2026 Annual Conference Call for Proposals
The next meeting of the Society of Jewish Ethics will be held virtually from January 8-11, 2026.
The deadline to submit proposals is 8PM EST on Friday, June 20, 2025.
Proposals dealing with any aspect of Jewish ethics—theoretical or applied, classical or contemporary—are welcome. We seek proposals on any topic, including projects that utilize philosophical, historical, social scientific, cultural studies, literary, or critical theoretical approaches. The society is committed to cultivating methodological diversity and cross-disciplinary conversations.
This year we are particularly interested in presentations dealing with health and medicine, climate change and the natural world, and the role of Jewish ethics in the current U.S. and/or global political climate. We are interested in proposals that engage pedagogical questions, including discussions of syllabi in ethics-related disciplines. In addition, we are interested in presentations that consider the intersection of scholarship, communal life, and activism. We also invite papers that discuss directly the situation in Israel and Gaza and bring an original scholarly approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Proposals can be submitted either as individual papers or as pre-arranged panels on a shared topic. Because we will be fully online this year, all panel formats will optimize audience engagement and participation. Panels this year may take the form of pre-circulated papers and discussion, lightning rounds (multiple speakers presenting 5-7 minute papers), or roundtable discussions (conversations between 3-4 participants on a pre-selected topic). Please visit the Proposal Guidelines page for more information. You will have the option to select one or more of these formats for your paper or panel in the proposal submission form.
Panel proposals involving members of the Society for the Study of Muslim Ethics are as always encouraged. Note that the Society for Christian Ethics will be convening in-person this year, but we would also welcome panels with members of the SCE who would like to participate in a virtual panel. All proposals should include: a tentative title, a proposal, an abbreviated abstract of 100 words to appear in the conference program (this can be revised later), a selected bibliography, and the contact information of the presenter (name, institutional affiliation, phone number, and e-mail address). Panel proposals should include this information for the panel as a whole; we do not require a separate abstract for each paper. Panel proposals should include contact information for all participants. All proposals are reviewed anonymously.
Please submit proposals using the SJE 2026 Submission Form. You will be asked to sign into a Google Account to use the submission form. If you do not have a Google account, you can send your proposal via email to: societyofjewishethics@gmail.com.
We encourage authors to submit their completed papers for publication in the Journal of Jewish Ethics. All presenters must become members of the SJE—you do not have to be a member to submit a proposal. Membership fees are on a generous sliding scale. Ample scholarships are available for the conference this year, with preference given to graduate students, contingent faculty, and others with no institutional support.
Questions about the conference may be sent to conference co-chairs, Sarah Wolf and Zackary Berger: sjeprogramchairs@gmail.com
The deadline for submission of proposals is 8PM EST on Friday, June 20, 2025.