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Summer 2020 Newsletter DEPAUL UNIVERSITY Department of Philosophy College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
Summer 2020NewsletterDEPAUL UNIVERSITY
Departmentof Philosophy
College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
TABLE OF CONTENTSL E T T E R F R O M T H E C H A I RPage 03
V I S I T I N G S P E A K E R SPage 04
D U O S ( D O C T O R A L & U N D E R G R A D U A T EO P P O R T U N I T I E S F O R S C H O L A R S H I P )Pages 05-07
P H I L O S O P H Y C I R C L EPages 08-11
F A C U L T Y P U B L I C A T I O N SPages 12-13
F A C U L T Y N E W SPages 14-16
DEPA
UL
PHIL
OSOP
HYI N T H I SI S S U E :
G R A D U A T E & U N D E R G R A D U A T E S T U D E N TN E W SPages 17-18
S U C C E S S F U L L Y D E F E N D E DD I S S E R T A T I O N SPage 19
A L U M N I N E W SPage 20
S T U D E N T E M P L O Y E E N E W SPage 21
V I R T U A L M E E T I N G SPage 22
U N D E R G R A D U A T E & G R A D U A T E C O U R S E G R I D SPages 23-24
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Our summer Newsletter arrives as most of us try to catch our breath after a tumultuous and challenging springquarter. When I last wrote back in December, none of us could have foreseen what lay ahead in terms of theCOVID-19 pandemic that arrived suddenly at the end of winter quarter, followed soon after by the social andpolitical unrest in the aftermath of the senseless killing of George Floyd. Negotiating all of this undoubtedlymade for a very difficult spring quarter for everyone. As we migrated at very short notice to fully remoteteaching, most of our spring quarter events had to be canceled, including a major conference that had beenplanned for over two years, a workshop, and scheduled visiting speaker events. Still, as we began to adapt tothe new reality, several Philosophy Circle events were held via Zoom, and proved very successful. Meanwhile,we began to plan for next academic year and have several remote visiting speakers already on the calendar forfall quarter.
In light of these unprecedented challenges of spring quarter, I want to acknowledge the terrific work of ourfaculty and teaching fellows in rapidly adapting to teaching online. I know that everyone without exception putin a tremendous amount of extra work for their courses, and the results certainly reflect this. Students werevery appreciative of the excellent quality of instruction they received, as attested by the many positivecomments on spring evaluations. As we prepare to teach remotely once again in fall quarter in less than idealcircumstances, I am greatly encouraged by the dedication that you all bring to serving our students both in theclassroom and beyond.
Given how much has transpired since mid-March, last winter quarter must seem like a distant memory to manyof us. Nevertheless, it was a busy and very successful quarter in many respects. We completed a faculty jobsearch and are delighted to be welcoming Rafael Vizcaíno as a new colleague working in Latin American andDecolonial thought. We also conducted a very successful recruitment cycle for our incoming cohort of graduatefellows. And we enjoyed presentations by Scott Davidson and José Medina, as well as by our job candidates.
In our graduate program, special congratulations are due to J.D. Singer and Amelia Hruby, both of whomsuccessfully defended their dissertations in spring quarter, and to Khafiz Kerimov, who was hired for a tenure-track position at St. John's College in Annapolis. See inside for details of these and many other events andaccomplishments.
As we look ahead to the next academic year, much remains uncertain. This past quarter has been a salutaryreminder that no matter our scientific and technological prowess, the future remains unforeseeable. Indeed, wesee that science and technology may even—and perhaps must of necessity—produce the unforeseeable. In thatrespect, we need more than ever that virtue that Aristotle called phronēsis (usually translated as prudence orpractical wisdom). It is a virtue that all of us will no doubt have ample opportunity to cultivate in the days thatlie ahead.
I wish everyone a healthy and productive summer.
A Letter from the Chair
William McNeillProfessor and Chair, Philosophy
Spring quarter
was rough...!
