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2019 Department Newsletter

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2019 Department Newsletter 2019 IN REVIEW philosophyNORTHWESTERN Inside Message from the Chair Dear alumni and friends, Faculty News 3 This has been yet another year of exciting Three Questions for initiatives, activities, and developments in the Three New Faculty 6 philosophy department. Our students and faculty are thriving; colloquia, workshops, conferences, 2018–19 Activities and other events continue to enrich our commu­ Roundup 9 nity’s intellectual life; and we are adding several colleagues to our ranks. We were delighted to Student News 13 welcome two Weinberg College fellows to the department: Megan Hyska (PhD, University of Prison Education Texas at Austin), who specializes in philosophy Program 16 of language and political philosophy, and Patricia Marechal (PhD, Harvard), who specializes in ancient philosophy, ancient medical theory, and ethics. We also welcomed postdoctoral fellow William Paris (PhD, Penn State), a specialist in Africana philosophy, black feminist philosophy, and African American philo­ sophy. In addition, we are excited to have recruited a new assistant professor of instruction, Chad Horne (PhD, University of Toronto), a specialist in bioethics and political philosophy who will join the department this fall. Ongoing initiatives run by our undergraduate community include the Under­ graduate Philosophy Society and Women in Philosophy; the PhilFEST, celebrat­ ing senior students who write honors theses (see page 13); PhilNight, a series of minilectures by faculty members on topics selected by the Undergraduate Philosophy Society; and annual lectures, including the Inclusiveness Lecture, aimed at making the department more welcoming for all students, and the Bussey Lecture, featuring a high­profile woman in philosophy. The department boasts two new undergraduate­graduate initiatives: a Northwestern chapter of Minorities and Philosophy, the international student network aimed at address­ ing issues of minority participation in the field, and PHILm, a film society show­ ing and discussing movies with philosophical themes. Continued on page 2 Message from the Chair, continued philosophyNORTHWESTERN Department of Philosophy To continue making our undergraduate program as vibrant and productive as Judd A. and Marjorie Weinberg possible, we constantly think about ways to improve our students’ experience. College of Arts and Sciences These include Northwestern University • teaching students to meet the highest standards of scholarship and to 1880 Campus Drive, Kresge 3-512 acquire the needed skills to critically examine complex questions and Evanston, Illinois 60208-2214 communicate effectively Phone 847-491-3656 Fax 847-491-2547 • expanding the variety of courses to offer students a learning experience touching a wide range of philosophical topics, perspectives, and traditions Connect with Us on the Web • recognizing superlative accomplishments in philosophical work and philosophy.northwestern.edu citizenship by conferring annual awards for students’ outstanding Facebook and LinkedIn achievements Search for “Department of Philosophy, • supporting research opportunities and providing travel funds to Northwestern University” undergraduate students so they can present at national and international Twitter @NUPhilosophy venues We Want to Hear from You • emphasizing support for student initiatives such as the Undergraduate Please email personal or professional Philosophy Society, Women in Philosophy, MAP, and PHILm updates and stories about your • creating and supporting new ways of integrating undergraduate, time at Northwestern to philosophy graduate, and faculty work in philosophy by fostering mentoring @northwestern.edu with “newsletter relationships, joint initiatives, and research opportunities item” in the subject line. • strengthening connections between our students and professional Northwestern University is committed to networks that can help students jump­start their professional careers providing a safe environment free from after graduation discrimination, harassment, sexual miscon- duct, and retaliation. To view Northwestern’s The continued generosity of our alumni enables us to make this department complete nondiscrimination statement, see a thriving, energetic, and welcoming environment. All donations specifi­ northwestern.edu/equity/policies-procedures /policies/non-discrimination-statement.html. cally earmarked as gifts to the philosophy department are used wholly to For crime and safety data, see northwestern strengthen our programs and activities and benefit our students. A gift of .edu/up/your-safety/clery-act-safety-reports any size makes a considerable difference. .html. © 2019 Northwestern University. All rights Thank you for your continuing friendship with the philosophy department reserved. Produced by Global Marketing and and for your ongoing commitment to Northwestern. Communications. 