De p a r t m e n t o f Ph i l o s o p h y Du q u e s n e Un i v e r s i t y 600 Fo r b e s Av e n u e PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT Pi t t s b u r g h , PA 15282

Ch a n g e Se r v i c e Re q u e s t e d 3 0 3 Du q u e s n e Gr a d u a t e Ph i l o s o p h y Ne w s 2010 • Volume 2, Issue 2

De p a r t m e n t Ne w s Fa c u l t y Duquesne University will host a talk by Alasdair MacIntyre on December 4, 2010. Sc h o l a r s h i p This event is a partnership of the Health Care Ethics Program and the Philosophy Department. Hi g h l i g h t s

Dr. Tom Rockmore has been invited to give a series of lectures in Hanoi, Vietnam, while he is teaching at the University of Beijing in the spring of 2010. Hegel’sAbsolute Spirit Dr. James Swindal, along Connections Between Art, with David Rasmussen, Religion and Philosophy has recently edited and published Habermas II: An Annual Meeting of Canadian The SAGE Masters in Social and American Hegelians Thought, which comprises four volumes of articles Friday, March 19– on Habermas’s thought Sunday, March 21 published since 2000. duquesne university 105 College hall Dr. George Yancy’s Black Bodies/ White Gazes was featured in an Author’s FRidAy, MARCh 19 3 p.m. The Philosophy Department will host the Canadian and American Hegelians annual Session at the American 7 p.m. th Religion and Philosophy in hegel’s meeting Friday March 19 and 20 . The theme of the conference is the interrelatedness Philosophy Association- Religion and Philosophy: Mature Political Philosophy of art, religion, and philosophy. For more information,Tim Brownlee, contact Xavier University Dr. Jennifer Bates, Eastern Division annual Same Content, different Form— Commentary: Nahum Brown, University of Guelph [email protected] does h egel Mean? meeting in December 2009. 4 p.m. DuquesneJay Lampert, will be University hosting of Guelph the and Critical Theory Roundtable (CTR) on October 23-24, Duquesne University the Sensuous Limitation of Art and the 2010. The CTR has been in existence since 1993infinity and isof theAbsolute only Spirit annual conference dedicatedSA tuto criticalRdAy, theory MARC inh North 20 America. Donald Burke, York University Dr. Fred Evans gave 9 a.m. Commentary: Natalia Rudychev, Duquesne University presentations on his recently The department“the Most inElementary the last School year hasof Wisdom”— inauguratedSund two graduateAy, MARC studenth 21 awards: one for published book, The Multi- scholarshipGreek and Religion, one Orientalfor teaching. Pantheism The and recipients the of the Graduate Student Scholarship 10 a.m. Voiced Body: Society and Award wereEmergence Hamad of the Mohamed hegelian Conception and Adam of Hutchinson, and the recipient of the Communication in the Age Photo courtesy of Marie-Lan Nguyen, Museum Fine Arts, Lyon, France. the Absolute as Spirit Kierkegaard and hegel on the Movement GraduateBrady Student Bowman, PennsylvaniaTeaching State Award University was Joy Simmons.of the Moment of Diversity, at Stony Brook Commentary: Kamal Shlbei, Duquesne University Jennifer Bates, Duquesne University University and the University Commentary: Becky Vartabedian, Duquesne University 10 a.m. of Montreal in the fall of 11 Antigone:Du t qhe Supreme u e s n uncanny e Wo m e n i a.m. n Ph i l o s o p h y 2009. He also presented Victoria I. Burke, University of Toronto at Scarborough the determinate Religions in Part two of the the keynote address for the MembersCommentary of Duquesne: Fred Erdman, Women Duquesne in University Philosophy havePhilosophy been of volunteering Religion Lectures: with A Critique Gwen’s 11 a.m. Graeme Nicholson, University of Toronto Sixteenth Annual Graduate Girls, a local organization whose mission is to Cempowerommentary: Ryan young Krahn, girls. University And, of Guelphat the Philosophy Conference at beginningSovereign of the Gratitude: spring semester, hegel on Religion they will begin volunteering with the Thomas and the Gift For information contact Kent State University. Merton ChrisCenter’s Lauer, Pennsylvania Book-It Stateprogram, University which helps providedr. Jennifer books Bates: to [email protected] Commentary: Adam Hutchinson, Duquesne The groupUniversity will sponsor a conference titled Emotion and Gender, which is slated for April 23,2 2010.p.m. Liberation theology: Why Philosophy takes Sides in Religious Conflicts Sponsored by the Department of