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Dissertation Defenses

2023/24

Morgan Elbot - “Thinking in Relation to Method: Metaphilosophical Reflections on Philosophys Orientation to Methodology"

2022/23

Matt Fee - "The Ontology of Structure: Deleuze and Differential Realism"

2021/22

Reese Faust - “Dworkin, Dignity, and the Body: Constructing a Critical, Carnal Legal Hermeneutic”

Corey Reed - "Black-Male Imagos and Counternarrative Resistance: An Africana Existentialist Framework for Black-Male Analysis" 

Sarah Marshall - "Legacies of the Death Penalty: Sacrifice, Survival, and the Possibility of Justice"

Zachariah Neemeh - “The Cultural Mind"

2020/21

Christian S. Kronsted - "An Enactivist Model of Improvisational Dance"

William Andrew Britton - "The Primacy of Ethics: Kant, Deleuze, Levinas"

Jasmine Wallace - "Fugitive Gestures: The Persistence of Black Meaning and Black Life in an Anti-Black World"

Michael Ardoline - "Difference and Necessity: Dispositionalism, Deleuze, and the Finite Genesis of Transfinite Truths"

Edward Lenzo - “Difference and Demand: Toward a Levinasian Psychopathology”


2019/20

Christina Friedlaender - "Shared Agency and Structural Oppression: The Ethics of Social Reality Management"

Jonathan Wurtz - "Childhood as a Philosophical Means to a Political End: Liberalism, Stability, and the Deficiency Model of Childhood"

Ben Curtis - "Class Consciousness and Political Agency: A Conceptual Reconstruction for the 21st Century"

Jim Zubko - "Ways of Being, Seen and Unseen: Concepts, Practices and the Emergence of Trans Ways of Life"

Samaiyah Jones Scott - "Anti-Black Racism, Shared Responsibility, and the Role of African Americans"

Kevin Ryan - "Making in the Moment: The Dynamic Cognition of Musicians-In-Action"


 2018/19

Tailer Ransom - "Artifacts, Others, and Temporality: An Enactive and Phenomenological Approach to Material Agency"

John Torrey - "Social Recognition as a Problem for Black Rectificatory Justice"


 2017/18

Benjamin Aguda - "Scaling-Up with Radically Embodied Cognition"

Clifton Granby - "More than Just Testimony"

Christopher Lucibella - "Y'All Talkin' To Me? Essays on the Epistemology of Collective Testimony"

Bilge Akbalik - "Transcendental Idealism and Material Reality: Metaphysics of Scientific Objectivity in Husserl, Deleuze, and Kant"


2016/17

William Allen - "Liberalism and Racial Justice"

Michael Butler - "Appearances of Self-Hood: Merleau-Ponty, Enactivism, and Instituted Self-Consciousness"

Daniel Larkin - "A Madness to the Method: A Defense of Divine Inspiration in the Case of Socrates"

Jordan Liz - "The Nature of Difference: An Archaeology of Racial Medical Knowledge"

Desirée Ramacus-Bushnell - "The Limits of Forgiveness and the Merits of Resentment"


2015/16

Stefano Vincini - "Developmental Phenomenology: Epistemic Grounding, Infant Imitation, and Pairing"

Marygrace Hemme - "Time and Narrative as Subjects-in-process through Julia Kristeva's Feminine Genius"

Corey L. Barnes - "Un-Lockeing the Beauty which Prejudice has Overlaid: On Alain Locke's Philosophical Anthropology, Value Theory, and the Movement Towards Cosmopolitanism"


2014/15

Joshua Dohmen - "Moving toward Interaction: Epistemic Injustice, Julia Kristeva, and Disability"

Sarah Vincent - "Empathy's Significance for the Moral Status of Nonhuman Animals"


2013/14

Jennie Latta - "Being and Person: An Introduction to Edith Stein's Finite and Eternal Being

Paul Hammond - "Deleuze on Individual and Collective Action"

Justin Sledge - "Freedom, Solidarity, Revolution: Toward a Marxist Ethics"

Nicolás Garrera - "Ethics as Experience: Elements for a Comprehensive Phenomenological Ethics"


2012/13

Matt Bower - "The Birth of the World: An Exploration in Husserl's Genetic Phenomenology"


2011/12

Michael Burroughs - "Ideal Adults, Deficient Children: The Discourse on the Child in Western Philosophy"

Heidi Samuelson - "Out of Joint: The Nexus of Madness and Time-Consciousness"

Cheri Carr - "Deleuze's Critical Philosophy: The Differential Theory of the Faculties"

Arsalan Memon - "The Problem of Perception, Radical Reflection, and the Body: Towards Understanding Merleau-Ponty's Post-Kantian Transcendental Philosophy"