V i s i t i n g S p e a k e r s
José MedinaNorthwestern University
Epistemic Injust ice andCol lect ive EpistemicResistance in a County Jai l
Scott DavidsonUniversity of West Virginia
The After l i fe and the LifeAfter Life: A Phenomenologyof Immortal i ty
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DUOS (Doctoral & UndergraduateOpportunities for Scholarship)
Inquiries into the History and Philosophy of the Concept of Time
Undergraduate Student: Danielle Leppert-SimenauerGraduate Student: Zhen Liang
Pathos as the Source of Action (ThePhenomenology of Life and thePhenomenology of Action)
Undergraduate Student: Sarah FerraraGraduate Student: Hector Ramos
Nine pairs of under-graduate and graduatestudents received DUOSawards this year andpresented their work onMay 29, 2020 virtually.
DUOSPRESENTATIONS
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DUOS (Doctoral & UndergraduateOpportunities for Scholarship)
Freedom and Necessity in Hegel
Undergraduate Student: Christopher ModlinGraduate Student: Ryan Froese
Blood & Bile Must Boil: Soul and Life in PlatonicThought & Radical Phenomenology
Undergraduate Student: Ian ChongGraduate Student: Ellery Beard
Ontology and Alterity: Understanding Levinas'sand Irigaray's Conflicting Approaches to Ethics
Undergraduate Student: Kay HerronGraduate Student: Sarah Simms
Transcendental Subjectivity in NaturalizedPhenomenology
Undergraduate Student: Kyle BenjaminGraduate Student: Daniel Perlman
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Foucault's Theory of Biopolitics
Undergraduate Student: Danielle OrtizGraduate Student: Vilde Lid Aavitsland
Gender Trouble and Cultural Attitudes
Undergraduate Student: Elizabeth BaughmanGraduate Student: Bradley Ramos
The Time of Becoming: On the Relation betweenTemporality and Ethics in Deleuze and the Stoics
Undergraduate Student: Riley O’BrienGraduate Student: Eric Aldieri
DUOS (Doctoral & UndergraduateOpportunities for Scholarship)
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PHILOSOPHYCIRCLE
PHILOSOPHY CIRCLE EVENTS
Winter Quarter 2020Spring Quarter 2020Summer 2020
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P h i l o s o p h y C i r c l eBOWLING WITH PHILOSOPHERSPhilosophy Circle kicked off Winter Quarter withbowling at Diversey River Bowl.
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MINORITIES ANDPHILOSOPHY
On Wednesday, February 12, 2020we hosted a Philosophy Circle eventon the question "What does it meanto be a minority in Philosophy?" The
event was hosted by our MAP(Minorities and Philosophy) chapter.
PHILOSOPHY IN THETIME OF PANDEMIC
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The Philosohy Circle reconvened onZoom on Wednesday, April 29th,offering a chance to discuss the
changes, personal, educational, andpolitical, that we were all going through.
PHILOSOPHY FILMFESTIVAL 3:
GROUNDHOG DAY ANDTHE NATURE OF EVILOn Wednesday, May 20, Professor
Daryl Koehn hosted our firstPhilosophy Film Festival on Zoom.We watched movie clips from the
film Groundhog Day and had a wideranging discussion that addressed,amongst other topics, virtue, evil,
and the nature of time.
WHAT NEXT?What’s Next? The question was
meant to be ambiguous, invokingboth the personal and the political.
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FACULTYPUBLICATIONS
"Singularity in the Wake ofSlavery: Adriana Cavarero'sOntology of Uniqueness andAlex Haley's Roots"Fanny Söderbäck's article wasaccepted for publication withPhilosophy Compass.
"Alexander Von Humboldt:Critic of Nature"Elizabeth Millán published thischapter in Critique in the GermanPhilosophical Tradition with SUNYPress.
"Time for Love: Plato andIrigaray on Erotic Relations"Fanny Söderbäck published thisarticle in Thinking Life with LuceIrigaray: Language, Origin, Art, Love.
"Robert Egger's The Witch: AFeminist Folktale of Fear andFloating"Peter Steeves published this articlein Popular Culture Review V. 31, N. 1(Spring 2020): 51-70.
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FACULTYPUBLICATIONS
"Learning to SeeNature, Learning toLove Nature:Lessons fromAlexander vonHumboldt"Elizabeth Millánpublished this article inMinding Nature 13.1(2020).
