information about this project is available at https://ama100.am/en. She is also honoured to serve as a Goodwill Ambassador for Peace, Human Rights, and Humanity with the IHRO in Armenia.

Everyone is welcome to attend. Please register here and you will get the Zoom-Link after registration.

Research Colloquium - Dr. Gabriele Schimmenti -(History of) Philosophy, Politics, and Art in Louise Dittmar (1807–1884): A Feminist Perspective
2025-05-15 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Building O, Paderborn University, Pohlweg 51, Paderborn, NRW, 33098, Germany
Dr. Gabriele Schimmenti, Post Doctoral Fellow and Adjunct Lecturer at the University Roma Tre (Italy), will introduce us into his research on (History of) Philosophy, Politics, and Art in Louise Dittmar (1807–1884): A Feminist Perspective.
The talk is part of the regular research colloquium and will take place at the Colloquium of Philosophy, organized by the department of Philosophy at Paderborn University.

The talk will start at 4 pm.
Everybody is welcome to attend.
Room: O2
Building O
Adress: Pohlweg 51, 33098 Paderborn, Germany

Research Colloquium - Dr. Andrea Reichenberger - Grete Hermann: From Quantum Physics to Politics and Ethics
2025-05-19 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Technologiepark 8, Technologiepark 8, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Dr. Andrea Reichenberger, research group leader at the Department of Mathematics at the University of Siegen, will introduce us into her research on Grete Hermann: From Quantum Physics to Politics and Ethics.
The talk is part of the regular research colloquium held at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists. The research colloquium is organized by Prof. Dr. Ruth E. Hagengruber.
The talk will start at 4 pm.
Everybody is welcome to attend.
Room: TP8.1.46
Building Technologiepark 8
Adress: Technologiepark 8, 33098 Paderborn, Germany

New Voices Women's Ideas in the History of Medicine
2025-05-29 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin)
Martina Guzzetti: Pregnant Women’s Wellbeing in Jane Sharp’s “The Midwives’ Book” (1671)

Women’s health, wellbeing, and medical conditions have always been at the centre of gendered debates concerning, among other things, who has the necessary knowledge and authority to discuss and provide advice about them. Of the many branches of medicine involved in these debates, midwifery certainly holds a prominent position: in particular, between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, these controversies saw the rivalry between midwives and the emerging men-midwives encapsulated in their own publications. While men’s textbooks on midwifery were limited to the description of women’s anatomy and the discussion of the birth event itself (without taking into consideration what happened to women before, during, and after pregnancy), the midwives’ manuals offered a different point of view,

that is, one of a skilled practitioner (despite the misogynist stereotypes) who could also share with her patients the same experience, thus having access to a kind of knowledge which went beyond the purely technical one. This contribution deals in particular with Jane Sharp’s The Midwives’ Book (1671) and offers to focus precisely on an aspect often overlooked in men’s textbooks, that is, pregnant women’s wellbeing, be it physical and/or mental. The analysis considers the creation of discourses related, for example, to factors helping the conception of a child, to easing labour, and to preventing diseases after childbirth. In the discussion, particular attention will be devoted to the peculiar connection between midwives and pregnant women, and to the references to professional and private experience used to back up such knowledge.

About the Speaker…

Martina Guzzetti is a Post-Doctoral Researcher and Lecturer of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Insubria and the University of Milan. Her research is based around language and gender studies in historical perspective, with a focus on news discourse, lexicography, and the popularisation of medical knowledge. She is currently working on a project about pregnant women’s wellbeing in midwifery manuals and domestic dictionaries.

Everyone is welcome to attend. Please register here and you will get the Zoom-Link after registration.

