Save The Date for STOICON 2021 – October 9!

In eight weeks from today, we at Modern Stoicism will be hosting the annual event that, along with Stoic Week, we are probably best known for – STOICON! In the past, this “world’s largest gathering of Stoics in history” was held as a one-day in-person conference, in locations including London, New York City, Toronto, and even Athens. Last year, due to the global Covid-19 pandemic, we decided to move it online to a virtual space.

Stoicon 2020 dwarfed all the previous Stoicons in terms of attendance, not least because people worldwide who might not have been able to afford the time or expense to travel f0r an in-person event were able to join us. That consideration of access and participation, along with uncertainty about what might be the case with global travel and venues due to Covid-19 in October 2021, led us to the decision to hold Stoicon online again this year.

Everyone involved in Stoicon 2021 is a volunteer. That includes the organizers, the speakers and panelists, the workshop provider and discussion catalysts, and the other people working behind the scenes to provide what we hope to be an even more engaging and interactive online day-long event.

We have an Eventbrite page set up for tickets to Stoicon 2021. Here is the link to that event page, where you can get a ticket.

Any donation you make when you get your ticket will go to the Modern Stoicism, Ltd organization, which hosts and underwrites Stoicon itself, Stoic Week, the 4-week SMRT class, and many other activities aimed at helping people worldwide learn about and apply ancient Stoic philosophy and practices to modern life.

The team organizing Stoicon 2021 includes organizers Andi Sciacca and Greg Sadler, technical co-organizer Phil Yanov, Lighting Talks moderator Harald Kavli, and a number of other members who will be working in a number of roles before, during, and after the conference.

The STOICON 2021 Schedule

This is, of course, liable to change if needed, but here is the event schedule as it is lined up at present. All times posted below are listed in Eastern Time (ET).

10am – Introduction: Welcome + Opening Remarks
Greg Sadler, Andi Sciacca, and Chris Gill

10.15am – The Equality of Moral Errors
Kai Whiting + Leonidas Konstantakos

10.45am – Panel A: Ask the Experts
Donald Robertson, Piotr Stankiewicz , Chris Gill , John Sellars, Sharon Lebell, Gabriele Galluzzo, and Greg Sadler (Moderator)

11.30am – The Joyful Practice of Stoic Death Contemplation
Kathryn Koromilas

12pm – Practical Applications of Stoicism Workshop
Tim LeBon + Workshop Discussion Catalysts

1pm – Practicing Stoicism, Epictetus Style
Massimo Pigliucci

1.30pm – Pre-Recorded Lightning Round (3-5 minutes) Talks
Harald Kavli (Moderator)

2.30pm – How Do Stoics Care?
Brittany Polat

3pm – James Bond Stockdale and Epictetian Communitarian Action
Aldo Dinucci

3.30pm – Panel B: Practical Applications of Stoicism
Eve Riches, Greg Lopez, Walter Matweychuk, Kevin Vost, Karen “Duff” Duffy, Meredith Kunz, and Shayla Love (Moderator)

4.15pm – Keynote Address
Nancy Sherman

5pm – After-Party + Casual Conversation
TBD

Keep On The Lookout!

In the next eight weeks as we count down to Stoicon 2021, you’ll be seeing quite a few posts here in Stoicism Today related to Stoicon 2021.

Before telling you a bit about those, we would also like to mention that in addition to Stoicon 2021 itself, we will also have the Stoic Week online course coming up, running 18-24 October 2021. There will also be a number of smaller Stoicon-X events held by local Stoic organizations. So you can expect to see posts here in Stoicism Today about those, starting with one next Saturday about Stoicon-X events.

Our plans for the coming weeks also include publishing interview posts with Stoicon 2021 speakers, panelists, and organizers. We’re also hoping to get some of those people to produce short videos about Stoicon and Stoicism, like this first one.

We will also have a post coming out shortly about the pre-recorded 3-5 minute Lightning Talks for Stoicon 2021, for those interested in giving one, and about how to productively work with Harald, the moderator for those talks.

Once we have a press release developed for media outlets and organizations for Stoicon 2021, we’ll publish that as well in a post here in Stoicism Today.