"Goethe's WilhelmMeister: A tendencyof RomanticPhilosophy"Elizabeth Millánpublished this chapter inGoethe's WilhelmMeister's Apprenticeshipand Philosophy.
"el revival de laFrühromantik en lafilosofia anglofona"Elizabeth Millánpublished this chapter inLa actualidad del primerromanticis aleman.
"Fichte and theEmergence of EarlyGermanRomanticism"Elizabeth Millánpublished this chapter in The BloomsburyCompanion to Fichte.
"
"On Bees and Anarchy"Peter Steeves published this article inPolitical Theory, ED. The article wastranslated into Persian by Hamid Malekzade.
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MARY JEANNE LARRABEE'Spresentation "Walls or GatelessGates? Guides from Husserl,Yogacara, and Zen." was acceptedfor the East/West PhilosophyConference at the University ofHawai'i in Honolulu, May 2020. Thishas been delayed for May 2021.
SEAN KIRKLAND received a QICExcellence in Teaching award. He was also awarded a facultyfellowship from the DePaulHumanities Center.
MICHAEL NAAS was awarded theWicklander Fellowship with theInstitute for Business andProfessional Ethics.
F a c u l t y N e w s
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F a c u l t y N e w s
ELIZABETH MILLÁN presented "Shall We Dance?Fichte's Aufforderung, Intersubjectivity, and theEmergence of the You," remarks in response toTobias Rosefeldt's "A Gricean Interpretation ofFichte's Summons" at the Society for GermanIdealism and Romanticism session at theAmerican Philosophical Association CentralDivision Meeting in Chicago on February 26, 2020.She was also invited to talk on "How Humboldtmade Nature Legible and Why that Still Matters"atthe Humboldt Commemoration at Duke Universityin November, 2019. Elizabeth Millán was alsoinvited to talk at Rice University in October, 2019on "Humboldt's Naturgemälde and the Unity ofNature". She also gave a talk entitled "Diversity,Inclusion, and Gracia's Role in Shaping the Fieldof Latin American Philosophy" for the 2019 booklaunch of A Collection of Individuals: thePhilosophical Legacy of Jorge J. E. Gracia at theState University of New York, Buffalo in October,2019. Additionally, Elizabeth Millán completed areview of Paola Mayer's "The Aesthetics of Fear inGerman Romanticism" for Choice CurrentReviews for Academic Libraries in June, which isforthcoming.
FANNY SÖDERBÄCK held the DePaul UniversityCenter for Latino Research Faculty Fellowshipfor her work on a new project putting JuliaKristeva into conversation with Gloria Anzalduaaround issues of foreignness and strangeness.She also gave the talk "Sexual Violence asOntological Violence: Narration and RelationalSelfhood" in the Department of ComparativeLiterature at Södertörn University in Sweden.Fanny Söderbäck completed work on her essay"Material Enigmas: Kristeva and the Paradoxesof Motherhood," which is forthcoming in Libraryof Living Philosophers: Julia Kristeva. Several ofFanny Söderbäck's book panels on her recentmonograph Revolutionary Time were cancelleddue to the COVID-19 pandemic. Her book wasselected for a book session at the upcomingmeeting of SPEP, which was scheduled for thefall of 2021 in Rochester, New York.
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F a c u l t y N e w s
PETER STEEVES spoke on an international panel in April 2020 organized by A71 onthe world premiere of the film Dreamland, along with the film's director, writer, andstars, discussing the philosophical meaning of the films Pontypool and Dreamland(both directed by Bruce McDonald). For the last 4 years, he has been the"production philosopher" on the film. He also gave two presentations in February inLas Vegas, NV at The Far West Popular and American Culture Association, entitled"In the Shadow of Truth: The Philosophy and Fine Art of Faking the Facts" and "This(Still) Be the Verse: Teaching Poetry and Philosophy." At this conference, he wasthe recipient of "The 2020 Felicia Campbell Award" for extraordinary scholarship in,and service to, popular and American culture. He was also interviewed in January2020 for 90 minutes by CNN reporter Patrick McCarty for his podcast on "ArtificialIntelligence, Techno-Science, and Phenomenology."