Research Colloquium – Felix Grewe: Innovating Knowledge for the Future: Haraway's Storytelling from Cyborg to Companion Species
2025-06-02 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Technologiepark 8, Technologiepark 8, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Felix Grewe, Research Fellow and Doctoral Student at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists, will introduce us into his research on Donna J. Haraway and her concepts of Storytelling. The talk Innovating Knowledge for the Future: Haraway’s Storytelling from Cyborg to Companion Species will give an introduction into the genesis of her innovative concepts of knowledge (re-)production including her concepts from the cyborg up to the more recent concept of companion species.
The talk is part of the regular research colloquium held at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists. The research colloquium is organized by Prof. Dr. Ruth E. Hagengruber.
The talk will start at 4 pm.
Everybody is welcome to attend.
Room: TP8.1.46
Building Technologiepark 8
Adress: Technologiepark 8, 33098 Paderborn, Germany

Online Workshop The Living Forces Debate across Europe (1686?–1743?)
2025-06-05 14:30 - 2025-06-06 19:00 (Europe/Berlin)
The Online Workshop “The Living Forces Debate across Europe (1686?–1743?)” is organized by Dr. Pedro Pricladnitzky and Dr. Stefano Veneroni. It is a collaboration between the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists and the Istituto per la Storia del Pensiero Filosofico e Scientifico Moderno (ISPF-CNR).

The debate on living forces in early modern Europe was a pivotal intellectual conflict concerning the nature of motion, energy, and the fundamental principles governing the physical world. The conventional framing of the living forces debate situates its chronological boundaries between 1686, marked by the publication of Leibniz’s Brevis demonstratio, and 1743, with the first edition of d’Alembert’s Traité de Dynamique. However, this periodization warrants critical reconsideration, both on historical and theoretical grounds. Emerging in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, primarily revolving around the competing ideas of René Descartes, who advocated for the conservation of momentum (mass times velocity), and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who introduced the concept of vis viva (living force), proposing that the true measure of force was proportional to mass times the square of velocity.
Émilie Du Châtelet played a crucial role in this debate, providing a comprehensive synthesis of the competing theories, and articulating an original and influential defense of the vis viva principle. In her seminal work, Institutions de Physique (1740), she argued that the quantity conserved in nature was not simply the Cartesian momentum but rather what we now understand as kinetic energy. Du Châtelet’s contributions were instrumental in clarifying and advancing the discussion, influencing the eventual development of classical mechanics. Her critical engagement with both Newton’s Principia Mathematica and Leibniz’s writings demonstrated her profound understanding of complex physical concepts and underscored the importance of empirical evidence and mathematical rigor in scientific discourse.
The major works central to this debate include Descartes’ Principia Philosophiae (1644), Leibniz’s essays on dynamics, particularly his Brevis Demonstratio (1686) and Specimen Dynamicum (1695), and Du Châtelet’s Institutions de Physique (1740) and her discussion with Dortous de Mairan presents on the second edition in (1742) and influecing Kant’s early views on natural philosophy Gedanken von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte (1746–49).
These texts reflect the rich intellectual exchanges of the period, marking a significant evolution in the scientific understanding of motion and its causes. Beyond physics, the debate explored the nature of reality and the methodologies for understanding physical phenomena. It reflected broader shifts in scientific and philosophical thought having a major influence in the further developments on the natural sciences on the following centuries.
The program of the conference will soon be published.
If you want to register and receive the Zoom-Link, please click here.

Research Colloquium – Dr. Dr. Luka Borsic: The Proto-Radical Feminism in 16th Century Dubrovnik: The Strange Case of Maruša Gundulić and Cvijeta Zuzorić
2025-06-16 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Technologiepark 8, Technologiepark 8, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Dr. Dr. Luka Boršić, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Philosophy Zagreb (Croatia), will introduce us into hisresearch on Radical Feminism in 16th Century Dubrovnik: The Strange Case of Maruša Gundulić and Cvijeta Zuzorić.
The talk is part of the regular research colloquium held at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists. The research colloquium is organized by Prof. Dr. Ruth E. Hagengruber.
The talk will start at 4 pm.
Everybody is welcome to attend.
Room: TP8.1.46
Building Technologiepark 8
Adress: Technologiepark 8, 33098 Paderborn, Germany

Workshop Women in the History of Medicine and Philosophy
2025-06-18 14:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Technologiepark 8, Technologiepark 8, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Workshop on Women in the History of Medicine and Philosophy
June 18, 2025, 2pm – 5 pm (hybrid)