Philosophy at Duquesne University, The National Endowment Jim Vernon, York University of the Humanities through the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts at Duquesne University, and Duquesne University Graduate Students in Philosophy. Commentary: Nathan Eckstrand, Duquesne University Gr a d u a t e Ne w s Po l a n s k y Sc h o l a r s h i p Fu n d s Sc h o l a r s i n Re s i d e n c e Graduate Dissertation Defenses, Fall 2009 Dr. Francoise Monnoyear is in her second year working in the Center. Melanie Walton. Expressing the Inexpressible: Bearing Witness in Jean-Francois Lyotard and Pseudo-Dionysius. Dr. Christopher Lauer is a post doctorate student from Penn State. Director: Lanei Rodemeyer. Douglas Peduti, S.J. Sprache als Be-wëgen: The Dr. Habip Türker is a post-doctoral Unfolding of Language and Being in Heidegger’s Later student from Fatih University in Istanbul. Work, 1949-1976. Director: James Swindal The recipient of a scholarship from the TUBITAK, a Turkish council, Habip is Tom Sparrow. Sensation Rebuilt: Carnal Ontology in originally from Ankara, but has done most Levinas and Merleau-Ponty. Director: Fred Evans of his philosophical work in Istanbul. While a graduate student, he spent two years Chelsea Harry reports on her work in the undergraduate Judicium in Vienna studying the works of Nicolai Learning Community this past fall: Hartmann, and since then, he has branched “I taught this fall in the newly formed Judicium learning community. into phenomenology, philosophy of religion (An integral component of learning communities at Duquesne and aesthetics. Currently, he is working Scholar in Residence University is a service-learning project.) For our part, two of us on a project that compares Christian and Habip Türker brought our 34 Duquesne freshmen to the Allegheny County Jail Islamic views of aesthetics. In addition, he Gradaute philosophy student Chelsea Harry teaching a class and taught a six-week portion of our classes to an integrated class is interested in first-generation critical theory, and he is a published made up of Duquesne University undergraduates and inmates of Duquesne students and approximately 20 male inmates. The Last years recipients were Stephen Krogh, Patrick Craig, poet. Habip resides in Pittsburgh with his wife, Meliha, and son, of the Allegheny County Jail. other instructor, Dr. Norman Conti who teaches criminal justice in Ryan Pfahl, H.A. Nethery and Chelsea Harry. Aybars. the Sociology Department, is affiliated with the nationwide Inside/ Kelsey Ward was awarded the Strasser Award for 2009-2010. We are pleased to be in the third year of the Ronald Yuan Jun-ya is a visiting scholar from the University of Beijing. She Outside program. James Bahoh and Nalan Sarac attended the Collegium M. Polansky Graduate Student Scholarship awards. received funding to study alienation in the writings of Karl Marx and “This proved to be a productive and beneficial experience for all Phenomenologicum in Citta di Castello, Italy, in July 2009. Recipients for summer 2010 will be: other Marxists. This is her first time outside of China, and she had involved. In reflections they wrote after the experience, some of Chelsea Harry attended the phenomenology colloquium, taught been experiencing the joys and adjustments in living outside of her my students felt that the experienced had changed their lives and by Prof. Dieter Lohmar, in Köln, Germany, this past summer. It is native country. She is currently writing her dissertation and working in that learning philosophy in the jail helped them to see its real world Deirdre Black, for study of Danish at the sponsored jointly by the Husserl archives at Leuven and Köln. Each collaboration with Dr. Rockmore. relevance. I think that the latter type of comment arose because the University of Copenhagen, and for study in year the summer school is based on a different theme. This past the Kierkegaard archive in the Royal Library. incarcerated students took the material quite seriously. After our first summer, the theme was Husserl’s phenomenology. The texts read class on books 1–4 of Saint Augustine’s Confessions, one student let were the Crisis, The Cartesian Meditations, some of his writings on Christopher Haley, for study of French at me know that some of the inmates had begun a reading group to Internal Time Consciousness, Ideas I, and the Logical Investigations. Institut