PhD Graduate Placement

Jasmine Wallace (PhD 2021)
Dissertation: "Fugitive Gestures: The Persistence of Black Meaning and Black Life in an Anti-Black World"
Position: Assistant Professor, Penn State University

Corey Reed (PhD 2022)
Dissertation: "Black-Male Imagos and Counternarrative Resistance: An Africana Existentialist Framework for Black-Male Analysis"
Position: Assistant Professor, Butler University

Reese Faust (PhD 2022)
Dissertation: “Dworkin, Dignity, and the Body: Constructing a Critical, Carnal Legal Hermeneutic”
Position: Lecturer, Howard University

Michael Ardoline (PhD 2021)
Dissertation: "Difference and Necessity: Dispositionalism, Deleuze, and the Finite Genesis of Transfinite Truths"
Position: Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Louisiana State University.
Previous positionz: Post-doctoral fellow, Louisiana State University Ethics institute, Embedding Ethics in STEM, Post-doctoral fellow, Laurentian University, Gilles Deleuze and Cosmology Research Group, and Instructor, Slippery Rock University

Christian Kronsted (PhD 2021)
Dissertation: "An Enactivist Model of Improvisational Dance"
Position: Assistant Professor of Practice at Merrimack College

Christina Friedlaender (PhD 2020)
Dissertation: "Shared Agency and Structural Oppression: The Ethics of Social Reality Management"
Position: Assistant Teaching Professor, Seatle University

Jonathan Wurtz (PhD 2020)
Dissertation: "Childhood as a Philosophical Means to a Political End: Liberalism, Stability, and the Deficiency Model of Childhood"
Position: Assistant Professor, University of Guam

Tailer Ransom (PhD 2019)
Dissertation: "Artifacts, Others, and Temporality: An Enactive and Phenomenological Approach to Material Agency"
Position: Visiting Assistant Professor, Georgia Southern University
Previous Position: Adjunct Professor, Mississippi State University

John Torrey (PhD 2019)
Position: Assistant Professor, SUNY Buffalo State
Previous position: Visiting Assistant Professor, SUNY Buffalo State (since fall 2018)

Chris Lucibella (PhD 2018)
Dissertation: "Y'All Talkin' To Me? Essays on the Epistemology of Collective Testimony"
Sought and secured non-academic position

Benjamin Aguda (PhD 2017)
Dissertation: "Scaling-Up with Radically Embodied Cognition"
Position: Instructor, Department of History and Philosophy, University of New Orleans (2018)

Dan Larkin (PhD 2017)
Dissertation: "A Madness to the Method: A Defense of Divine Inspiration in the Case of Socrates"
Position: Associate Professor of Philosophy, Georgia Southern University (since fall 2018)
Previous position: Instructor and Undergraduate Advisor, University of Memphis (AY 2017/18)

Jordan Liz (PhD 2017)
Dissertation: "The Nature of Difference: An Archaeology of Racial Medical Knowledge"
Position: Associate Professor of Philosophy, San Jose State University (since fall 2018)
Previous position: Lecturer, Georgetown University (AY 2017/18)

Clifton Granby (PhD 2017)
Dissertation: "More than Just Testimony"
Position: Assistant Professor of Ethics and Philosophy, Yale Divinity School (since 2016)

Michael Butler (PhD 2017)
Dissertation: "Appearances of Self-Hood: Merleau-Ponty, Enactivism, and Instituted Self-Consciousness"
Position: Lecturer, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (since fall 2017)

Marygrace Hemme (PhD 2016)
Dissertation: "Time and Narrative as Subjects-in-process through Julia Kristeva's Feminine Genius"
Position: Instructional Assistant Professor, Illinois State University (since fall 2017)

Corey L. Barnes (PhD 2016)
Dissertation: "Un-Lockeing the Beauty which Prejudice has Overlaid: On Alain Locke's Philosophical Anthropology, Value Theory, and the Movement Towards Cosmopolitanism"
Position: Assistant Professor, Northwestern University
Previous positions: Lecturer, Arrupe College of Loyola University Chicago (AY 2016/17), Assistant Professor, University of San Diego (Fall 2017)

Stefano Vincini (PhD 2016)
Dissertation: "Developmental Phenomenology: Epistemic Grounding, Infant Imitation, and Pairing"
Position: Ernst Mach Fellow, University of Vienna, Austria
Previous position: Post-doctoral fellow, Institute of Philosophical Research, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) (since fall 2016)

Josh Dohmen (PhD 2015)
Dissertation: "Moving toward Interaction: Epistemic Injustice, Julia Kristeva, and Disability"
Position: Assistant Professor, Mississippi University for Women (since fall 2018)
Previous positions: Lecturer, University of West Georgia (since fall 2016), Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Arkansas-Little Rock  (AY 2015/16)