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JEN GAMMAGE will be serving a two year term on the APA GraduateStudent Council beginning in July and participated in the APA Mentoringthe Mentors Workshop which was held virtually in conjunction with thePacific APA. She was also scheduled to present "The Production ofTrauma: Anzaldua's Autohistoria-teoria and the Creation of History" atthe American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) in Chicago inMarch and will now present this next year at the ACLA. Jen was alsoscheduled to present "Beyond Justice: Ethical responses to Histories ofViolence" at the Society for Philosophy in the Contemporary World in July,and will now be presenting in 2021. Additionally, she was slated topresent at the Pacific Association for the Continental Tradition annualconference on Anarchy in September, presenting a paper titled"Nietzsche's Historical An-archism", which has also been moved.
G r a d u a t e S t u d e n t N e w s
CAMERON COATES co-authored a journal article entitled "Aristotle on theUnity of the Nutritive and Reproductive Functions" with James G. Lennox(University of Pittsburgh, emeritus) which is forthcoming in Phronesis, 2020.
GIL MOREJON and DAVID MARUZZELLA edited and translated acollection of 21 texts by the famous french Spinoza scholar AlexandreMatheron (who passed away in January of this year). This is the firstvolume of its kind and currently the only collection of Matheron'spioneering works in English.
GIL MOREJON submitted a paper to the 2020 SPEP conference and wasaccepted. He was given honorable mention for Best Paper by a JuniorScholar. He will now present in 2021.
DAVID MARUZZELLA submitted a paper to the 2020 SPEP conferenceand was accepted. He was given honorable mention for Best Paper by aGraduate Student.
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SIMON HANDMAKER received the Creating KnowledgeAward for his paper entitled "No 'Thyself': How OneBecomes, What One Is, and How One Becomes WhatOne Is." The paper was originally written for ProfessorWilliam McNeill's Spring 2019 PHL 373: Nietzsche.
Undergraduate Student News
GRACE BAFFOE is this year's top graduatingphilosophy major.
AMANDA LOEFFELHOLZ is headed to the Ph.D.program at the University of Colorado with a fullstipend.
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Amelia successfully defended herdissertation, "Toward FeministAesthetics: Feminist Provocationsto German Idealist Aesthetics" onJune 12, 2020.
J.D. successfully defended hisdissertation titled “Sharing ‘the Fleshof the World’: Alterity, Animality, andRadical Community in Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy".
Sucessfully Defended DissertationsAMELIA HRUBY
J.D. SINGER
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A L U M N IN E W SKHAFIZ KERIMOV (PhD 2019) was hired fora tenure-track position at St. Johns Collegein Annapolis, Maryland.
ANJA GLEICHER (2016) graduatedfrom law school at Villanova on May 18and is preparing for her bar exam.
EVAN EDWARDS will be taking on a positionat Thoreau College in Viroqua, WI in the fallwhere he will be preparing food for studentsas well as teaching them how to cook, farm,and forage. Additionally, he will be running aseminar on food philosophy and willcontinue working on his dissertation.
HAJRIJE KOLIMJA was accepted with a tuitionstipend to the Master of Arts Program in theHumanities at the University of Chicago.
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S t u d e n t E m p l o y e e N e w sKENDALL DUWAL
SAHARA BRATLAND
Kendall Duwal graduated at the end of Marchwith a BA in Public Relations and Advertisingand a Minor in Graphic Design. Kendall has beena friendly and welcoming presence at our frontdesk for the past four years, and we shall missher. We wish her all the best for her future.
Sahara Bratland was nominated for a StudentWorker of the Year award this spring! While shewill continue to work for us throughout thesummer, Sahara plans to transfer to Illinois StateUniversity in the autumn to continue her studiescloser to home. We shall miss her and we wishher every success at ISU.
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Nostalgic for the department? Philosophical misunderstanding#1: When Heidegger says “not-
being-at-home” is the moreprimordial phenomenon (Being
and Time, §40), that doesn’tmean being-in-the-office...!
V I R T U A L M E E T I N G S
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Undergraduate Courses 2020-21
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Graduate Courses 2020-21
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S o c i a l M e d i a
@DePaulPhilosophy DePaul Philosophy
Submit submissions to Nicole at
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