Alumni

Thomas Meagher: On the Notion of Philosophy

UConn Philosophy Alum Tom Meagher’s (’18) new article, “On the Notion of Black Issues in Philosophy,” was published on the APA blog, Black Issues in Philosophy, last Friday. Among some names mentioned is our very own department head: Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor Lewis Gordon. Check out an excerpt from the article below:

In taking on Black issues, philosophy manifests its care for the maturation of knowledge by realizing philosophy’s significance to those who confront black issues not only as intellectual exercises but as impositions that imbue existence with tragic responsibilities that knowledge alone is insufficient to transcend. In short, black/Black issues are among those where the philosopher’s effort to deal with them may, in turn, make the philosopher’s work and labor more genuinely philosophical.

You can read the full article on the APA’s blog.

Congratulations, Tom!

Thomas Meagher: Myisha Cherry’s Failures of Forgiveness Review

Check out Thomas Meagher’s (PhD 2018) newest review essay: “Forgiveness, Obligation, and Cultures of Domination: A Review of Myisha Cherry’s Failures of Forgiveness”.

Below is an excerpt of the article, which you can read in full on the Blog of the APA here.

This diagnosis Cherry relates largely in the form of a discussion of the commonplace or “narrow” view of forgiveness. Cherry characterizes the common view as one in which forgiveness is, at heart, a means of letting go of anger. On such a view, the purpose or telos of forgiving must be to unburden the forgiver of emotions directed toward wrongdoers. Cherry shows, though, that this is an overly narrow conception of the emotional correlates of those contexts in which forgiveness is an option. 

Congrats, Thomas!

Dana Miranda: APA Essay on Black Issues in Philosophy

Congratulations to our very own alum, Dana Miranda, whose essay “The Blacker the Madness: The Balmy Methodologies of La Marr Jurelle Bruce” has been recently published on The Blog of the American Philosophical Association. 

Dana Miranda is now an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Faculty Fellow at the Applied Ethics Center in UMass Boston!

Check out the essay here!

Thomas Meagher: “Loving Commitment to Another”

Check out UConn Philosophy Alum Thomas Meagher’s newest piece on the Blog of the APA titled “Loving Commitment to Another: A Reflection by way of Howard Thurman”. 

Romantic love, then, as a nominiously loving commitment to another—a particular other, and not just any other—can be understood as a discipline of the spirit, a mode of life creating its order so as to confront the daunting depths of existence.

You can read the full article here.

Dorit Bar-On: Students Selected to Speak at “Practical Mental Representation” Conference

Congratulations to Professor Bar-On‘s graduate students Nimra Asif and Drew Johnson for being selected to give talks at the “Practical Mental Representation” conference at Chapman University! There were only two slots available for contributed talks and both will be discussing the aspect of Ruth Millikan’s work.

The “Practical Mental Representations” conference focuses on exploring solutions to answer two questions:

 If mental representations have descriptive contents, how exactly do they fulfil their fundamentally practical functions? How can a description, whether accurate or inaccurate, itself motivate or set the normative standards for any sort of practical engagement with the world?

Check out this link for more information:

Practical Mental Representations