The Clough Center is co-hosting the conference Kant and the Future of the University in partnership with the Political Science Department and the John Marshall Program at Boston College. This conference will take place on Thursday, March 20, 2025, and Friday, March 21, 2025. The conference is being held in honor of Professor Susan Shell, a distinguished scholar of Kantian philosophy and German idealism.

On Thursday, March 20, a keynote speech will be held at 5:00 PM in Gasson Hall (Room 100). On Friday, March 21, there will be two panel discussions: Panel One from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM in Fulton Hall (Room 250) and Panel Two from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM in Fulton Hall (Room 250).

Professor Shell earned her PhD in Political Science from Harvard University in 1975. She has been a faculty member in the Political Science Department at Boston College since 1980. She has also served as a Visiting Professor at Harvard University and has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Bradley Foundation, the Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst, and the Radcliffe Institute.

Professor Shell is the author of The Politics of Beauty: A Study of Kant’s Critique of Taste (Cambridge University Press, 2022), Kant and the Limits of Autonomy (Harvard University Press, 2009), The Embodiment of Reason: Kant on Spirit, Generation, and Community (University of Chicago Press, 1996), and The Rights of Reason: A Study of Kant’s Philosophy and Politics (University of Toronto Press, 1980). She is also the co-editor (with Robert Faulkner) of America at Risk: Threats to Liberal Self-Government in an Age of Uncertainty (University of Michigan Press, 2009). In addition, she has written extensively on Rousseau, German Idealism, and various public policy issues.

This conference will feature a distinguished lineup of speakers who will honor Professor Shell’s scholarship on various aspects of Kantian philosophy and discuss the philosophical foundations of the university as an institution. The full schedule of the event, including the names of speakers, is provided below.

Keynote Speech:

Thursday, March 20 (5:00 PM), Gasson Hall 100

• Christopher Kelly, Boston College – The University as Institution

Panel I:

Friday, March 21 (10:00 AM – 12:00 PM), Fulton 250

• Robert Clewis, Mercer University – Culture in Kant’s Account of the Sublime
• Corey Dyck, University of Western Ontario – Kant and the Curious Case of Morris Cangallerie
• Richard Velkley, Tulane University – Adventures of the Organism: Susan Shell on Kant’s Critical Teleology

Panel II:

Friday, March 21 (2:00 PM – 4:00 PM), Fulton 250

• Ryan Hanley, Boston College – Liberalism and the Martial Virtues: Kant and Adam Smith
• Harvey C. Mansfield, Harvard University – Susan Shell on Kant
• Clifford Orwin, University of Toronto – On That Other Strict Moral Teaching: Abraham’s Dialogue with God Over the Fate of Sodom

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