GloPhi - Philosophizing in a Globalized World

05/10/2026

Going live in a few minutes:

Lecture by Prof. Marion Eggert (Ruhr Universität Bochum)Conference...

01/10/2026

What can an outsider’s perspective reveal about Korean philosophy? Join us for a livestreamed keynote by Prof. Marion Eggert (Ruhr-Universität Bochum):

“An Outsider’s View: On and In Korean (Confucian) Philosophy”

Drawing on the writings of Pak Chiwŏn, Eggert explores how thinking across cultural and intellectual boundaries can help us reconsider tradition, identity, and the possibilities of comparative philosophy.

📅 Monday, 5 October 2026
🕙 10:00–10:45 CEST (UTC+2)
📺 Watch live on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlgiXGrs6NY

The keynote is part of “Korean Philosophy: From a Comparative and Intercultural Perspective,” the 11th Annual Conference of the North American Korean Philosophy Association (NAKPA), hosted by GloPhi at the University of Hildesheim next week on 5–6 October. Together with our workshop "Modern Korean Thinkers: Late 19th Century to 1945" it is part of the Korean Philosophy Week at GloPhi.

Read the full announcement: https://glophi.com/2026/10/01/keynote-marion-eggert/

29/09/2026

A warm farewell, with a little taste of Hildesheim. 🌹

At GloPhi, we gathered to say farewell to three valued fellows who will return to their home institutions in the coming days.

Our short-term fellow Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Professor Emeritus at Columbia University, explores connections between African, Islamic, and European philosophical traditions. His work on translation and dialogue speaks directly to our efforts to philosophize across languages and traditions.

Our short-term fellow Bado Ndoye, from Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, brings perspectives on African philosophy, phenomenology, and the history of science—important resources for reconsidering philosophy’s histories and the ways we understand knowledge.

Our long-term fellow Dorothy Oluwagbemi-Jacob, from the University of Calabar, combines research in political, decolonial, and intercultural philosophy. Her coordination of our “Philosophizing in Igbo” language focus has opened conversations about philosophical thinking through Igbo concepts, stories, and communal practices.

Following a discussion of Bado’s upcoming book project, we presented each fellow with “Hildesheimer Rosenzauber” pralinés. These local treats recall the thousand-year-old rose at Hildesheim Cathedral – a sweet reminder of their time here.

Thank you, Souleymane, Bado, and Dorothy, for your generosity, ideas, and warmth. We wish you safe travels and look forward to continuing our conversations!

More information:
Souleymane Bachir Diagne: https://glophi.com/fellows/souleymane-bachir-diagne/
Bado Ndoye: https://glophi.com/fellows/bado-ndoye/
Dorothy Oluwagbemi-Jacob: https://glophi.com/fellows/dorothy-oluwagbemi-jacob/

28/09/2026

How might a novel develop a philosophical account of the good life? A new Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry by Dismas A. Masolo takes up this question through the Kiswahili writing of Tanzanian poet and novelist Shaaban Robert.

Published on September 24, 2026, “Shaaban Robert’s Virtue Ethics” reconstructs a moral philosophy through works including Adili na Nduguze, Kusadikika, and Utubora Mkulima.

Central to this reading is utu, humanity or personhood. Masolo distinguishes it from utu bora, ideal personhood, an ethical aspiration cultivated in everyday life. This distinction holds together the worth shared by all human beings and the work of developing moral character. Reason, community, and practice shape that development.

Adili and haki, glossed here as righteousness and justice, guide virtues such as moderation, courage, kindness, peace, learning, and love. In Masolo’s interpretation, a virtuous life requires reflection on why an action is right, as well as the sustained practice of acting well.

The entry explores Robert’s Islamic ethical formation and his insistence that outward piety alone cannot establish moral worth. It places this reading in the setting of colonial East Africa and considers the relationship between personal conduct and public life.

Read the full article: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/shaaban-robert-ethics/

25/09/2026

We are delighted to announce the publication of a new article by our fellow Lorena Grigoletto, “Rievocare Antigone: spazio, luoghi, porosità” (“Recalling Antigone: Space, Places, Porosity”), in a collective volume exploring women’s voices from classical antiquity to the age of artificial intelligence.