Preliminary Program:
14.00-14.10 Welcome Dr. Jil Muller
14.10- 14.30 Dr. Ivana Skuhala Karasman (Senior scientific fellow at IFZG Croatia) – Croatian Women Philosopher and Psychologist: Elza Kučera
14.50-15.10 Dr. Ilaria Ferrara (adjunct professor at the University of Salerno, Italy; former Post-doc at University of Ferrara) – The Logic of Exclusion: Prejudice and the Fallacy of Generalization in Dorothea Christiane Erxleben’s Rigorous Investigation.
15.30-15.45 Break
15.45-16.05 Vanessa Sabbatini (PhD Candidate at the Università Politecnica delle Marche, Italy) – Medical women in the Marche region in the Contemporary Age: the case of Giulia Bonarelli and her “method of gentleness.”
16.25-16.45 Ivana Zečević (PhD Candidate at University of Groningnen, the Netherlands) – From Hospitals to Village Outreaches: Changing Ideas Around Motherhood and Childcare in Villa Maria and Mua Hospitals, 1900s-1980s.
Invited Discussants (Q&A for each paper will last 20 minutes): Dr. Fabrizio Bigotti (CSMBR, Pisa); Dr. Michele Vagnetti (Paderborn University); PD Dr. Friedrich Markewitz (Paderborn University) and Dr. Jil Muller (HWPS, Paderborn).

More information will be provided soon.
To participate please register via our registration platform: https://indico.uni-paderborn.de/event/115/registrations/143/
Organizer:
Dr. Jil Muller, Paderborn University

Wissenschaft außer Kontrolle? Von Hühner-Dinos, OncoMäusen und rauchenden Affen – Wie weit darf Forschung gehen?
2025-06-18 19:00 - 21:00 (Europe/Berlin) | AKKA Paderborn
Kneipengeflüster – Triff Wissenschaft an der Theke
Talk by Felix Grewe: Wissenschaft außer Kontrolle? Von Hühner-Dinos, OncoMäusen und rauchenden Affen – Wie weit darf Forschung gehen?
Mittwoch, 18. Juni 2025, 19 Uhr
AKKA, Paderborn
Wissenschaft trifft Kneipenatmosphäre: Unter diesem Motto rufen die Universität Paderborn und die Servicestelle Antidiskriminierung (ADA) des Caritasverbands Paderborn e.V. eine neue Veranstaltungsreihe ins Leben. Künftig sollen Expert*innen eingeladen werden, um über aktuelle, spannende und manchmal auch brisante Themen in lockerer Runde zu diskutieren. Den Auftakt zur Reihe „Kneipengeflüster – Triff Wissenschaft an der Theke“ macht Felix Grewe vom Lehrstuhl für Praktische Philosophie der Universität Paderborn am Mittwoch, 18. Juni, mit dem Thema „Wissenschaft außer Kontrolle? Von Hühner-Dinos, OncoMäusen und rauchenden Affen – Wie weit darf Forschung gehen?“. Interessierte sind ab 19 Uhr herzlich willkommen in der Kneipe „AKKA“ (Giersstraße 31) in Paderborn. Der Eintritt ist frei, eine Anmeldung ist nicht erforderlich.
„Die Veranstaltungsreihe ist so konzipiert, dass jede*r vorbeikommen kann – mit oder ohne Vorwissen, Hauptsache mit Neugier“, sagt Laura Maring, Referentin für Diversity der Universität Paderborn. Bei der ersten Veranstaltung im Juni möchte Grewe mit den Gästen u. a. darüber sprechen, wie die moderne Forschung zwar immer wieder neue Möglichkeiten, aber auch neue Fragen mit sich bringt. Er wirft in einem kurzen Impulsvortrag einen kritischen Blick auf die Grenzen wissenschaftlicher Neugier und öffnet anschließend den Raum für Diskussion, Austausch und Kneipengespräche auf Augenhöhe.
Eine Fortsetzung der Reihe ist bereits geplant: Gemeinsam mit der Prodekanin für Nachhaltigkeit, Gleichstellung und Diversität der Fakultät für Kulturwissenschaften, Dr. Larissa Eikermann, und der Geschäftsführerin des Zentrums für Geschlechterstudien / Gender Studies, Dr. Claudia Mahs, plant Maring weitere Termine ab Oktober dieses Jahres.
Organisator*innen:
Laura Maring, Referentin Diversity der Universität Paderborn
Dr. Larissa Eickelmann, Prodekanin für Nachhaltigkeit, Gleichstellung und Diversität der Fakultät für Kulturwissenschaften der Universität Paderborn
Dr. Claudia Mahs, Zentrum für Geschlechterstudien der Universität Paderborn
Matthias Zimoch, Servicestelle Antidiskriminierung (ADA) des Caritas-Verband Paderborn e.V.
Quelle: https://www.uni-paderborn.de/veranstaltung/neue-veranstaltungsreihe-in-paderborn-kneipengefluester-triff-wissenschaft-an-der-theke

