PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT3 30

Duquesne GraDuate PhilosoPhy newsSpring 2014 • Volume 7, Issue 1

Department of philosophy

Duquesne university

600 forbes avenue

pittsburgh, pa 15282

news From alumni

We would like to announce the hiring of Dr. Jay Lampert. Dr. Lampert received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 1987 and specializes in Twentieth Century Continental Philosophy, frequently working with figures such as Deleuze, Hegel and Husserl. Dr. Lampert has three published books: Simultaneity and Delay (Continuum, 2012), Deleuze and Guattari’s Philosophy of History (Continuum, 2006), and Synthesis and Backward Reference in Husserl’s Logical Investigations (Kluwer, 1995). Dr. Lampert also has published articles in a variety of different philosophical areas. Our department is very pleased to welcome such a distinguished scholar to the University. We look forward to his continued excellence as a teacher, a philosopher and a colleague.

The philosophy department would like to announce that Dr. Thomas Rockmore has received the title of Professor Emeritus of the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts. During his 28 years at the university he has published over 20 books and over 400 scholarly articles (many of which have been translated into other languages). Dr. Rockmore had previously held the position of Distinguished McAnulty Professor of Philosophy. We are pleased to announce that his time at Duquesne has been honored with the title of Professor Emeritus.

Jacob Greenstine was awarded the 2013-14 Fulbright Fellowship. He has spent the year in Kassel, Germany, conducting research for his dissertation on non-being in Aristotle’s Metaphysics with Prof. Dr. Gottfried Heinemann.

events

DePartment news

Our speaker series for the Fall 2013- Spring 2014 academic year featured many prominent thinkers as well as a special farewell talk from Dr. Tom Rockmore who retired from the department at the end of the spring semester. Our speakers for this year were as follows: JESSICA WISKUS (Duquesne), ERIC BROWN (Washington U), DERMOT MORAN (University College Dublin), PIERRE RODRIGO (U Bourgogne), HANS PEDERSON (Indiana U Pennsylvania), TOM ROCKMORE (DUQUESNE), JOHN PROTEVI (LSU), CRISTINA BUCUR (Silverman Center Fellow), DANA HOLLANDER (McMaster), RAYMOND BRASSIER (American University of Beirut), THEODORE GEORGE (Texas A&M), and LLOYD GERSON (Toronto). For more information about our speaker series, including the titles of the talks, please visit our website at http://www.duq.edu/academics/schools/liberal-arts/for-graduate-students/programs/philosophy/speakers-series.

Our condolences to the Ramirez family, we were all saddened by the news of Dr. J. Roland Ramirez’ passing. Dr. Ramirez taught in the department for 50 years, covering the philosophical works of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and more generally the field of Asian philosophy. Dr. Ramirez was an excellent teacher whose impact on the program will not be forgotten. Our deepest sympathies go out to the Ramirez family as they go through this difficult time.

“I remember when Ramirez retired, English Prof. Baranik said he taught at Duquesne for 50 years. Afterwards at the reception, I mentioned to Ramirez that he taught at Duquesne longer than I was alive. Without skipping a beat, he said he did a lot a things longer than I was alive. I found him to be a warm, caring and brilliant man.” Dr. Douglas Peduti, Ph.D. Class of 2009.

We would welcome any news from alumni! Contact us at thompson@duq.edu.For news on other events, see our website: www.duq.edu/philosophy

Polansky scholarshiP FunDs

We are pleased to be in the fourth year of the Ronald M. Polansky Graduate Student Scholarship awards. Recipients for summer 2014 will be:

Joe Bertino (Greek) Tristana Martin-Rubio (German) Rory Dahl (German) Alessio Rotundo (French) Ned Goertzen (German) Rebecca Warshofsky (German) Martin Krahn (German) Matthew Yaw (German) Any contributions to the Polansky Fund can be made directly to the department: c/o Chair of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh PA 15282.

silverman PhenomenoloGy center

This year’s Symposium took place February 14th and 15th, and covered the topic: “Phenomenology and the African & Africana Worlds”.

September 21, Karim Barakat, “Foucault’s Critical Subject,” Pittsburgh Area Philosophy Colloquium, Pittsburgh, PA.

August 13-14, 2013. Boram Jeong, “The notion of Minjung - Inventing ‘a people to come,’” Korean Philosophy Workshop: Korean Responses to Modernity/Coloniality. University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA. Invited Speaker.

Among others, a full list of which can be found on our department website.

Publications

Brock Bahler, “Emmanuel Levinas, Radical Orthodoxy, and an Ontology of Originary Peace,” Journal of Religious Ethics, forthcoming (Fall 2014).

Ryan Johnson, “Another Use of the Concept of the Simulacrum: Deleuze, Lucretius, and the Practical Critique of De-Mystification,” Deleuze Studies, Vol. 8, No. 1: February 2014

Jessica Patella Konig, “Christology and Whiteness, What Would Jesus Do?” Edited by George Yancy, Book Review in Philosophy and the Black Experience, APA Newsletter, Vol. 12 No. 2, Spring, 2013.

