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Arcadia is the name of an ideal society, a bucolic utopia. But it is also the name chosen by the members of a brand-new research centre at UNamur. This centre, created within the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters and attached to the ESPHIN institute, questions three themes at the heart of our contemporaneity: the Anthropocene, history and utopias.

Success for the interfaith and interdisciplinary colloquium organised by the University Chair Our Lady of Peace and the eponymous research centre, in collaboration with the Abbey of Maredsous.

Constitutionalism, understood as a means of establishing a political autonomous from society, is seen as having constructed the opposition between the State and society. At the same time, the concept of constitutionalism is increasingly being used to describe other forms of social power and normativity – such as the economy, finance, digital, technologies, media, environment – even though the concrete and theoretical implications of these shifts have not always been fully clarified. More recent trends have emerged within the framework of socio-constitutionalism or societal constitutionalism to challenge the reduction of constitutional issues to state-individual relations, acknowledging the complexity of power. Despite their heterogeneity in assumptions, as well as in their descriptive, normative, and theoretical dimensions, these approaches have contributed to renewing the inquiry into the relationship between constitution and society. The purpose of the conference is to assess the current boundaries of constitutionalism and to explore theoretical proposals seeking to overcome them. These approaches raise several fundamental questions: What role should be granted to social actors and sectors within constitutionalism? How can their normative autonomy be acknowledged while also regulating their private power and expansionist tendencies? To what extent do these transformations challenge traditional forms of politics? At what cost might the relationship between constitution and society be reconsidered today?  Program January 299:00 a.m. Welcome9:30-10:00 Introduction: Manon Altwegg-Boussac (Paris-Est Creteil University/IUF) and Sabina Tortorella (MSCA/University of Namur)From State to Society: New Challenges for ConstitutionalismChair: Isabelle Aubert (Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne University)10:00-10:30 Thomas Boccon-Gibod (Grenoble Alpes University): Relationships between Constitution and Society10:30-11:00 Simone Mao Zhenting (Harvard University): Constitutionalizing Society in an Age of Fragmented Authority: From State-Centrism to Social Constitutional Norms11:00-11:30 Discussion11:30-12:00 Coffee Break12:00-12:30 Angelo Jr Golia (Luiss Guido Carli): Societal Constitutionalism and General Theory of Law (beyond the State): Norm, Order, Interpretation12:30-12:45 Discussion12:45-14:30 LunchMoving Beyond the Nation-State: Theoretical PerspectivesChair: Eleonora Bottini (Sciences Po)2:30-3:00 p.m. Jean-François Kervégan (Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne University): Politics below and beyond the State: Schmitt and Kojève in Comparative Perspective3:00-3:30 p.m. Paul Linden-Retek (University at Buffalo School of Law): Postnational Society and its Law3:30-4:00 Discussion4:00-4:30 p.m. Coffee BreakNew Conceptual Tools: Alterity and DerogationChair: Eleonora Bottini (Sciences Po)4:30-5:00 p.m. Horatia Muir Watt (Sciences Po): On the Borderline (and beyond the State): Ontologizing Alterity on the Terms of the Law5:00-5:30 p.m. Raffaele Bifulco (Luiss Guido Carli): Derogation as Legal Response to Social Differentiation5:30-6:00 p.m. Discussion6:00 p.m. DinnerJanuary 309:00 a.m. WelcomeMapping Sectoral Constitutions: Case StudiesChair: Sabina Tortorella (MSCA/University of Namur)9:30-10:00 Francesco Martucci (Panthéon-Assas University): Trust and Distrust. State, Society, and Money in the Digital Era10:00-10:30 Nefeli Lefkopoulou (Sciences Po): Exploring Constitutional Narratives in Meta’s Oversight Board: Replicating or Renewing Traditional Constitutionalism?10:30-11:00 Discussion11:00-11:30 Coffee Break11:30-12:00 Manuela Niehaus (University of Administrative Sciences Speyer): Global Climate Constitutionalism beyond the State?12:00-12:30 Mathilde Laporte (Pau University): The Debated Protection of Constitutional Rights within Social Orders beyond the State. The Example of Gated Communities12:30-1:00 p.m. Discussion1:00-2:30 p.m. LunchCritical Insights: Take the Leap?Chair: Manon Altwegg-Boussac (Paris-Est Creteil University/IUF)2:30-3:00 p.m. Chris Thornhill (University of Birmingham): The Military in Sociological Constitutionalism3:00-3:15 Discussion3:15-3:45 p.m. Coffee Break3:45-4:15 p.m. Jörn Reinhardt (Fulda University of Applied Sciences): Regression and Progress in Constitutionalism beyond the State4:15-4:45 p.m. Martin Loughlin (LSE): The Concept of Constitution4:45-5:15 Discussion5:15 p.m. Cocktail 