Research Colloquium - Dr. Jil Muller: Holistic Philosophical Anthropology
2025-06-30 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Technologiepark 8, Technologiepark 8, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Dr. Jil Muller, Deputy Director of The Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists, will introduce us into her research on Holistic Philosophical Anthropology.
The talk is part of the regular research colloquium held at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists. The research colloquium is organized by Prof. Dr. Ruth E. Hagengruber.
The talk will start at 4 pm.
Everybody is welcome to attend.
Room: TP8.1.46
Building Technologiepark 8
Adress: Technologiepark 8, 33098 Paderborn, Germany

XX IAPh Symposium
2025-08-01 - 2025-08-05 | University of Tokyo, aculty of Law & Letters Bldg.2, Hongo Campus, Tokyo, Japan
XX. Symposium of the International Association of Women Philosophers (IAPh)
The XX. Symposium of the International Association of Women Philosophers (IAPh) takes place from August 1-5, 2025 at the University of Tokyo. The XX. Symposium is organized by:
Prof. Dr. Noburu Notomi, University of Tokyo (Japan)
Prof. Dr. Yuko Murakami, Rikkyo University (Japan)
IAPh Secretary Prof. Dr. Ruth E. Hagengruber, Paderborn University/Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists (Germany)
IAPh Speaker Prof. Dr. Cris Sánchez, Complutense University Madrid (Spain)
The IAPh invites everbody to register for participation at this outstanding event. More information about the program and links to the venue can be found here.

Elisabeth of Bohemia Prize 2025
2025-08-04 17:00 - 18:00 (Asia/Tokyo) | University of Tokyo, aculty of Law & Letters Bldg.2, Hongo Campus, Tokyo, Japan
Since 2018, this prize is sponsored by Professor Dr. Ulrike Detmers and awarded in cooperation with Professor Dr. Ruth Hagengruber, the director of the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists. “The Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists is pleased and proud to join with Professor Detmers in awarding a prize that explicitly honors scholars whose work best acknowledges the contributions of women philosophers in history,” says Professor Dr. Ruth Hagengruber.
The Elisabeth of Bohemia Prize is intended to acknowledge an internationally known scholar whose work best preserves the memory of women in philosophy. “The awareness that women have contributed to the philosophical tradition is not very common. But it is important to celebrate our knowledge that women of past centuries were active philosophers who raised their voices and have been heard in former times,” explains Professor Ruth Hagengruber.
The prize is awarded to an outstanding contemporary philosopher in memory of Elisabeth of Bohemia (1618-1680). She was the eldest daughter of Prince Friedrich V. of the Palatinate and his wife Elisabeth Stuart, a granddaughter of Maria Stuart. In her time Elisabeth of Bohemia was also a well-known European intellectual and pupil of Descartes. “I have been fighting for many years to ensure that women get the place in society that they deserve,” says Professor Ulrike Detmers. “It is important to raise awareness about women in the history of philosophy and thereby to revitalize the relevance of the philosophical discipline.”
The Elisabeth of Bohemia Prize will be awarded this year within the XX. IAPh Symposium at the University of Tokyo.
The Elisabeth of Bohemia Prize is awarded by this years award comittee consists of:
Prof. Dr. Ulrike Detmers – Professor of Business Administration | University for Applied Sciences Bielefeld | Entrepreneur | Donor of the Elisabeth of Bohemia Prize
Prof. Dr. Ruth E. Hagengruber – University of Paderborn | President of the German Society for Philosophy
Prof. Dr. Yuko Murakami – Rikkyo University, Japan
More Informations can be found at the Elisabeth of Bohemia Prize – Main Page.

