Gadamer and/in North America: A Symposium on the Past and Future of Hermeneutics
Friday, October 2, 2026 | Murray Room, Yawkey Athletic Center | Registration Coming Soon
Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002) was one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century and the leading representative of philosophical hermeneutics. His landmark work Truth and Method (1960) reshaped debates across philosophy and the humanities by arguing that understanding is fundamentally historical, dialogical, and rooted in tradition.
Beginning in 1968, Gadamer visited the United States and Canada regularly, teaching and lecturing at institutions including the Catholic University of America, Syracuse University, McMaster University, and Vanderbilt University. Above all, he developed alasting relationship with Boston College, where he taught as a visiting professor fromthe mid-1970s until the late 1980s and helped establish the university as a major NorthAmerican center for the study of the European philosophical tradition and philosophical hermeneutics.
This symposium brings together scholars from philosophy, theology, law, and political science to examine his reception and influence in North America. Beyond tracing Gadamer’s intellectual legacy, the conference asks what his account of dialogue, tradition, and understanding can contribute to contemporary debates.
The symposium concludes with a keynote lecture by Richard Kearney, Charles B.Seelig Professor of Philosophy at Boston College, on the continuing significance of philosophical hermeneutics in the twenty-first century.
This event is co-sponsored by the Department of Political Science, the Department of Philosophy, the Hans-Georg Gadamer Society and the Institute for the Liberal Arts.
Schedule | |
|---|---|
| 9:00-9:30 AM | COFFEE |
| 9:30-10:00 AM | GADAMER ON THE HEIGHTS
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| 10:00-11:00 AM | TBD
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| 11:00-11:15 AM | COFFEE BREAK |
| 11:15 AM-12:15 PM | APPROPRIATING GADAMER: RORTY, MCDOWELL, AND TAYLOR
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| 12:15-1:15 PM | LUNCH |
| 1:15-2:15 PM | PLATO IN MARBURG AND AMERICA: GADAMER, KLEIN, AND STRAUSS - AN INTERRUPTED DEBATE?
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| 2:15-3:15 PM | GADAMER AND AMERICAN LEGAL HERMENEUTICS
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| 3:15-3:30 PM | COFFEE BREAK |
| 3:30-4:30 PM | GADAMER AND ROMARE BEARDEN ON ART IN DARK TIMES
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| 4:30-6:00 PM | KEYNOTE ADDRESS: GADAMER BETWEEN PAST AND FUTURE
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| 6:00-6:15 PM | CLOSING REMARKS
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Giovanni Pietro Basile, S.J. (Boston College)
Giovanni Pietro Basile, S.J., is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston College. After studies in physics, theology, and philosophy, he earned his PhD in philosophy at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, where he also completed his Habilitation. He previously taught at the Munich School of Philosophy and served as Boston College's Gasson Professor in 2020–21. His research centers on Kant and post-Kantian philosophy, with particular attention to Jaspers and Ricoeur; his books include Transcendance et finitude: La synthèse transcendantale dans la Critique de la raison pure de Kant (2005) and Kants Opus postumum und seine Rezeption (2013).
Ryan Coyne (University of Chicago)
Ryan Coyne is Associate Professor of the Philosophy of Religions and Theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School, where he earned his MA and PhD. His research examines the relationship between modern European philosophy and the history of Christian theology, with particular attention to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and deconstruction. He is the author of Heidegger's Confessions: The Remains of Saint Augustine in “Being and Time” and Beyond (University of Chicago Press, 2015) and is completing a second book on Nietzsche and the philosophy of religion.
Carsten Dutt (Technical University of Darmstadt)
Carsten Dutt is Permanent Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the Technical University of Darmstadt. From 1993 to 1997, he served as Hans-Georg Gadamer's personal assistant. He subsequently held positions at Heidelberg University and the German Literature Archive in Marbach before teaching at the University of Notre Dame from 2009 to 2020. He is the founding president of the Hans-Georg Gadamer Society for Hermeneutic Philosophy and, since 2024, co-director of the Hans-Georg Gadamer Forum for Philosophical Hermeneutics at the University of Wuppertal. Since 2020, he has served as editor-in-chief of the journal Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte.
Gerald Hartung (University of Wuppertal)
Gerald Hartung is Professor of Philosophy, specializing in cultural philosophy and history of modern philosophy, at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal, where he has taught since 2010. He founded and directs the Institute for Foundational Research in the History of Philosophy (IGP) and co-directs the Hans-Georg Gadamer Forum for Philosophical Hermeneutics. His research spans philosophical anthropology, cultural philosophy, and the history of philosophy and science in the 19th and 20th centuries, including German-Jewish intellectual history. He is general editor of the multi-volume Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie (Schwabe Verlag).
Richard Kearney (Boston College)
Richard Kearney holds the Charles B. Seelig Chair of Philosophy at Boston College and has served as a professor or visiting professor at University College Dublin, the Sorbonne, the Australian Catholic University, and the University of Nice. He is the author of more than two dozen books on European philosophy and literature, translated into 21 languages, among them Anatheism (2011), Carnal Hermeneutics (2015), Radical Hospitality (2021), and Touch: Recovering Our Most Vital Sense (2021). He is a member of the Royal Irish Academy and received the Research Ireland Medal for distinguished international scholarship in 2025. As a public intellectual in Ireland, he helped draft several proposals for the Northern Irish peace process.
Hannes Kerber (Boston College)
Hannes Kerber is Assistant Professor of Political Philosophy at Boston College. Before joining BC in 2024, he lectured in philosophy and religious studies at the University of Munich and held a postdoctoral fellowship in Harvard's Program on Constitutional Government. He was also a visiting professor at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and is currently a Faculty Affiliate of Boston College's Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Government. His first book, Die Aufklärung der Aufklärung: Lessing und die Herausforderung des Christentums (Wallstein Verlag), received the inaugural Chodowiecki Prize from the Interdisciplinary Centre for European Enlightenment Studies in Halle-Wittenberg.
Francis J. Mootz III (University of the Pacific)
Francis J. Mootz III is Professor of Law at the University of the Pacific's McGeorge School of Law, where he served as the school's ninth dean from 2012 to 2017. A leading scholar of the hermeneutical and rhetorical traditions in legal theory, he is the author of Rhetorical Knowledge in Legal Practice and Critical Legal Theory (2006) and has written extensively on Gadamer's relevance to jurisprudence. He holds a JD from Duke University School of Law and previously taught at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Penn State, William & Mary, and Western New England University. In 2021 he received Pacific's Faculty Research Lecturer Award.
Cynthia R. Nielsen (University of Dallas)
Cynthia R. Nielsen is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Dallas and a senior research associate at the International Hermeneutical Institute. Her work focuses on philosophical hermeneutics — especially Gadamer — alongside aesthetics, the philosophy of music, and social and political philosophy. She is the author of Gadamer's Hermeneutical Aesthetics: On Art as a Performative, Communal, Dynamic Event (Routledge, 2022) and, most recently, Ethical and Hermeneutical Reflections on War, Violence, and Responsibility: Listening to Ukrainian Voices (Routledge, 2026). She is the lead editor of the Journal of Gadamer Studies.
Campus Map and Parking:
Parking is available at the nearby Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue Garages.
Boston College is also accessible via public transportation (MBTA B Line - Boston College).