Maria von Herbert’s 1792-94 correspondence with Immanuel Kant—arising out of her despair and suicidal ideation, coupled with her commitment of his philosophical perspective, including his famously uncompromising prohibition of suicide—has enjoyed increasingly careful attention in the roughly forty years now since Beverley Brown and Rae Langton’s invitations to this effect, in the mid-eighties and early-nineties—most recently as the subject of the annual Kant Reading Party at the University of St Andrews, in July and August of 2023, out of which a volume of new translations and critical materials will soon emerge. Von Herbert and Kant’s struggle is fascinating for occurring in the first place, for its ongoing substance, and for its eventual “healthy soul” resolution. It is also, epistolary in nature, never intended for public consumption, not a little challenging to interpret. Hence the four decades of increasingly careful attention it has enjoyed. On the eve of the fifth, the panel (April 4-5) would both take stock and look forward, evaluate existing perspectives and explore new ones, not only from the point of the history of philosophy, including the history of women philosophers, but from a more broadly historical point of view, including an essential backdrop, which is the social and political history of suicide in the eighteenth century.

All disciplines, methods, and perspectives welcome.

Submission guidelines: Abstracts should be submitted directly to the ASECS site, at https://asecs.org/meetings/asecs-2025-annual-meeting, by October 2, 2024. Questions, concerns, and inquiries generally may be forwarded to: trip@mccrossin.org.