EcoTechGender. Women Philosophers on Economics, Ecology and Technology
2025-08-05 09:00 - 11:30 (Asia/Tokyo) | University of Tokyo, aculty of Law & Letters Bldg.2, Hongo Campus, Tokyo, Japan
EcoTechGender. Women Philosophers on Economics, Ecology and Technology
Panel within the XX. IAPh Symposium.
Panel Contributor:
Prof. Dr. Kateryna Karpenko (Kharkiv National Medical University) – Women and digital technologies in wartime
Prof. Dr. Asha Mukherjee (Visva-Bharati University) – Eco-tech gender: Search for more Objectivity?
Dr. Ingrid Becker (University of Sankt Gallen/Ruhr-University Bochum) – Giving between inexhaustibility and exhaustibility
Prof Dr. Prijanka Iha (Banaras Hindu University) – Ecological Underpinnings in the Gendered Philosophies from India
Prof. Dr. Ruth Edith Hagengruber (Paderborn University) – Time is money. A proposal for a new kind of economic calculation
More information can be found here.

Ruth E. Hagengruber: Time is money. A proposal for a new kind of economic calculation
2025-08-05 09:00 - 11:30 (Asia/Tokyo) | University of Tokyo, aculty of Law & Letters Bldg.2, Hongo Campus, Tokyo, Japan
On August 5, 2025 Prof. Dr. Ruth Edith Hagengruber gives her talk on Time is money. A proposal for a new kind of economic calculation. The talk is part of the Panel EcoTechGender. Women Philosophers on Economics, Ecology and Technology of the XX. IAPh Symposia.
More information about the panel and the conference can be found here.

Libori Summer School 2025 - Day 1 - Enlightenment perspectives on ethics and moral theory
2025-09-08 | L3 204, Building L, Paderborn University, Pohlweg 57, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Monday, 8 September 2025: Enlightenment perspectives on ethics and moral theory: Commentary on Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees
Experts: Judith P. Zinsser and Ana Rodrigues
For further Information visit our conference main page. Registration is required!
If you are interested to participate, please register here.
The full program can found here.

Libori Summer School 2025 The Early Works of Émilie Du Châtelet
2025-09-08 - 2025-09-12 | L3 204, Building L, Paderborn University, Pohlweg 57, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Libori Summer School 2025 – The Early Works of Émilie Du Châtelet
We are excited to announce the Libori Summer School 2025, dedicated to exploring the early works of Émilie Du Châtelet, one of the most influential women in the history of philosophy and science.
Led by Prof. Dr. Ruth Edith Hagengruber and organized by Dr. Jil Muller with the support of Felix Grewe the Summer School invites Master’s and PhD students from around the world to engage in a collaborative, in-depth exploration of Du Châtelet’s early writings and intellectual legacy.
This year’s program offers a rare opportunity to engage directly with the first digital and historical-critical edition of Du Châtelet’s early manuscripts—produced in collaboration with the National Library of Russia, Saint Petersburg. These texts, rich with philosophical insight and annotated by Du Châtelet herself, reveal how her thought shaped and was shaped by the major metaphysical debates of her time.
More information about the current running CfP and additional information about the speakers, program, venue and registration can be found on the conference’s webpage:
https://historyofwomenphilosophers.org/libori-summer-school-2025/

Libori Summer School 2025 - Day 2 - The nature of liberty and free will
2025-09-09 | L3 204, Building L, Paderborn University, Pohlweg 57, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Tuesday, 9 September 2025: The nature of liberty and free will: Chapter 5 On Liberty
Experts: Ruth E. Hagengruber, Julia Jorati and Eszter Kovács
For further Information visit our conference main page. Registration is required!
If you are interested to participate, please register here.
The full program can found here.