After a presentation of the book, Déborah V. Brosteaux will be interviewed by Thibault De Meyer and Vivien Giet.Free admission. Everyone is welcome.Book presentationFaced with the wars in which European countries are involved, we constantly oscillate between numbness and frenzy. Some war situations give rise to emotional heatedness, a "renewed" psychic and social energy, while others are barely mentioned, relegated to the background. This philosophical investigation delves into the ambivalence of our relationship to war, which is at the heart of the sensitive history of modernity.Inspired by the writings of Walter Benjamin, W. G. Sebald, and Klaus Theweleit, the book explores these warlike emotions throughout the 20th century and questions their legacy: the coldness of distancing, the denial of the ruins after 1945, the desire to intensify the experience of self, which mobilized the imagination in 1914-1918 and was swallowed up in the trenches... even mutating into fascist passions that actively fed on the devastation.Déborah V. Brosteaux takes these desires seriously, including their appeal. And she asks: what emotional transformations can be activated to resist the mobilization of war?  More information about the ARCADIE Center

At a time when misinformation, post-truths and conspiracies are undermining confidence in science, UNamur welcomes SPiN (Science & Philosophy in Namur), a new interdisciplinary research center that questions the place of science in society. Founded last September by Olivier Sartenaer, Professor of Philosophy of Science at UNamur, SPiN brings together philosophers and scientists around a common vision: to develop a critical and accessible reflection on science in all its diversity..

As part of its seminar, Centre Arcadie will be pleased to welcome Igor Krtolica for a session devoted to his book Romain Gary. De l'humanisme à l'écologie, Gallimard, 2025.Maître de conférences en philosophie à l'Université de Picardie Jules-Verne, junior member of the Institut universitaire de France, Igor Krtolica is the author (in addition to the work to be discussed) of Gilles Deleuze (PUF, coll. "Que sais-je? ", 2015), of Gilles Deleuze et Félix Guattari : Une philosophie des devenirs-révolutionnaires(Éditions Amsterdam, 2024) and of a commentary on an extract from Romain Gary's Les Racines du ciel entitled Antifascism, humanism and ecology (PUF, coll. "Classiques de l'écologie", 2025).After a presentation of the work, Igor Krtolica will be interviewed by Jean-Baptiste Vuillerod and Thibault De Meyer.Free admission. All welcome.Book presentation 1956: the Prix Goncourt is awarded to Racines du ciel, a novel whose hero, Morel, fights against the extermination of elephants in an Africa struggling for independence. Romain Gary described it as the first ecological novel. Ecology enabled him to resolve the unbearable political contradiction in which the post-war West finds itself: the impossibility of believing in man, the impossibility of giving up believing in man. How can we continue to give meaning to the idea of civilization? If we are to maintain the humanist ideal, we need to wage a battle in which man is no longer at the center. Such is the paradox explored here. This literary and philosophical essay reveals the complexity of Romain Gary's thought, his constant irony and humor, his contradictions, his rejection of dogmatism. And its modernity: ahead of his time, the novelist anticipated the controversies driving contemporary ecological thinking, where the human being is only a part of nature, but where nature itself becomes inseparable from history, society and politics. This previously unpublished synthesis of Romain Gary's work is an original analysis of the tension between humanist commitment and ecological cause.. Toutes les activités du Centre Arcadie

As part of its seminar, Centre Arcadie will be pleased to welcome Jeanne Etelain for a session devoted to her book Zones. Terre, sexes et science-fiction, Flammarion, 2025.Jeanne Etelain, PhD from New York University and Université Paris-Nanterre, teaches philosophy and contemporary theory at the École supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Montpellier.After a presentation of the book, Igor Krtolica will be interviewed by Jean-Baptiste Vuillerod and Thibault De Meyer.After a presentation of the book, Jeanne Etelain will be interviewed by Ludovic Dubois, Nathalie Grandjean and Sébastien Laoureux.Free admission. Welcome to all.Book presentation Zone: this ubiquitous term nevertheless remains elusive. In a stunning conceptual investigation at the crossroads of geography, psychoanalysis and science fiction, Jeanne Etelain explores how "zone" has become central to understanding space, in the contemporary context of a crisis in the planet's conditions of habitability. The zone thus emerges as a spatial modality that defies habitual categories, confronting us with space's power to act, whether it's nature, the Earth or the body. All Centre Arcadie activities

