Bill Ross Memorial Workshop – BSP Special Event 2025

A workshop in memory of Bill Ross, and to celebrate the posthumous publication of his book Order and the Virtual: The Philosophy and Science of Deleuzian Cosmology (2024). 

Convened by the British Society for Phenomenology with the family and friends of Bill.

I never met Bill Ross, nor had I learned of his work prior to receiving news of this workshop. I attended today in Manchester; also realising I'd intended to post the details. It was well worth the effort in the (predictable!) rain. The speakers and sessions were as follows:

• Dan Smith (Purdue University): “Reality is a Problem: Deleuze’s Metaphysics of Manifolds”
• Michael Epperson (California State University, Sacramento): “Relational Realism and the Ontogenetic Universe: Subject, Object, and Ontological Process in Quantum Mechanics”
• Vera Bühlmann (Vienna University of Technology): “Cosmic splendour and signal messages, or the choice that will remain unmade”
• Kemal Tezgin (Virginia Tech): “The Virtuality of Space: A Deleuzian Reading of Quantum Fields”
• Robin Durie (University of Exeter) & Craig Lundy (London Metropolitan University): “What the imagination already knew: Science & Myth in the Genesis of Desert Islands”

Order and the Virtual (2024)

The sessions were informative and stimulating for studies here (category theory was noted).

With thanks to Carol at Edinburgh University Press, I have a review copy of Bill Ross's text.

Looking at the contents and index there are many fields in common, which I will share over the coming months.

As with the Laws of Form conference last year in Liverpool, here is another group of academics and scholars, welcoming and keen to share their expertise and learn.

So, thanks to Carol again for what looks an exciting book and the organisers and sponsors of this brilliant event acknowledging and commemerating the work of Bill Ross.

I will try to be more timely with news of related events, and developments. More to follow, but to close for now ...

'Bill Ross (1964 – 2022) had interests ranging widely across contemporary philosophy and culture, with a particular interest in the relations between science and philosophy. As managing editor, he was the driving force behind Clinamen Press, which in the early 2000s published new works by contemporary philosophers, and English translation of important works by continental philosophers such as Henri Bergson, Gaston Bachelard and Michel Serres. He completed his PhD in philosophy at Staffordshire University, where he taught on the MA in the Philosophy of Nature, Information, and Technology. Bill had a lifelong passion for the connections between science and philosophy, on which he had published several important articles. Bill was working on a monograph on the philosophy and science of Deleuzian cosmology, which was has been posthumously published by Edinburgh University Press. This event is to celebrate Bill’s book and his life, and to allow his friends, his colleagues, and anyone interested in his work or the topics and issues addressed by his work to continue the conversation that Bill’s work inspires.'

https://www.thebsp.org.uk/bill-ross-memorial-workshop-deleuzian-cosmologies/