Hosted by the Hong Kierkegaard Library at St. Olaf College
Conference Details
The Kierkegaard Library is hosting its 10th International Kierkegaard Conference from June 15–19, 2026. This five-day conference will take place on the idyllic Liberal Arts campus of St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. Traditionally an occasion for members of the global Kierkegaard community to gather and engage in intellectual conversation, the first conference launched forty years ago in 1985, with the topic “Kierkegaard and Contemporary Philosophy.” Today, we would like to celebrate the special occasion of its tenth installment, as well as the 50th anniversary of the Howard and Edna Hong Kierkegaard Library (founded in 1976), with the topic “Readings of Kierkegaard.”
Reading Praxis
Reading Kierkegaard is what Kierkegaard scholars do, which for good reason may often be a solitary venture. However, when we come together in community to present, read, and further research in our fields, we encounter traditions for reading Kierkegaard along certain lines of interpretation, influenced by particular historical trends, and in dialogue with adjacent and interdisciplinary fields of study. Kierkegaard has been read as Bildungsroman literature, as existential-psychological study, as moral philosophy, as devotional literature, as hermeneutics, and as religious philosophy, among others. Strategies have been applied to contextualize and open up his works, including negative dialectics, the double movement, indirect communication, stages or spheres, a theory of categories, and more.
Call for Papers
We call for papers that reflect critically on ways of reading Kierkegaard. We invite you to explore and analyze traditional readings, as well as to offer fresh perspectives. We welcome contributions that take a historical perspective, engage in close readings of the works, and bring Kierkegaard into dialogue with pressing issues of our times—or any of the above.
Presentation Format
Paper presentations will be 20 minutes followed by 10 minute Q&A.
Submission Guidelines
If you would like to present a paper at the 10th International Kierkegaard Conference, please submit a proposal, consisting of a title and abstract (maximum 300 words), along with your name and institutional affiliation, by September 15, 2025 via email to hkl@stolaf.edu (please include “10th International Kierkegaard Conference” in the subject line).
Keynote Speaker
“Marilyn” M.G. Piety
Professor of Philosophy
Department of English and Philosophy, Drexel University
Keynote Abstract
“After my death,” wrote Kierkegaard in 1843, “no one will find in my papers (this is my consolation) the least bit of illumination concerning what has really filled my life; [no one] will find that inscription in the core of my being that explains everything, and which often makes what the world would call bagatelles into exceedingly important events to me, and which I, too, view as insignificant, if I remove the secret note that explains them.” Scholars have puzzled over the mystery of this “secret note” ever since this reference to it was first discovered. Since Kierkegaard makes clear that this “note” will not be found among his papers we can only guess at its contents. The contents may be less mysterious, however, than the note suggests. This lecture examines several possible answers to the question of its contents that are well supported by both what we know about Kierkegaard’s life and times and by what he has himself written in both his published works and his journals and papers.