Conference organized by Centre Arcadie and the Department of Philosophy as part of the "Philosophie du cinéma" course and the "Cultures et pensées cinématographiques" Specialization Master's degree.Dork Zabunyan is Professor of Film Studies at Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis. His publications include Les Cinémas de Gilles Deleuze (Bayard, 2011), L'Insistance des luttes - Images, soulèvements, contre-révolutions (De l'incidence éditeur, 2016), Foucault va au cinéma (Bayard, 2011) with Patrice Maniglier, Jacques Rancière et le monde des images(Mimesis, 2023).In 2020 he published Fictions of Trump. Puissances des images et exercices du pouvoir(Le point du jour). In this conference, the aim will be to take up this work in the context of Trump's second term.Presentation of the workDonald Trump's body is almost everywhere, outside us, on our screens, caught up in information channels that disseminate still and moving images of him. He is also present within us, more or less floating, in the minds of his detractors and supporters alike. The 45th President of the United States of America is not, however, the book's only subject. Based on his countless audiovisual representations, both before and after his election, the aim here is to explore the function of images in the exercise of power today, the stories they tell and the discourses they condition. Two questions run through this essay: what is this strange love of power, conveyed by images of an authoritarian leader, to which individuals who have no interest in voting for him adhere? What filmic counter-fires, real or imagined, are likely to mobilize the powers of images to evade this power, or even to thwart it? All Centre Arcadie activities

For its inaugural conference, the SPiN (Science & Philosophy in Namur) center will be joined by Claire Rommelaere, a lawyer and researcher at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Namur, and Aude Bandini, a philosopher of science at the University of Montreal, to take a critical look at the theme of "distrust of science." The urgency of addressing this issue is clear in our era, where, despite an overall stable level of trust in science, the parameters of public debate are frequently blurred by misinformation.Having had the opportunity to observe philosophers of science in their natural habitat for nearly fifteen years, Claire Rommelaere will share her thoughts on whether or not we should trust those who think about science.For her part, Aude Bandini will address a major problem that we all face at a time when the mass of available knowledge is such that it is impossible to acquire it on our own. Indeed, the socially distributed nature of knowledge generally leaves us no choice but to rely on the authority of experts, even on very important issues (such as health). However, when we rely on others in this way and follow recommendations that, due to our ignorance, we have no means of evaluating, we place ourselves in a relationship of "epistemic dependence" that conflicts with our aspirations for intellectual autonomy and forces us to ask ourselves a question whose answer may prove unbearable: is intellectual autonomy nothing more than a myth?Conference hosted by journalist Maïté Warland.Program:5:30-6:30 p.m. | Drinks at Quai 22 (Rue du Séminaire 22, 5000 Namur)6:30 p.m. | Claire RommelaereDistrust of philosophers of science7:00 p.m. | Aude Bandini Intellectualautonomy in the face of scientific authority: a headache for social epistemologyRegistration deadline: April 16.Free of charge. Register

After focusing on the issues of the "Commons", the management of "common goods" , "health as a common good", this year the Chair turns its attention to the issue of "knowledge" as a "common good" and the role that the University is called upon to play in the creation and transmission of knowledge. As its title - "University and society. What can knowledge do for the common good?" - shows, the value and meaning that society places on knowledge, even more so from a universal perspective, is not self-evident. More info coming soon... Plus d'infos sur la Chaire

After focusing on the issues of the "Commons", the management of "common goods" , "health as a common good", this year the Chair turns its attention to the issue of "knowledge" as a "common good" and the role that the University is called upon to play in the creation and transmission of knowledge. As its title - "University and society. What can knowledge do for the common good?" - shows, the value and meaning that society places on knowledge, even more so from a universal perspective, is not self-evident. More info coming soon...

After focusing on the issues of the "Commons", the management of "common goods" , "health as a common good", this year the Chair turns its attention to the issue of "knowledge" as a "common good" and the role that the University is called upon to play in the creation and transmission of knowledge. As its title - "University and society. What can knowledge do for the common good?" - shows, the value and meaning that society places on knowledge, even more so from a universal perspective, is not self-evident. More info coming soon...