[SydPhil] UNSW Seminar Sep 15

[Timothy O'Leary]

UNSW Philosophy and the School of Humanities and Languages invite you to a seminar by ​Dr Campbell Rider, University of Sydney.

Title: Animal and Plant Worlds in Hedwig Conrad-Martius’ Naturphilosophie

Abstract: Hedwig Conrad-Martius was a prominent member of the Göttingen-Munich circle of phenomenologists which formed around Edmund Husserl in the first decades of the twentieth century. In 1912, she became the first woman to win the prestigious Göttingen essay prize, and was among the first women to receive a doctorate from a German university. Like many of her contemporaries, she eventually broke with Husserl over his turn towards transcendental idealism, and instead pursued a “realist” phenomenology. Conrad-Martius’ subsequent work privileges organic nature, elaborating an extensive phenomenological description of worldhood and embodiment in both animals and plants. While recent interest in expanding the philosophical “canon” has produced new scholarship on the contributions of women to the history of philosophy, questions remain about which historical and intellectual narratives are most appropriate to this work. Rather than merely rehabilitating Conrad-Martius within the canon of early phenomenology, I claim it is more fruitful to consider her work in the context of a broader tradition of “Romantic” philosophy of nature and biology, which has significant continuities with the work of Goethe and Schelling.

Dr Campbell Rider is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the School of Humanities at the University of Sydney, and a member of the “Extending New Narratives in the History of Philosophy” research network.

15 September 2026
12:00-1:30pm
Morven Brown Building Room 209
UNSW Kensington

Online on Teams
Join the meeting now<https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/477628665727341?p=GXTILFXDTvC774sRGl>
Meeting ID: 477 628 665 727 341
Passcode: XJ9hA9sg

Contact:
Timothy O’Leary t.oleary at unsw.edu.au<mailto:t.oleary at unsw.edu.au>


_______________________
Timothy O’Leary
Professor and Convenor of  Philosophy
School of Humanities & Languages
UNSW Sydney
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Latest Publication:
O’Leary, T. (2026). Fiction’s critique: Gray’s Poor Things and the conduct of sensibility. Textual Practice, 1–19. https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/T9zIC0YKPvi4m9rzzCDhPPi9B6t4?domain=doi.org

Free Copy available here:
https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/8FPZCgZ0N1iNGjYJJC2ikki4FYzI?domain=tandfonline.com

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