Awards

Kristin Waters (Ph.D. ’81): Frantz Fanon Award

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Please join us in congratulating alumna Kristin Waters (Ph.D. '81), who is one of the recipients of the 2025 Frantz Fanon Award for her book Maria W. Stewart and the Roots of Black Political Thought. The Frantz Fanon Prize is awarded annually in recognition of up to three works in or of special interest to Caribbean thought.

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Maria W. Stewart and the Roots of Black Political Thought tells a crucial, almost-forgotten story of African Americans of early nineteenth-century America. In 1833, Maria W. Stewart (1803–1879) told a gathering at the African Masonic Hall on Boston’s Beacon Hill: “African rights and liberty is a subject that ought to fire the breast of every free man of color in these United States.” She exhorted her audience to embrace the idea that the founding principles of the nation must extend to people of color. Otherwise, those truths are merely the hypocritical expression of an ungodly white power, a travesty of original democratic ideals. Like her mentor, David Walker, Stewart illustrated the practical inconsistencies of classical liberalism as enacted in the US and delivered a call to action for ending racism and addressing gender discrimination.

Between 1831 and 1833, Stewart’s intellectual productions, as she called them, ranged across topics from true emancipation for African Americans, the Black convention movement, the hypocrisy of white Christianity, Black liberation theology, and gender inequity. Along with Walker’s Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, her body of work constitutes a significant foundation for a moral and political theory that is finding new resonance today—insurrectionist ethics.

In this work of recovery, author Kristin Waters examines the roots of Black political activism in the petition movement; Prince Hall and the creation of the first Black masonic lodges; the Black Baptist movement spearheaded by the brothers Thomas, Benjamin, and Nathaniel Paul; writings; sermons; and the practices of festival days, through the story of this remarkable but largely unheralded woman and pioneering public intellectual.

Tracy Llanera: Awarded Humanities Institute Faculty Fellowship

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Congratulations to Assistant Professor Tracy Llanera for being awarded a Humanities Institute Faculty Fellowship! Professor Llanera will write a new book titled The Misfits of Extremism.

Her book aims to place non-traditional extremist agents of Islamic fundamentalism and white supremacy at the front and center of philosophical and political debates. The work will offer a new theoretical framework for understanding the nature and character of extremism and extremist commitment, the dynamics of power and agency, and the problems of blame and moral accountability.

 

Heather Battaly: Templeton/Applied Research on Intellectual Humility

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Congratulations to Professor Heather Battaly, one of the Principal Investigators on a $6.6 Million grant that supports Applied Research on Intellectual Humility, funded by the John Templeton Foundation and the Center for Stress, Trauma, and Resilience at Georgia State University. The request for proposals can be found below. The deadline for letters of intent is January 15, 2023. Interdisciplinary empirical proposals that address the facilitation of Intellectual Humility are encouraged.


Request for Proposals

Tracy Llanera: CLAS Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Grant

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Congratulations to Assistant Professor Tracy Llanera, who has been awarded a CLAS Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Grant to support her work titled “Resilience: A Workshop for Women Doing Philosophy.” Dr. Llanera’s work has already inspired an intellectual movement in the South Pacific, in which Indigenous and other South Pacific women of color working in philosophy have created a Women Doing Philosophy group and project. The result is a series of influential journal articles, conferences, colloquia, and a proposed anthology on resilience. The proposal for the anthology has been enthusiastically received by the series editors for the Routledge-India series Academics, Politics and Society in the Post-Covid World.  

Professor Len Krimmerman Honored by Alumni

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From left to right: emeritus professor Don Baxter, emeritus professor Len Krimmerman, Alumna Patricia O'Rourke.From left to right: professor and department head Lewis Gordon, emeritus professor Len Krimmerman.

Philosophy Professor Emeritus Leonard I. Krimerman was celebrated on Saturday, August 6th, by alumnae/i from the Inner College project he mentored back in the late 1960s.  The alumnae/i spoke of how his mentorship transformed their lives and contributed to the citizenship work they continue to do in their communities.

Here is a blog piece Professor Krimerman wrote on the Inner College: https://blogs.lib.uconn.edu/archives/2019/08/27/anarchism-at-uconn-believe-it-or-not-the-inner-college-experiment/

The alumnae/i gave the Philosophy Department a plaque in Professor Krimerman's honor to post in the Student Lounge of the Philosophy Department.

Attending the event was former Head, Professor Emeritus Donald Baxter, Board of Trustees Professor Emerita Ruth Millikan, her husband Professor Emeritus Donald Shankweiler, a student, Dr. Patricia O'Rourke, from the Philosophy of Education and Community Engagement course and project Professor Krimerman co-organized, the current Head of the Philosophy Department, Professor Lewis Gordon, who also spoke in honor of Professor Krimerman, and a wonderful community of alumnae/i who have served in state government, community nonprofits, and a variety of grassroots projects.