Call for Conference Papers

Proposals for the 2026 Conference are now closed
Notifications will be sent by early October

Creighton University in Omaha, NE

March 12-14, 2026

Proposal Deadline: September 1, 2025

The Ciceronian Society invites proposals for panels, paper presentations, and roundtables for the 2026 conference.

NOTE: Membership is not required to submit a proposal or attend the conference

While our core themes remain tradition, place, and ‘things divine,’ this year we strongly encourage (but do not require) proposals related to the 250th Anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. This focus may lend itself to any number of topics celebrating, exploring, and critiquing American politics, history, literature, art, culture, music, film, society, philosophy, architecture, economics, theology, education, public policy and more.

We also invite reflections on American religious history and, in the spirit of Russell Kirk’s Roots of American Order, the way in which the classical and Christian traditions influenced the formation of America and the Founding Generation.

Finally, if you know of a great book recently published related to the American Founding Era, consider nominating it for the 2026 Herbert J. Storing Prize

NOTE: It’s okay if your proposal has nothing to do with the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. If it’s scholarship you’re passionate about and want to share, send in a proposal!

Looking for some panel and topic ideas? Check out this page of suggestions.

Click here for descriptions of the different panel/session formats

Previous conferences have included scholars and practitioners from classics, agriculture, ministry, philanthropy, political science, law, sociology, linguistics, religious studies, architecture, art, philosophy, theology, history, economics, literature, and more!

We’ve seen papers on Wendell Berry, Aquinas, Bob Dylan, Philip Rieff, Hayek, Albert Jay Nock, Thoreau, Aristotle, Cormac McCarthy, the American Founders, Tocqueville, Kant, MacIntyre, Walker Percy, Adam Smith, Raymond Chandler, C.S. Lewis, Edmund Burke, Dante, Lincoln, Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin, Machiavelli, Nietzsche, Augustine, T.S. Eliot, Mises, Seneca, Shakespeare, Robert Nisbet, Hawthorne, and, of course, Cicero.

Our presenters have covered an enormous range of topics, including constitutionalism, farming, political theology, American political development, friendship, aristocracy, religious liberty, moral theory, agrarianism, Biblical hermeneutics, historiography, Catholic social teaching, rights, conservatism, liberalism, virtue, pedagogy, literary criticism, race, democracy, natural law, hospitality, ideology, conservation, and imagination.