Research Groups and Speaker Series
Brown Bag Seminars
A brown bag is a one hour, generally (though not exclusively) intra-departmental colloquium, starting with a twenty to twenty five minute talk by a faculty member or graduate student, filled from there to the end with lively questions and answers. Members of the department typically present work in progress. Graduate students are encouraged to present one around prospectus-time, and several during dissertation-writing time.
At present the events occur from 12:15 to 1:15 PM on Wednesdays in the basement lounge of Manchester Hall.
History of the Brown Bag
Jerry Shaffer said in 2014 that he started the Brown Bag Seminars in September 1969, when he arrived at the University of Connecticut from Swarthmore College. Swarthmore had a similar, bi-weekly, tradition. However, in 2019 Len Krimerman said that when he arrived in 1968 he was told that the brown bag was already a well respected custom of the department. Further, the record shows that Jerry Shaffer arrived in 1967. A 2016 email from Jerry confirms that he started the Brown Bag then. The spotty historical record suggests that brown bags may have been sporadic at first. John Troyer in response to Jerry’s initial claim seemed to recall that there were some when he arrived in fall 1970. Scott Lehmann has a copy of one he gave in 1973. In 1975 Joel Kupperman came back from Cambridge where Karen Kupperman was working on her PhD in History. In 2016 she said that he was impressed by a weekly brown bag organized by the history graduate students there and institutionalized the weekly brown bag at UConn. It should be noted that in 2019 Tim Elder said that there were weekly Brown Bags in 1974. In any event, a dittoed memo supplied by UConn PhD Joel Marks confirms that by September 1976 the brown bag seminars were firmly in place. That memo, from Joel Kupperman, reads in part, “Thanks to the positive response from intellectually lively members of the department, the future of the Brown Bag Seminar as a weekly event seems assured. The first lunch seminar will be on Monday the 20th at 12:00, and will feature Roger Hancock. Please plan to come every week. A Schedule is posted on the bulletin board.”
(Any further evidence concerning the history of the brown bag would be gratefully received. Please contact Don Baxter.)
Sign Up
A sign-up sheet is posted in the Philosophy Mail Room as one has been since at least September 1976. Please interpret that sentence in pre-internet fashion. To wit: there is a piece of paper in that physical location, with a pencil provided, on which department members must pencil in their name next to one of the Wednesday dates in order to be put on the schedule. Visitors not currently present on campus may contact a member of the department to do the penciling for them.
Upcoming Events
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Nov6
Colloquia
The department colloquium series features philosophers doing innovative work in all areas of philosophy. Typically, we sponsor two colloquia per semester, and hope these will be attended by all faculty and graduate students. We also sponsor the Parcells Lecture, inviting a distinguished scholar whose work is broadly in ethics or value theory, to speak to a wide general audience. We also sponsor the Grover Lecture, featuring a distinguished graduate of the UConn Philosophy Ph.D. program. We encourage faculty to encourage students to attend all colloquia events, especially the Parcells Lecture.
Upcoming Events
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Nov7
ECOM
The Expression, Communication, and the Origins of Meaning (ECOM) research group was established in 2010 by Dorit Bar-On at UNC-Chapel Hill, as part of a 4-year NSF grant for collaborative research received in 2009 [award #0925896]. In the summer of 2014 ECOM moved to the University of Connecticut, where it has received a start-up grant from the UConn Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. ECOM is affiliated with the UConn Philosophy Department, the UConn Cognitive Science Program, the CT Institute for Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and the UConn Humanities Institute.
Upcoming Events
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Nov8COGS, ECOM & SLHS Talk: Dr. Viorica MarianMcHugh Hall4:00 PMCOGS, ECOM & SLHS Talk on 11/8: Dr. Viorica Marian
Date/Time: Friday, 11/8/24 from 4:00pm - 5:30pm EST
Location: McHugh Hall 202
Logic Group
The University of Connecticut has long enjoyed an active research profile in logic and formal methods. The Logic Group was founded in 2008 by Jc Beall and Reed Solomon to build on and expand these strengths, and to bring researchers together. Today, the Group is a highly active interdisciplinary research center, with faculty and student members from mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, cognitive science, law, and other areas.
Research by members of the the philosophy group spans a broad spectrum of non-classical and substructural logics, higher-order logic, truth, and philosophy of mathematics.
Upcoming Events
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Nov7Dr. Gary Mar (Stony Brook): “Gödel ‘s Theorems: An Incomplete Journey” LectureSusan V. Herbst Hall (Formerly Oak Hall)4:00 PM
Philosophy and Global Affairs
Philosophy and Global Affairs is an international scholarly community of researchers, centers, institutes, and activists devoted to addressing problems of global significance. The project is organized by Jane Anna Gordon and Lewis R. Gordon with support from Global Affairs at the University of Connecticut.
Upcoming Events
SEWing Circle
The Social Epistemology Working Group (Also know as SEW or the SEWing Circle) investigates philosophical issues at the intersection of epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of technology and AI, and social and political philosophy. Activities include research presentation, reading groups and external speakers.
Upcoming Events
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Nov11
Vice Squad
The vice squad explores questions about moral and epistemic vices, including what makes them bad, whether we are blameworthy for them, whether groups and structures have them, and how to ameliorate them.
Upcoming Events
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Apr11