Among others, a full list of which can be found on our department website.

Faculty scholarhiP hiGhliGhts GraDuate news

Kelly Arenson published “Augustine’s Defense and Redemption of the Body” in Studia Patristica in 2013. She argues that Augustine’s comments about the body in City of God and On Christian Teaching are not as depressing as they are usually taken to be. In addition, Dr. Arenson organized a panel on Plato’s Republic and presented a paper entitled “Plato on Why Injustice Can’t Kill You” at the annual Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy meeting at Fordham University in October.

George Yancy, in 2013, published Pursuing Trayvon Martin: Historical Contexts and Contemporary Manifestations of Racial Dynamics, which was co-edited with Janine Jones (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books). The first paperback edition of this book will be published in 2014 along with a New Preface written by the Editors. In 2014, Dr. Yancy published two books. One is Exploring Race in Predominantly White Classrooms: Scholars of Color Reflect (through Routledge’s Critical Thought Series), which is co-edited with Maria Del Guadalupe Davidson, which just appeared in print. The other one is How Does it Feel to be a White Problem? (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014), which will appear in late 2014. In 2013, Dr. Yancy also Guest Edited two scholarly journals: The Western Journal of Black Studies, which was on the Hip Hop cultural work of James G. Spady; and, The Black Scholar, which was on the role of Black philosophy. In 2013, he also published 7 articles and was made Book Series Editor of Lexington Books on the theme: Philosophy of Race.

Additionally, as a part of his Critical Race Theory Speaker Series, Dr. Yancy brought Matthew W. Hughey to campus where he gave a talk entitled, “White Bound: Nationalists, Antiracists, and the Shared Meanings of Race”. Dr. Hughey is Associate Professor of Sociology and Affiliate Faculty in the Institute for African American Studies at the University of Connecticut.

Ron Polansky edited The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Published by Cambridge University Press in June 2014.

Jennifer Bates had a very eventful year; including the completion of a Co-Edited book, Shakespeare and Continental Philosophy (Eds. Jennifer Ann Bates and Richard Wilson). Two refereed articles: “Confusing Matters: Romeo and Juliet and Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature” in “Thinking With Shakespeare” Special Edition of Memoria di Shakespeare. Eds. Rosy Columbo and Nadia Fusini. Forthcoming, 2014.”Hegel and the Concept of Extinction.” In Philosophy Compass, Continental Series. Edited by Andrew Cutrofello. Editor-in-Chief Elizabeth Barnes. Forthcoming, 2014.

Additionally, Dr. Bates was interviewed by Heidelberg University about her research (past and present). This interview can be found in the Heidelberg University Research Alumni Newsletter, January, 2014.

Fred Evans is entering his third and last year as a member of the Executive Committee for the Society of Phenomenological and Existential Philosophy (SPEP). During the 2013 academic year, he published three papers: “The Clamor of Voices: Neda, Barack, and

Social Philosophy,” Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy, 17 (2), Fall,/Automne, 2013, 158-177; “Voices and the ‘Spirit of Place’,” in Exploring the Work of Edward S. Casey: Giving Voice to Place, Memory, and Imagination, eds. Azucena Cruz-Pierre and Donald A. Landes (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013), 215-224; and “Citizenship and Public Art: The Political Aesthetics of New York’s 9/11/01 Memorial,” Belmont University Symposium Journal, Vol. 3, 2013/backdated 2012, 79-105). He also gave four invited presentations, the most important of which were 1) Inaugural Speaker, “Citizenship and Public Art: The Political Aesthetics of New York’s 09/11/01Memorial,” and workshop, “The Clamor of Voices: Neda, Barack, and Social Philosophy,” for the Colloquium Series of the Graduate Students in Philosophy, Texas A&M, Nov. 13 and 14, 2013; and 2) “The Dilemma of Diversity: Justice and the Primacy of Voices,” Ethics/Religion and Society Lecture Series, Xavier University, 2011-2014, “Justice, Tolerance, and Diversity,” Feb. 20, 2013.

Tom Eyers had articles published recently in Philosophy Compass, Postmodern Culture, Southern Journal of Philosophy and Umbr(a). His second book, ‘Post-Rationalism’, is being published in paperback in November of this year. His third book, ‘Speculative Formalism: The Poetics of Form in Literature and Philosophy’ is complete and will appear next year. He was recently invited to speak in a special session at the Modern Languages Association meeting in Vancouver in January 2015 on the topic of the ‘digital humanities’. Daniel Selcer recently published a treatment of early modern ‘operational’ knowing, “From Scientia Operativa to Scientia Intuitiva: Producing Particulars in Bacon and Spinoza” in Intellectual History Review. Last May he spoke on the ontology of the multitude in Hobbes and Spinoza at the American University of Beirut. In January he co-organized and spoke on the panel, “Diagrammatology: The Space of the Diagram in Early Modern English Literature”, at the Modern Language Association conference in Chicago. In March he commented on a paper on Spinoza and emotion at the American Philosophical Association Central Division conference in Chicago. Also in March, he organized and responded to a series of interdisciplinary panels on “Renaissance Axiomatics: Euclid in Thought, Print, and Practice” at the Renaissance Society of America conference in New York City.

