An email from Shanna Andrawis of Hi-Phi Nation:

I’m writing to inform you that one of your recent PhD students in Philosophy, Michael Robillard, will be a featured contributor on the next two episodes of Hi-Phi Nation, a brand-new radio show and podcast, weaving investigative journalism, storytelling, and philosophy, in the tradition of the best public radio programs. Hi-Phi Nation is hosted by Barry Lam, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Vassar College, and produced out of Duke University through the Humanities Writ Large Initiative.

Conceived as audio documentary in the vein of This American Life, The Ted Radio Hour, and Freakonomics Radio, Hi-Phi Nation focuses on the philosophical examination of ideas that arise from ordinary and remarkable stories of human life. With the series Lam hopes to advance the relationship between the public and academic philosophy and between philosophy and narrative-storytelling.

In “Soldier Philosophers”, which comprises episodes two and three of the season, Dr.Robillard talks about his military service in Iraq, and discusses his philosophical work on moral exploitation.

Hi-Phi Nation will release ten episodes this season on topics ranging from war, religion, gender, mathematics, music, science, and public policy. Listeners can hear Michael Robillard on “Soldier Philosophers” starting Tuesday, January 31st, and can subscribe to Hi-Phi Nation for free by visiting iTunes here, GooglePlay, Stitcher, or wherever they get their podcasts. Or they can listen on the web at hiphination.org.

Lionel Shapiro has been awarded a fellowship by the Humboldt Foundation which will take him to the University of Potsdam (Germany) for a total of 14 months, including Spring 2017 and Spring 2018. He will be working on topics related to Wilfrid Sellars’s views on meaning, truth and representation.

With sorrow the department announces that Emeritus Professor Jerome A. Shaffer, age 87, died on November 17, 2016. There was a memorial in the Storrs area on December 3.

Jerry majored in philosophy at Cornell, earning a B.A. in 1950. He completed a PhD at Princeton in 1952 in just two years. In 1953 he was a Fulbright scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford, then went into the Army. After teaching at Swarthmore College starting in 1955, Jerry was hired at UConn in 1967. He became Department Head in 1976, serving until 1994 when he retired. After that he earned a degree in Marital and Family Therapy and started a therapy practice which he continued until just before his death.

Jerry built our reputation as a serious research department and his avuncular manner helped set our collegial atmosphere. Everyone in the profession knew his 1968 book with Prentice-Hall, The Philosophy of Mind, which was followed by his 1971 Reality, Knowledge, and Value.

Video of Jerry reading Descartes: https://youtu.be/VRYCzLRlYKU​

New PhD Michael Robillard has been selected for a four year Research Fellowship in Philosophy at Oxford University in the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics. The project is the ERC Advanced Grant Research Project Global Terrorism and Collective Moral Responsibility: Redesigning Military, Police and Intelligence Institutions in Liberal Democracies.

Summer Institute in Philosophy for High School Teachers: Intellectual Humility in Secondary Education

Background:

Are you a high school teacher looking to incorporate Philosophy into your curriculum? The UConn Summer Institute in Philosophy is here to provide tools to help you develop either a semester- or year-long course in Philosophy, or build philosophical discussion into one you already teach. Including philosophy in literature, science, history, or social science classes will help your students confront perennial questions of truth, morality, justice, knowledge, reason, the self, and the like, with humility, as well as helping them to appreciate their controversial and complex nature. This will in turn encourage students to engage in constructive dialogue with those whose opinions differ from their own.

 

Institute Director:

Mitchell Green, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut

Professor Green has three decades of experience teaching Philosophy (at the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Virginia, and the
University of Connecticut). He has directed two Summer Institutes in Philosophy for High School Teachers supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is also founding director of Project High-Phi, which since 2010 has supported philosophical education in America’s high schools.

 

Workshop Format:

Morning sessions will be lecture and discussion, with focus on an historical text or a contemporary philosophical topic. Afternoon sessions generally be will be breakout, enabling curricular development in consultation with visiting specialists. Participants will produce a new, or revise an extant syllabus by the end of the Workshop. Throughout our time together, we will aim to build a community of teacher-scholars who will continue to collaborate with one another well beyond the summer. Our time together will culminate in a field trip to a nearby location of philosophical interest.

 

Program Information:

Date: July 24-28, 2017

Location: The Homer Babbidge Library on the Campus of the University of Connecticut in Storrs, CT

Eligibility: Applicants must be employed full-time at an accredited high school in the U.S. or one of its territories. The school in question may be public or private, and may be religiously affiliated.

Support: Participants will receive stipends of up to $1,000 to defray travel, accommodation, and meals. Accommodation: Participants will be housed for the week of the Institute at the Nathan Hale Inn on the campus of the University of Connecticut.

Application Information: To apply, download and fill out the ProjectHigh-PhiSummerInstitute application. Once complete, email to Emma Bjorngard at emma.bjorngard@uconn.edu. All applications are due by February 28th, 2017.

Questions: Contact Emma Bjorngard (emma.bjorngard@uconn.edu)

 

The UConn Summer Philosophy Institute is made possible by Project High-Phi, and by generous funding from the UConn Humanities Institute, the Project on Humility and Conviction in Public Life, and the Templeton Foundation.

The department is delighted to welcome Duncan Pritchard as a visiting professor for the fall semester of 2016. Among other things he will teach a graduate seminar related to his new book Epistemic Angst: Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing, and will participate in Michael Lynch’s Public Discourse Project.

Professor Emerita Margaret Gilbert, currently Abraham I. Melden Chair in Moral Philosophy at University of California Irvine, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Margaret did much of the work she is being honored for during her 23 years in our department.

https://www.amacad.org/content/members/newFellows.aspx?s=c

Michael Lynch, along with co-principle investigator Brendan Kane of the History Department, has been awarded a $5.75 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation for The Public Discourse Project: Balancing Humility and Conviction in Public Life. The project is described on its website as “a research and engagement project examining the role that intellectual humility can play in meaningful public dialogue.” The grant will be administered by the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute. See funding opportunities here.

See the story in UConn Today here.

Philanthropist George Soros and UConn alum Gary Gladstein ’66 with his wife, Dr. Phyllis Gladstein, announced a $4 million gift to the UConn Human Rights Institute, the largest donation to the internationally renowned program.

UConn Receives $4 Million for Human Rights Initiatives

A workshop on political violence and BlackLivesMatter, organized by the Injustice League and the Public Discourse Project.

December 4-6

Registration and Calendar HERE