The article examines how theatrical space shapes contemporary reinterpretations of Sophocles’ Antigone, with particular attention to the Spanish philosopher María Zambrano’s La tumba de Antígona (The Tomb of Antigone). Reading Zambrano alongside Jean Anouilh and Bertolt Brecht, Grigoletto explores the philosophical significance of relocating the tragedy from the palace of Thebes, associated with law and political authority, to the enclosed space of the tomb.

In Zambrano’s rewriting, the tomb becomes a place of self-understanding and renewal. Antigone is granted the time to confront her history, recover the possibilities of a life left unlived, and move beyond the roles imposed upon her. Drawing on the figure of Orpheus and the descent into the underworld, Grigoletto shows how this encounter with darkness opens a path towards the emergence of the person.

Central to the argument is the concept of porosity. Although Antigone remains confined, the tomb’s walls allow other figures to enter, speak, and participate in her transformation. Becoming a person thus unfolds through relationships: Antigone’s renewal is inseparable from that of those who visit her, a process the article describes as “co-birth.”

Connecting this spatial reading with Zambrano’s conception of poetic reason, the article explores a form of thinking that welcomes dimensions of experience excluded by rigid definitions and structures of domination. Theatre, poetry, and philosophy meet in a space where women’s voices can challenge inherited roles and open possibilities for personal and collective transformation.

We warmly congratulate Lorena on this publication.

More information: https://glophi.com/2026/09/25/rievocare-antigone/

24/09/2026

Modern Korean Thinkers: Late 19th Century to 1945

International Workshop
Organized by Sool Park, Dobin Choi, and Hyojin Lee Fromell

7–8 October 2026
University of Hildesheim
Room HC.G.2.07

The workshop brings together scholars working on modern Korean thinkers from the late nineteenth century to 1945 — a period in which Korean thought responded to colonial rule, religious reform movements and the encounter with European philosophy.

Each contribution presents one representative thinker on the basis of a key primary text in English translation, so that the texts themselves can be read and discussed together.
The guiding question is the concept of “philosophy” itself: how far can the framework of a Western-centred history of philosophy be applied to modern Korean thought, and what has to change when it is?

The workshop is the second event of the Hildesheim “Korean Philosophy Week”, following directly after the 11th Annual Conference of the North American Korean Philosophy Association (5–6 October 2026) at the same university. It is open to conference participants and to colleagues and students from Hildesheim.

More information: https://glophi.com/2026/09/24/modern-korean-thinkers/

23/09/2026

📸 Impressions from the second and final day of “Haunted by Language” at GloPhi!

Following yesterday’s focus on translation, today’s sessions explored how languages shape philosophical thinking—and how philosophical practice transforms language in turn.

Rolf Elberfeld examined how grammatical forms influence philosophical thinking. Grammar, vocabulary, and writing systems suggest particular paths of thought, even as languages continually change and accommodate different worldviews. Learning other languages can make these often unnoticed assumptions visible and open up alternative ways of thinking.

Yoav Meyrav presented a contribution coauthored with Hanna Gentili on Hebrew as a philosophical language in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The presentation traced how translations from Arabic and Latin, new uses of biblical and rabbinic vocabulary, and the creation of philosophical terminology shaped Hebrew philosophy. It highlighted how linguistic choices reflect different historical circumstances, translation traditions, and individual practices.

Monika Rohmer explored how philosophical activity reshapes language, drawing on the re-creation of Wolof in university philosophy and Islamic poetry. These contexts bring different understandings of knowledge and philosophical language into view, from the pursuit of precise terminology to the limits of discursive understanding. The presentation invited reflection on the ideas of philosophy that guide our own work across languages.

Abbed Kanoor examined philosophizing in Persian through the interplay of everyday language and classical poetry, Arabic philosophical terminology, translations of European philosophy, and ancient Persian mythological traditions. These overlapping symbolic spaces make the speaker a meeting place for multiple voices, with philosophical thought emerging through their resonances and tensions.

Osiris González Romero investigated ontological metaphors in Nahuatl, particularly those connected with sacred landscapes. Drawing on cognitive semantics, the presentation explored how bodily concepts such as the face and heart articulate relationships between human beings and their surroundings. Metaphor and related forms of expression emerged as ways of understanding Nahua ontology and the relations between people, nature, and place.

The day’s contributions deepened our exploration of linguistic plurality as a condition of philosophizing, showing how inherited grammatical patterns, vocabularies, and metaphors participate in the formation of thought.

