Activities

Photo: Chris Diehm

Upcoming Events

  • 2027 meeting will be held in Boston, MA. Call for abstracts has now closed.

  • 2027 meeting will be held in Denver, CO. Call for abstracts has now closed.

  • “After the Anthropocene? Dialogues on Ecological Ethics and Planetary Futures” carries multiple meanings and invites a multifaceted engagement with the phenomenon of the Anthropocene. Ecological Ethics and Planetary Futures refer to interwoven fields of research and debate that bring ethical reflection on human–nature relations into dialogue with interdisciplinary inquiry: In a shared planetary perspective they strive to elaborate possible and desirable futures for all living beings. The Anthropocene diagnosis itself draws attention to the scale of human influence on Earth’s living systems. Its ethical significance extends beyond debates over formal geological classification. At the same time, references to humanity as a planetary agent risk obscuring unequal contributions to ecological degradation, unequal exposure to harm, and differences in the power to shape change. 

    The phrase After the Anthropocene? therefore remains deliberately open. It can refer to possible planetary futures, to a critical reassessment of the Anthropocene concept, or to ways of relating to nature that already challenge dominant practices. It neither presupposes a new geological epoch nor assumes that human impacts can simply be undone. The conference asks how ecological ethics can assess these possibilities and guide action amid ecological disruption and uncertainty.

    We welcome critical engagement with proposals such as the Symbiocene, pluriversal approaches and convivial conservation, as well as rights of nature, Planetary Health and technological responses to ecological crises. Bringing ecological ethics and the environmental humanities into dialogue with the philosophies of nature, biology and technology, the conference will examine their normative foundations, practical implications and limitations.

    Conference venue is the venerable Museum Koenig in Bonn, a wonderful place full of natural treasures, knowledge of nature, love for nature, and environmental education.

    The ISEE Business Meeting and a guided tour of Europe’s largest specialist bioethics library will take place on the premises of the Institute for Science and Ethics (IWE) and the German Reference Centre for Ethics in the Life Sciences (DRZE), located in the heart of Germany's largest contiguous Gründerzeit neighborhood.

    Optional program activities include a guided tour exploring the museum’s natural history collectionsexclusively for conference attendees and an expert-led excursion to the wilderness area of the Siebengebirge, situated within the beautiful scenery of the Rhine Valley.

    See CFA below.

    For more information click here.

Photo: Charles Hayes

Current Calls

Calls for abstracts for ISEE Group Sessions at the APA typically come out in the summer or early fall. Calls for abstracts for the summer conference usually come out in late fall.

  • Submission guidelines

    Please submit an abstract of 250–300 words to isee27@uni-bonn.de by 10 January 2027. Indicate whether you are applying for an oral presentation or a poster presentation in the email subject line.

    Your abstract should state the central question, the approach or argument, and its relevance to the conference theme. Please include the presentation title, author name(s), affiliation(s), if applicable, and a contact email address.

    Applicants will be notified of the outcome in mid-February 2027.

    Send your abstract to: isee27@uni-bonn.de

    Abstract deadline: 10 January 2027

    Notification of decisions: mid-February 2027

    We encourage interested parties to engage in dialogues on what it might mean to think and act “After the Anthropocene?” and to critically reflect on the concepts, values and practices through which humans understand and shape their relations with the living world. The following questions are indicative rather than exhaustive:

    How do different understandings of nature, technology and human agency shape ethical responses? What would count as moving beyond the Anthropocene, and how should alternative concepts be assessed? How are responsibilities differentiated across the Minority and Majority Worlds? What can recognition, care, justice or rights contribute to relations with the more-than-human world?How should we evaluate nature conservation, wilderness protection, biodiversity restoration and land use? What are the promises and limits of nature-positive economies and technological interventions, including geoengineering, synthetic biology, biomimetics, and AI? Where are intervention, restraint or non-use ethically warranted? How should relations between human health, nonhuman life and ecological conditions be understood and evaluated?

    We invite abstracts addressing questions and issues outlined above from perspectives that include but are not limited to the following:

    ▪ Ecological ethics, ethics of nature and environmental ethics

    ▪ Philosophy of nature and environmental philosophy

    ▪ Philosophy of technology

    ▪ Philosophy of biology

    ▪ Climate ethics

    ▪ Anthropocene research

    ▪ Environmental Humanities

    ▪ Human-nature relationships

    ▪ Traditional ecological knowledge

    ▪ Indigenous local knowledge

    ▪ Sustainability research

    ▪ Wilderness and Biodiversity

    ▪ Sustainable Land Transition

    ▪ Rights of Nature

    ▪ Planetary Health

    ▪ Nature conservation

    ▪ Politics of Nature

    ▪ Interdisciplinary thinking and planetary futures

    ▪ Nature positive economy

Photo: Shawn Simpson