Libori Summer School 2025 - Day 3 - The foundations of natural philosophy
2025-09-10 | L3 204, Building L, Paderborn University, Pohlweg 57, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Wednesday, 10 September 2025: The foundations of natural philosophy: Chapter 4 On the Formation of Colours
Experts: Bryce Gessell, Fritz Nagel and Andrew Janiak
For further Information visit our conference main page. Registration is required!
If you are interested to participate, please register here.
The full program can found here.

Libori Summer School 2025 - Day 4 - On language and ontology
2025-09-11 | L3 204, Building L, Paderborn University, Pohlweg 57, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Thursday, 11 September 2025: On language and ontology: Chapter 6 On Grammar
Experts: Pedro Pricladnitzky, Katarina Peixoto and Viridiana Platas Benítez
For further Information visit our conference main page. Registration is required!
If you are interested to participate, please register here.
The full program can found here.

Libori Summer School 2025 - Day 5 - On metaphysics, eternity, immortality of the soul and an eternal being
2025-09-12 | L3 204, Building L, Paderborn University, Pohlweg 57, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Friday, 12 September 2025: On metaphysics, eternity, immortality of the soul and an eternal being: Treatise on Metaphysics
Expert: Ulla Kölving
For further Information visit our conference main page. Registration is required!
If you are interested to participate, please register here.
The full program can found here.

Research Colloquium- Dr. Manaswini Sen: From Practice to Philosophy: Trade Unionism, Communism, and Feminist Intellectual History in Late Colonial Bengal.
2025-10-13 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Technologiepark 8, Technologiepark 8, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Dr. Manaswini Sen will introduce us into her research on Trade Unionism, Communism and Feminist Intellectual History in late colonial Bengal.
She is an Assistant Professor of Modern South Asian History at the Department of History, Easwari School of Liberal Arts, SRM University Ap (India). Her research interests lie within the fields of Labour History, the History of Decolonisation in South Asia, Intellectual History, the History of Surveillance, and the History of Communism in the Global South.
The Talk is part of the regular research colloquium held at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists. The research colloquium is organised by the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists.
Everybody is welcome to attend!
The talk will start at 4 pm.
Room: TP8.1.46
Building: Technologiepark 8
Adress: Technologiepark 8, 33098 Paderborn

Research Colloquium - Dr. Pierpaolo Betti: Atomism and Monadism Combined: Continuities between Du Châtelet’s and Kant’s Accounts of Matter
2025-10-20 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Technologiepark 8, Technologiepark 8, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Abstract: Most scholars emphasize the discontinuity in Kant’s early accounts of matter, reinforcing the longstanding view that the young Kant explored various positions without committing to a specific one. More specifically, commentators tend to read the shift from atomism to monadism or, conversely, from monadism to atomism, as a turning point in Kant’s pre-critical account of matter. I challenge these readings by arguing that the young Kant did not conceive of atomism and monadism as mutually exclusive alternatives. Rather, he developed an account of matter that combined monadism in metaphysics and a version of atomism known as corpuscularism in physics. I further show that, prior to Kant, Du Châtelet had already articulated such a hybrid account of matter by drawing on Wolffian ideas. By comparing Du Châtelet’s Institutions de physique with Kant’s early texts on natural philosophy, I suggest that Du Châtelet’s views may have influenced Kant’s early account of matter more significantly than has generally been acknowledged in the literature.
Pierpaolo Betti obtained his PhD from KU Leuven in 2025. His doctoral research focused on the evolution of the concept of monad in Kant’s philosophy in light of the early reception of Leibniz’s monadology. As of November, he will be a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists at Paderborn University, where he will contribute to the historical-critical edition of Du Châtelet’s Institutions de physique. His publications include “Kant’s Mature Account of Monads as Objects in the Idea” (The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 2024) and “The Influence of Leibniz’s New Essays on Kant’s Account of Impenetrability in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science” (book chapter in Leibniz in der klassischendeutschen Philosophie, edited by Gregor Schäfer. Springer/Metzler, forthcoming).
The Talk is part of the regular research colloquium held at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists. The research colloquium is organised by the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists.
Everybody is welcome to attend!
The talk will start at 4 pm.
Room: TP8.1.46
Building: Technologiepark 8
Adress: Technologiepark 8, 33098 Paderborn