Warm thanks to all our speakers and participants, and especially to organizers Sool Park and Monika Rohmer, for two days of thoughtful presentations and lively exchange!

Explore the full workshop program: https://www.uni-hildesheim.de/glophi/2026/08/07/haunted-by-language/

22/09/2026

📸 Impressions from a successful first day of the international workshop“Haunted by Language” at GloPhi!

With translation at the center, today’s discussions explored how linguistic hierarchies shape philosophy, and how working across languages can open new possibilities for thought.

Our first day brought together a rich range of perspectives:

Souleymane Bachir Diagne and Bado Ndoye discussed translation and philosophizing in Wolof, opening the day’s exploration of the multilingual conditions of philosophical thinking.

Sool Park examined how Korean shamanism and contemporary literature give voice to the dead. With reference to Han Kang and Kim Hyesoon, the presentation explored the figure of the shaman-poet as a translator of voices silenced by violence, connecting literary and ritual practices with remembrance, consolation, and solidarity in the aftermath of colonial oppression and political massacres.

Amr El Hawary addressed the question of “true voice” in Egyptian language and Egyptology, examining the relationship between Egypt, its language, and the scholarly frameworks through which it is interpreted.

Alena Rettová investigated the philosophical functions and effects of multilingual writing, considering how the presence of multiple languages within a text (and the multimodal setting of a movie) can shape philosophical thinking.

Leon Krings explored how grammatical structures shape sensory attention and embodied experience alongside conceptual thought. Through a Buddhist resonance model of language, Japanese ideophones, ki, and middle voice verb forms, the presentation examined alternatives to familiar models of agency, asking how grammatical diversity can expand the possibilities of philosophizing.

Across these contributions, translation emerged as a practice that transforms philosophical thinking itself, bringing us into contact with voices and forms of experience that established categories can obscure.

Many thanks to our speakers, participants, and organizers Sool Park and Monika Rohmer for an engaging opening day! We look forward to continuing the conversation tomorrow, with a focus on language and its role in philosophizing across traditions.

Explore the full workshop program: https://www.uni-hildesheim.de/glophi/2026/08/07/haunted-by-language/

21/09/2026

From a world of stone to a world of words: exploring ancient Egypt together in Hildesheim.

Yesterday, a group of our fellows visited the Egyptian exhibition at the Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim, guided by our fellow Amr El Hawary and his expertise in Egyptian philosophy and culture.

From pyramid architecture and carved reliefs to hieroglyphs and representations of the gods, the exhibition offered rich starting points for exploring the connections between art, language, and belief in ancient Egypt. Moving through the galleries, we encountered the craftsmanship of monumental sculpture, the detail of inscribed objects, and the many forms in which people expressed their understanding of the world.

With Amr’s guidance, the visit offered an opportunity to approach these objects as expressions of ideas, knowledge, and cultural practices. It also invited reflection on how we encounter philosophical thought through material culture, and how images, words, and objects can illuminate one another.

A warm thank you to Amr for sharing his knowledge and helping us see the collection with fresh eyes. The visit was a lovely reminder of the pleasures of fellowship life: learning from one another, following shared curiosities, and getting to know the cultural spaces of our host city together. Many thanks to our fellows Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Bado Ndoye, Kata Beilin, Osiris González Romero, and Lorena Grigoletto for joining the tour!

More about the exhibition: https://rpmuseum.de/aegypten/

20/09/2026

African philosophy is increasingly recognized in global philosophical debates. Yet these discussions still concentrate largely on Anglophone and Francophone contexts, leaving philosophy from Portuguese-speaking Africa underrepresented.

Our new language focus, coordinated by Anke Graness and Monika Rohmer within GloPhi’s research focus “Philosophies in Africa,” explores philosophical sources in Portuguese while engaging critically with the language’s colonial legacies.

With contributions from Rutte Faizah Andrade, José PC Castiano, Stélia Rosa Muianga, and Domingos da Cruz, we examine sources for inclusion in the Hildesheim Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sources (HePS). This work aims to broaden philosophy’s repertoire and strengthen dialogue between Portuguese-speaking African countries, the African diaspora, and other Lusophone contexts, including Brazil in Latin America, as well as philosophical communities beyond the Portuguese-speaking world.

Discover the focus, participating researchers, and related activities: https://glophi.com/2026/09/18/philosophizing-in-portuguese/