Duquesne Women in Philosophy (D-WiP) held their second conference on February 8, 2014, entitled, “Subjectivity in Question.” The keynote address, “Subjectivity Behind Bars: Social Death and Natal Resistance,” was given by Dr. Lisa Guenther (Associate Professor of Philosophy, Vanderbilt

University). The conference began with a roundtable, which functioned as an avenue for discussing the presence of women and women’s issues in academia. Throughout the day, graduate students and faculty members from various institutions around the world presented papers. The conference was a smashing success, and D-WiP hopes to make it an annual event.

Over the past two years four doctoral students, James Bahoh (Duquesne), Jacob Greenstine (Duquesne), Martin Krahn (Duquesne), and Dave Mesing (Villanova, Duquesne MA alum), founded the Pittsburgh Summer Symposium in Contemporary

Visit www.duq.edu/philosophy for the latest information about the Philosophy Department.

Dr. Lisa Guenther, Vanderbilt University

Dissertation Defenses

Dr. Joseph CimakaskyAll of a Sudden: The Role of exaiphnés in Plato’s DialoguesDirector: Prof. Ron Polansky

Dr. John Fritz Character, Time, and Place in the Dialogues of Plato Director: Prof. Ron Polansky

Dr. James Haile Black Existential Philosophy: Truth in Virtue of Self-Discovery Director: Prof. Jim Swindal Visiting Assistant Professor (non-TT), Dickinson College

Dr. David Hoinski Humanlife and the Advent of Philosophy: A Theory of Philosophical Autobiography Director: Prof. Ron Polansky

Dr. Ryan Johnson The Problem: The Theory of Ideas in Ancient Atomism and Deleuze Director: Prof. Daniel Selcer

Dr. Kazue KoishikawaA Phenomenological Analyses of the Relation Between Intersubjectivity and Imagination in Hannah ArendtDirector: Prof. Lanei Rodemeye

Dr. Christopher Mountenay In the Shadow of Anaximander: Philosophical Temperaments and Schopenhauerian Pessimism in Nietzsche’s ‘Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks’ Director: Prof. Patrick Miller

Dr. Harry A. Nethery IV Husserl and Foucault on the Subject: The Companions Director: Prof. Lanei Rodemeyer Visiting Assistant Professor (non-TT), Duquesne University

Dr. James Stover Aristotle’s Ethics: A Viable System for Today’s Life and Business Director: Prof. Ron Polansky Assistant Professor of Philosophy (TT), Wheeling Jesuit University

Awards

The 2013-2014 Charles J. Dougherty Philosophy Graduate Student Teaching Award was won by Andrew Jussaume.The 2013 Philosophy Essay Prize was awarded to Bethany Somma, for her paper, “Adoptees and Philosophers: Searching for Self and Stability in Stoic Therapy”.

Sila Ozkara has received the 2013 Phi Kappa Phi honor society Love of Learning award. She plans to use the award to purchase an edition of Hegel’s works in German.

Ryan Johnson received the Graduate School’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship.

Jacob Graham is the recipient of Duquesne’s first Distinguished Dissertation Award in the Humanities Division for his work, “The Flourishing Self in Aristotle and the Authentic Self in Heidegger.” Jacob defended in March of 2012, his dissertation was directed by Dr. Michael Harrington.

Presentations

March 21-23, 2014, Martin Krahn, “Habit, Death, and Repetition in Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature,” Ontario Hegel Organization (OHO) Conference, McGill University, Montreal, QC.

February 21-22, Sean Skedzielewski, “The Principle of Reason and The Destiny of Being” Catholic University of America Graduate Conference, Washington D.C.

Philosophy. The PSSCP is an annual, week-long, intensive seminar series held at Duquesne. The event includes a two-day participants’ conference held the weekend before the regular sessions begin. In its first year, the event ran August 3-9, 2013. Forty applicants from twenty-two American and international universities were selected to participate in a week of intensive seminars on Schelling and Naturphilosophie, led by Iain Hamilton Grant (U. of the West of England) and Jason Wirth (Seattle). The event was partially funded by an NEH Endowment Grant. Following upon this, James Bahoh, Dave Mesing, and Jason Wirth are editing a special edition of the journal, Comparative and Continental Philosophy, devoted to Schelling and Naturphilosophie. The event for this summer will be August 2-8, 2014. In support of it, the organizers have been awarded another NEH Endowment Grant. This year’s theme is “Formalism and the Real: Ontology, Politics, and the Subject.” The seminar leaders are Paul Livingston (New Mexico), Tom Eyers (Duquesne), and Bruno Bosteels (Cornell).

For more information, please visit the PSSCP website: http://pghsummersymposium6.wix.com/pghsummersymp2014

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