The Department of English and the Department of Philosophy at National Chengchi University (NCCU) are pleased to announce the 2025 International Symposium “Critical Canons: Rethinking Aesthetics in a More-Than-Human World,” to be held on December 6–7, 2025, at NCCU’s Research and Innovation Incubation Center (RIIC) in Taipei, Taiwan.
Sponsored by the MOE World Excellence 100 Project, this two-day symposium brings together scholars, researchers, and students from Taiwan and abroad to explore the dynamic intersections of literature, philosophy, and aesthetics within the “more-than-human” world. The event aims to showcase how canons—whether literary, philosophical, or artistic—serve not only as cultural and theoretical constructs but also as material and ethical sites where human and nonhuman agencies meet.
Apart from our plenary/regular sessions, the symposium will also feature meditation/editorial workshops, music performances, and art/book exhibitions. We will also have special panels on indigenous landscape, transcultural thought, and our Enlightenment and Romanticism Network end-of-the-project presentation showcasing the research projects/publications of our EARN members. Those interdisciplinary dialogues highlight the tensions and resonances between close reading and abstraction, historical particularity and planetary universality. Participants will engage with questions of how aesthetic canons emerge, circulate, and transform within ecological, intercultural, and institutional contexts, and how they may be reimagined through the lens of planetary ethics and multispecies coexistence.
We warmly welcome participants from all disciplines interested in aesthetics, philosophy, literature, cultural studies, and ecology to join this collaborative and inspiring exchange.
Registration Link: https://2025criticalcanonssymposium.wordpress.com/registration/
Official Website: https://2025criticalcanonssymposium.wordpress.com
Contact: Ken Wu (English Dept., NCCU) 110551502@g.nccu.edu.tw; Yves Lin (Philosophy Dept., NCCU) 111154010@nccu.edu.tw
We look forward to welcoming you to Taipei this December for what promises to be a thought-provoking and inspiring gathering.