Princeton Bucharest Nuremberg Seminar

Call for Papers: The 25th Princeton-Nuremberg-Bucharest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy

This anniversary edition of our summer seminar will be dedicated to a search for the category of error in the early modern period. In a time of “searches for truth,” how did early modern philosophers conceptualize falsehood? Did they find a positive heuristic role for error? How about deliberate falsehood and forgery? Humanists loved crafty forgeries: a long tradition of “forging” metals, colors, stories, works of art, personae, quotations, and references equated skill—and sometimes education—with the capacity to execute skillful forgeries. At first sight, early modern philosophy seems to promote a fundamentally different attitude. And yet some early modern thinkers also loved fictional scenarios and personae; ingenious hypotheses and fabricated texts and citations; alternative narratives and fictionalized histories. Our purpose is to address, in talks and reading groups, some of the most important questions one can use to map this vast field of early modern error, falsehood, and forgery.

We invite contributions under the form of short proposals – for stand-alone, short papers, or for collaborative reading groups.

Date: July 5 – 10, 2026

Location: Kloster Speinshart (near Nuremberg)

Organizers: Dana Jalobeanu (UTN / University of Bucharest), Daniel Garber (Princeton University), Rodolfo Garau (University of Hamburg).

Princeton Bucharest Nuremberg Seminar 2026

The Princeton–Bucharest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy was established in 2001 by Dana Jalobeanu (University of Bucharest), Vlad Alexandrescu (University of Bucharest), and Daniel Garber (Princeton University). Over the past two decades, the seminar has grown into a well-established institution, known for its combination of academic rigor and cordial, collegial atmosphere. Traditionally held in the mountains of Transylvania, the seminar has been co-sponsored in recent years by the Department of Philosophy at Princeton University, the Institute for Research in the Humanities (ICUB) at the University of Bucharest, the Hamburg Institute of Advanced Studies, and the University of Technology Nuremberg (UTN). Beginning in 2025, the seminar entered a new chapter, with UTN joining at a permanent institutional partner. In 2026, the seminar will be organized by Dana Jalobeanu, Daniel Garber and Rodolfo Garau.

The 2026 meeting – our 25th anniversary edition – will be held at Kloster Speinshart, a beautifully restored monastic complex near Nuremberg, from July 5 to July 10, 2026. Confirmed invited speakers:

Thanks to the generous support of the Department of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, UTN, all conference venues, coffee breaks, and meals will be provided. Participants will be responsible for covering their own travel and accommodation expenses. Attendance for the entire duration of the seminar is expected; partial attendance is not possible. We will reach the location together by bus, departing from Nuremberg on the 5th, and we will leave together by bus in the late afternoon of the 10th, returning to Nuremberg.

Accommodation at Kloster Speinshart is available at the following rates: €59.50 per night for a shared double room, and €89–119 per night for a single room, breakfast included. Given the limited number of rooms and our wish to preserve the intimate, seminar-style format rather than a large conference, participation will be limited to approximately 25–30 scholars, including PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, early-career academics, and senior scholars. Please indicate in your application whether a shared room would be suitable for you, or if you would only participate on the condition that single rooms are available.

Please submit a proposal of up to 500 words, along with a short CV (max. 2 pages), by January 15 using the application form available at this link:

To the application form

Decisions will be communicated by February at 15 the latest. Further details regarding travel, lodging, and logistics will be provided upon acceptance.

Selection will be based on the strength of the application and the emerged coherence of the proposed presentation within the overall program.

For any inquiries, please contact the organizers at rodolfo.garau@utn.de.