Call for Papers: International Society for Environmental Ethics (ISEE) 2027 Summer Conference, 23 – 25 June 2027 in Bonn, Germany
“After the Anthropocene? Dialogues on Ecological Ethics and Planetary Futures”
The International Society for Environmental Ethics (ISEE) is one of the leading scholarly forums for discussing questions of the ethics of nature, environmental ethics and normatively grounded perspectives on contemporary ecological challenges.
About the Conference
“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.
Call for Abstracts
While keynotes and panel discussants are invited, oral presentations and posters will be selected through peer review.
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, biomimicry, 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
- …
Submission guidelines
Please submit an abstract in English language 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.
Please note that speakers need to be ISEE members at the time of their presentation.
Applicants will be notified of the outcome by the end of February 2027.
Notification of decisions: end-February 2027