Catholique de Paris. Si l v e r m a n Ce n t e r discuss the readings outside of class. In class, this extra work was Approximately 25 students from various countries, including apparent, not only to me but to the Duquesne students. The inmates China, Germany, the United States and Ireland, were in attendance. Scott Sparrow, to enroll in a Goethe Institute. Phenomenology, Cognition, and Neuroscience, the Center’s annual had a lot to offer in class discussions and in their in-class essays. For further information, visit www.husserl.uni-koeln.de/. Nalan Sarac, to study French at Alliance symposium, will take place February 18–19, 2010. Among the They had not only read and digested the assigned readings, but had speakers will Evan Thompson (University of Toronto) Shaun Gallagher Brock Bahler gave a paper titled, “Jacques and Jesus: Derridean Française de Paris. clearly given a lot of thought to them as well. (University of Central Florida), Dan Zahavi, and Catherine Malabou Hospitality in an Age of Political Xenophobia,” at the West Chester Christopher Mountenay, to enroll in a Goethe (University of Buffalo). “It only got better as the semester proceeded. A few incarcerated Graduate Conference. The paper won the Best Paper in Philosophy Institute in Dresden. students wrote essays ‘for fun,’ considering the material from Award. experiential perspectives. When we worked on Descartes’s Discourse on Method, I had one inmate-student who took on an active role in Hamad Mohamed and Nathan Eckstrand presented papers at the Jeff McCurry, the director of the Center, received an National Endowment for the Humanities grant to develop a course, The defeating all of the other students’ attempts at deriving an ‘absolute Concerned Philosophers for Peace Conference. Contributions to the Polansky Graduate Student Meaning of Life: Ancient Perspectives, which will be taught this truth.’ This turned into a heated epistemological debate, about Hamad Mohamed also presented a paper on Human Rights and Scholarship can be sent to: which a couple of my Duquesne students later described as thrilling. coming fall. Islam at the University of Leicester, United Kingdom. I could not have agreed more. At the end of our time at the Jail, a Philosophy Department Ryan Pfahl, Mélanie Walton, and Clancy Smith attended the number of incarcerated students said they felt learning philosophy c/o Dr. James Swindal International Association of Philosophy and Literature this past had changed their outlook on life and the way they understood the Duquesne University summer in London. Dr. Selcer was also in attendance. There was Un d e r g r a d u a t e Ne w s possibilities open to them. 600 Forbes Ave. a session on Wilhelm Wurzer, with papers about his work and “It is this aspect of philosophy that first excited me about the Pittsburgh, PA 15282 The Undergraduate Philosophy Society will host its second annual anecdotes about his life. discipline, and it was both humbling and gratifying to see these Undergraduate Philosophy Conference on April 10, 2010. Eric Mohr’s work on Max Scheler earned him presentations at men affected by it as well. Needless to say, I am grateful for this the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy and experience. I enjoyed teaching so much in an environment where the upcoming American Philosophy Association-Central Division students were eager to learn, the incarcerated students were conventions. appreciative for the educational opportunity, and the Duquesne students felt empowered for seeing these men as equals, people from whom they could learn not only about philosophy, but about life.” GRADUATE STUDENTS IN PHILOSOPHY We would welcome any news from alumni. The Graduate Students in Philosophy (GSIP) will sponsor its fourth annual highly successful Graduate Philosophy Conference, Contact us at [email protected]. Clayton Bohnet was a recipient of a April 10, 2010. Babette Babich from Fordham University will McAnulty Dissertation Grant for the year be the invited speaker. Graduate students from several different 2009-2010. For news on other events, visit universities will present papers. For information, visit http://sites. google.com/site/duqgradconf2010/ www.duq.edu/philosophy. Clayton Bohnet The GSIP has also organized an American philosophy reading group for the spring. Visit www.duq.edu/philosophy for the latest information about the Philosophy Department.