Faculty

Lewis Gordon: Eminent Scholar Roundtable

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Congratulations to Professor and Department Head Lewis Gordon, honoree of the Global Development Studies Eminent Scholar Roundtable 2021-2022 organized by the International Studies Association.

The Global Development Section draws together scholars broadly concerned with development and global justice working across a number of fields, for example, postcolonial studies, development studies, critical political economy, critical security studies, social and political theory, history, sociology, gender studies, and public policy. The Section approaches the phenomenon of development in its broadest sense as the study of change, rather than in its narrow hegemonic conceptualization as technical interventions in social worlds. GDS is further concerned with investigating alternative understandings, especially those that excavate the intimate links between development, colonialism, and global capitalism. In this respect, the Section seeks to cultivate an intellectual space or provocation, supporting many ways of seeing and being in the world. And for this purpose, the Section is committed to facilitating diverse modes of inquiry, establishing research networks, and supporting early-career scholars in their professional endeavors.

Tracy Llanera: “Pragmatism, Language Games, and the Philippine Drug War”

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Check out Professor Tracy Llanera’s recent article in Philosophy and Global Affairs, “Pragmatism, Language Games, and the Philippine Drug War.”

This article explores the claim that how we talk can inspire how we reason and act. Contemporary research suggests that the words militant Christian leaders in the Philippines use shape how they rationalize President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs. Describing drug users as “sinners,” a trope in religious language, is particularly lethal. Using work on pragmatism and philosophy of language by Richard Rorty, Robert Brandom, and Lynne Tirrell, the author examines how the term “sinner” generates pernicious claims in the drug war. It explores how the use of the term inspires hermeneutic uptake, redirects discursive focus, and engenders certain social and political actions in the Philippines

Mitch Green: Editor-in-Chief of “Philosophia”

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We are pleased to announce that Professor Mitch Green will be the new Editor-in-Chief of Philosophia, a general philosophy journal that welcomes broadly accessible submissions on all topics of current philosophical interest. Philosophia will continue to commission Author-Meets-Critics symposia, and starting in 2023 will commission state-of-the art essays accessible to a wide audience. Due to the growing number of high-quality submissions, the journal has moved from publishing four issues per year to five. For more information, please visit Philosophia’s homepage.

Julian Schlöder: Editorial Board for Logique et Analyse

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Please join us in congratulating Julian Schlöder, who has joined the editorial board of Logique et Analyse.

Logique et Analyse is an international, peer-reviewed journal that publishes research in logic, philosophy of logic and/or mathematics, argumentation-theory, and analytical philosophy, broadly conceived.

Its first issue was published in 1958 by the National Center for Research in Logic, the Belgian Society for the promotion of logical research founded by Leo Apostel, Philippe Devaux, Joseph Dopp, Robert Feys, and Chaïm Perelman. The journal has been appearing ever since. Its presents editor are Jan Heylen and Peter Verdée, who have succeeded Jean Paul Van Bendegem.

Lewis Gordon: The Chronical of Higher Education

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Check out Professor and Department Head Lewis Gordon in a recent article published on The Chronicle of Higher Education titled “A Philosopher Laughs at Death — and the Public Listens.” Gordon discusses the German philosopher Martin Heidegger and his impact on society today.

**Excerpt from article**

Martin Heidegger exemplifies values suitable for people so enwrapped in themselves that they treat their own death as the end of the world,” he told me. “We really don’t need Heidegger today. We didn’t need him then, in his rector lectures at Freiburg in 1933, with his callous investment in cruel charismatic leadership as a form of salvation. Indeed, I would go so far as to argue we never needed him. We need people who transcend self-absorption, psychotic and sociopathic indifference to the suffering of others, and delusions of importance from societal systems designed to support their limited relationship to reality. We need compassion, courage — something Heidegger lacked — and a clear understanding of institutions of power.

 

Ayanna De’Vante Spencer: Believing Black Girl Survivors?

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Check out Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Ayanna De'Vante Spencer, in The Review's recent articled titled "Believing Black Girl Survivors?" Spencer addresses unjust treatment of Black female survivors, incorporating the justice system and criminalizing survivors over supporting them. 

Tracy Llanera: “Yes, You Do Deserve a Little Treat”

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Check out Assistant Professor Tracy Llanera's recent article in The New York Times, "Yes, You Do Deserve a Little Treat"

*Excerpt*

Tracy Llanera, 35, a philosophy professor at the University of Connecticut who studies nihilism, said that this treat-forward approach is one way people are reclaiming some of the freedom and stability that has been lost since early 2020.

“In the Covid pandemic, the thing that confirms that you’re suffering from existential nihilism is the lack of control,” Ms. Llanera said.

Amid these feelings of ongoing helplessness and grief, she said, people try to find consistent and reliable pleasures.

“Something about treat culture is that you’re always regularly going to get the treat,” she added. “You can depend on that, at least. There’s a guarantee that this small little ritual that you have every week will at least satiate something in you.”

Tracy Llanera: “I Am An American Philosopher”

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Check out Assistant Professor Tracy Llanera's recent interview with the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy (SAAP), "I Am An American Philosopher."

*Excerpt*

The pragmatist tradition has no problem about being level-headed and getting muddy. There’s no bizarre or elitist hang-up in using (and re-forging) concepts from philosophy or other disciplines to make sense of contemporary issues or to promote social amelioration. As an approach, I’ve found pragmatism to be useful and liberating, whether I’m thinking about existential despair, or the words we use, or how hate festers in people.