Dear colleagues,
At the end of March, a small group of philosophers from the University of Duisburg–Essen (Essen, Germany) visited the University of Ghana (Legon, Ghana) as part of the international conference Globalizing Political Philosophy. Inspired by the stimulating discussions at the conference, and with the aim of creating a platform on which we can continue our shared philosophical conversation, we have decided to establish a virtual forum for this purpose: the

Essen–Legon Colloquium on Contemporary Political Philosophy

The colloquium is planned to take place once a month on Monday afternoons and to last around 75 minutes. The starting time will vary slightly over the course of the year, as the time difference between Germany and Ghana changes with daylight saving time. Our current standard format is a ca. 30-minute talk followed by discussion. Occasionally, there will instead be a shorter presentation with more discussion, based on a text circulated in advance.

We think it is useful to place the talks, for a given period of time, within a shared thematic horizon. We would like to begin with the topic “Political Philosophy in an Age of Upheaval. ” We are currently in conversation with potential speakers for the period up to the end of this year. An abstract outlining the theme can be found attached

The colloquium is intended to be largely open and to address the philosophical community at large. We very much hope, however, that at its core it will bring together a group of faculty and students from Duisburg–Essen and Legon for whom this colloquium can also serve as a point of departure for further cooperation and joint activities.

In order to give this core group an opportunity to exchange ideas before we open the colloquium more generally, we would therefore like to warmly invite you to the constitutive meeting of the colloquium

on June 8 at 14:00 (Ghana) / 16:00 (Germany).

You can register and get the Zoom link for this meeting here: 

https://uni-due.zoom-x.de/meeting/register/13EL6lquSE2Oc5Lvl3oQ_Q 

This constitutive meeting will focus on getting to know one another and exchanging ideas. For this reason, we envisage a semi-open roundtable session. There will be four short inputs on the first theme, followed by a joint discussion. The abstract below can serve as one point of reference for this conversation.

For the first two subsequent sessions of the colloquium, we are currently planning July 6, 14:00/16:00 and August 10, 14:00/16:00.

With best regards,
Richmond Kwesi & Andreas Niederberger