sequitur

Swiss Association of Graduate Students in Philosophy

 

sequitur is the Swiss association of graduate students in philosophy. Its aim is to promote and deepen contacts between Swiss graduate students in philosophy, to improve graduate education in philosophy and to represent Swiss philosophy graduates with respect to issues of common concern.

Philosophy graduates in Switzerland and any person interested in graduate education is kindly invited to join the association. There are no fees or other obligations involved and you have to be neither a Swiss national nor a immatriculated graduate student to do so. For our purposes, "Swiss" therefore means "having an interest in activities taking place in Switzerland" and "PhD student" covers anyone between freshers and senior faculty.

sequitur has been founded in December 2003 by Philipp Keller, Martino Mona, Davor Bodrozic and Norbert Anwander. Its articles are to be found here.

Click here to download a printable poster. Please print it out and pin it on some board in your department.

 

How to join

To join the association and to receive information about meetings, conferences and other activities, just fill out the following form:

Email address:     

First Name:          

Last Name:          

I would like to join sequitur.

  I am a graduate student at the university of
       Basel
       Berne
       Fribourg
       Geneva
       Lausanne (university)
       Lausanne (EPFL)
       Lucerne
       Neuchâtel
       Zurich (university)
       Zurich (ETH)
I am otherwise interested in graduate studies in philosophy.

Comments:


To quit the association, just send another email to Philipp Keller.

 

mailing list

The mailing list of sequitur has been replaced by the one of the Swiss Philosophy Newsletter.

Click here to subscribe and get information on:

  • job offers of interest to Swiss graduate students
  • conferences in Switzerland or with a connection to Switzerland
  • talks given in Switzerland, if they're of general interest

meetings

sequitur aims to bring together Swiss PhD students in philosophy and other interested people on a regular basis. We plan to organise two meetings per year, one on "theoretical" and one on "practical" philosophy, where both these labels are construed broadly and meant to cover historical work as well.

If you are interested in organising such a meeting, contact us.

In the past, sequitur meetings have been subsidised by the Beer-Brawand-Fonds and have taken place at the University of Berne.


Other projects

There are not many philosophers in Switzerland. On an international scale, all our departements together would add up to just one research center of decent size. Fortunately, Switzerland is a small country and there are no good reasons not to discover, from time to time, what is going on at other departments. Switzerland is rich as well: compared to its size, many interesting activities in philosophy are going on. Unfortunately, information about them is not always readily accessible. This is why another of our projects for the future would be the creation of a Swiss philosophy mailing list. Volunteers for this project are very welcome.

Philosophy, at least as pursued academically, is virtually universally ignored in Switzerland. Swiss academic philosophy is not covered by national media and political decisions are almost never favourable to it. The future of Swiss philosophy, however, crucially depends on those who are paying for it. It is in our vital interest, therefore, to make us heard. Some such kind of lobbying is another possible project for the future is. Any practicable ideas are most welcome.


Analytic or continental?

Many of you probably think that you are either too "analytic" or too "continental" to join a Swiss association of students of philosophy tout court. We think this is a mistake. The contrast between "analytic" and "continental" philosophy, if it ever made sense at all, does so less and less. Understood geographically, it is clearly outdated: many of front-of-research "analytic" philosophy is done in Barcelona, Turin, Hamburg and Paris; many of the best recently published books on Kant, Hegel, Descartes, Heidegger and Fichte are written by English or American philosophers. If it "analytic vs. synthetic" is used to mean Hegelian vs. non-Hegelian or modernist vs. postmodernist modernist philosophy, the terms "Hegelian" or "modernist" had better be clarified in advance - which might itself involve taking a philosophical stance.

Sequitur aspires to be an association of all Swiss PhD students in philosophy and welcomes philosophers of all persuasions.


Why English?

At our first meetings we made the experience that knowledge of the other major national idiom is scarce west of Fribourg and east of Zurich. For most of us, however, some knowledge of English is indispensable professionally. This is why this page is written in English. You may, however, make comments in any language you like.


Articles of the association

We tried hard to keep our articles ("statuts"/"Statuten") as simple as possible. Their basic features are the following:

  • anyone can become member who wants to promote and improve philosophy graduate education in Switzerland
  • no fees, no membership obligations
  • you can join or quit anytime

The articles of sequitur are downloadable here (French and German).