8-19/AE-KP/2869 Sincerely, Cristina Lafont Professor and chair To give online, please visit wewill.northwestern.edu/weinberg­philosophy. You may also make a contribution by calling the development office at 800­222­5603. 2 Faculty News Mark Alznauer has been on Kyla Ebels-Duggan has been Michael Glanzberg continues his sabbatical for much of 2018–19, exploring ideas for her book project research on theories of truth and spending time with his family and on the reasons people have for paradox and on the nature of linguistic traveling to Spain, England, Italy, valuing and loving things: that while meaning and its connections to and rural Pennsylvania. He gave valuing and loving are attitudes for cognition. He is the editor of the Oxford talks at the University of Navarra in which people have reasons, they are Handbook of Truth, recently released Pamplona, Oxford University, the not attitudes to which people could by Oxford University Press, and has University of Padua, and Tulane reason; that reasons for loving depend published papers on the connection University and concluded his term in part on direct experience and between mind and language and as vice president of the Hegel Society appreciation of valued things; and the nature of context dependence. of America. He is currently editing that such experience can yield reasons Glanzberg often collaborates with a collection of essays on tragedy that outstrip any attempt to formulate researchers both in the United States and comedy in Hegel’s philosophy them. She gave presentations on and abroad and has recently presented and working on three projects of the project at Rice University, papers in Austria, Croatia, and Latvia his own. The first concerns Hegel’s the University of Wisconsin, the as well as at US universities. An theory of truth, a theory that is University of California, San Diego, associate editor of Linguistics and unique in characterizing individual and elsewhere. The recipient of a Philosophy, he serves on the boards of concepts as true or untrue; the second Public Voices fellow­­ship from the several journals in addition to chairing examines the connection between OpEd Project, a group that promotes the consulting board for the University poetry and theodicy; and the third— op­ed and similar writing by women of Latvia’s Laboratory for Perceptual more aspirational than the others— and other under represented groups, and Cognitive Systems. considers the problem of slavery and she published articles in Psychology social progress in 19th­century Today and The Hill and has others Sandy Goldberg returned from social theory. in the works. She participated in a a sabbatical year with a renewed June workshop at the University of commitment to teaching and research. Penelope Deutscher continues as Notre Dame on teaching courses on He published the book To the Best of associate director of the Critical philosophy as a way of life and hopes Our Knowledge (Oxford University Theory Cluster and principal inves­ to launch a pilot course for first­year Press), about knowledge as a social tigator on the Critical Theory in students in spring 2020. affair, and finished Conversational the Global South grant; in the latter Pressure, forthcoming from Oxford, capacity, she organized the November Sean Ebels-Duggan taught courses about the expectations generated 2018 conference “Decolonizing in logic and a first­year seminar when we speak to one another. He Critical Theory” at Northwestern. on Augustine’s Confessions. He is taught courses on speech act theory, She traveled to France and Mexico finishing a project on identity criteria philosophy of language, and the pros­ to give keynotes on gender studies of abstract objects and has been pects for self­knowledge. Of the lec­ and deconstruction. Her 2017 book thinking about whether “logical” tures he gave in the United States and Foucault’s Futures, published in and “mathematical” are different abroad, none was more rewarding than Spanish translation this year, was the classifications and why they are his lecture at Stateville Correctional topic of an author­meets­critics panel interesting. Although he did not Center in Illinois as part of the Prison at the Society for Phenomenology and achieve moral perfection this year, Education Program run by philosophy Existential Philosophy’s 2019 confer­ his “pizza skills,” he says, “improved department colleague Jennifer Lackey. ence and won the Canadian Associa­ somewhat.” He says it was inspirational to see tion for Continental Philosophy’s 13th inmates show interest in what some Annual Book Award. might deride as esoteric points in phi­ losophy of language. 3 Faculty News, continued Richard
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