Sarah Vincent (PhD 2015)
Dissertation: "Empathy's Significance for the Moral Status of Nonhuman Animals"
Position: Associate Teaching Professor, Florida State University (since fall 2018)
Previous positions: Post-doctoral fellow, University of North Florida (fall 2016–fall 2018), Post-doctoral fellow, York University, Toronto (fall 2015)

William Allen (PhD expected 2016)
Position: Lecturer, Morgan State University (since fall 2014)

Paul Hammond (PhD 2014; † December 1, 2015)
Dissertation: "'There Was Already Quite a Crowd:' Deleuze on Action, Multiplicity, and Sociality"
Position: Visiting Assistant Professor, Beloit College
Previous position: Adjunct Professor, Nicolet Area Technical College (fall 2014)

Justin Sledge (PhD 2014)
Position: Adjunct Professor, Wayne State University and Adjunct Professor, Lawrence Technological University (since fall 2014)

Nicolás Garrera-Tolbert (PhD 2014)Dissertation: "Ethics as Experience: Elements for a Comprehensive Phenomenological Ethics"
Position: DAAD Postdoctoral Scholarship, University of Bonn
Previous position: Post-doctoral fellow, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná

Jennie Latta (PhD 2014)
Dissertation: "Being and Person: An Introduction to Edith Stein's Finite and Eternal Being"
Sought and secured non-academic position

Matt Bower (PhD 2013)
Dissertation: "The Birth of the World: An Exploration in Husserl's Genetic Phenomenology"
Position: Lecturer, Texas State University (since fall 2015)
Previous positions: Lecturer, University of Central Florida (2014); Visiting Assistant Professor, Beloit College (spring 2014); Humboldt Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, Ruhr University Bochum (fall 2013)

Cheri Carr (PhD 2012)
Dissertation: "Deleuze's Critical Philosophy: The Differential Theory of the Faculties"
Position: Associate Professor, LaGuardia Community College (since 2014)
Previous positions: Adjunct Professor, University of Memphis (fall 2012-fall 2013)

Arsalan Memon (PhD 2012)
Dissertation: "The Problem of Perception, Radical Reflection, and the Body: Towards Understanding Merleau-Ponty's Post-Kantian Transcendental Philosophy"
Position: Assistant Professor and Department Chair at Lewis University
Previous position: Visiting Assistant Professor, Lewis University (since 2014)

Michael Burroughs (PhD 2012)
Dissertation: "Ideal Adults, Deficient Children: The Discourse on the Child in Western Philosophy"
Position: Director of the Kegley Institute of Ethics and Assistant Professor of Philosophy, California State University, Bakersfield (since 2017)
Previous positions: Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Assistant Director of the Rock Ethics Institute, Penn State University (2013-2017); Visiting Lecturer and Outreach Coordinator, Parr Ethics Center, UNC-Chapel Hill (2012)

Kristin Gissberg (PhD 2012)
Dissertation: "Hegel's Temporal Subjectivities: Time and Difference in Hegel's Thought"
Non-academic position

Heidi Samuelson (PhD 2012)
Dissertation: "Out of Joint: The Nexus of Madness and Time-Consciousness"
Position: Visiting Assistant Professor, Sweet Briar College (since 2015)
Previous positions: Technical Writer, ASRC Space and Defense; Editorial Assistant, Southern Journal of Philosophy

Gabrielle Beckles (PhD 2011)
Position: senior lecturer at Canterbury Christ Church University (equivalent to the US rank of Associate Professor)
Previous position: Lecturer in Womanist Theology, Philosophy, and Culture, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK (since 2015)

Tina Fernandes Botts (PhD 2011)
Dissertation: "The Hermeneutics of Equal Protection Analysis"
Position: Assistant Professor, California State University-Fresno
Previous positions: Visiting Assistant Professor & Consortium for Faculty Diversity in Liberal Arts Colleges Postdoctoral Fellow, Oberlin College (since 2015); Fellow in Law and Philosophy, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor; Assistant Professor, UNC-Charlotte

Timothy Golden (PhD 2011)
Dissertation: Onto-Theology, Subjectivity, and the Alchemy of Transcendence
Position: Professor of Philosophy, Director of Legal Studies, and Director of the Donald Blake Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Culture at Walla Walla University
Previous Position: Professor, Walla Walla University (since fall 2015)

Tamara Haywood (PhD 2011)
Dissertation: "The Vindication Project of Alain Locke"
Position: non-academic employment
Previous position: Lecturer at Loyola Marymount University

Çiğdem Yazıcı (PhD 2010)
Dissertation: "The Idea of Historicality in Heidegger's Account of Work of Art"
Position: Associate Professor at Üsküdar University, Turkey
Previous position: Assistant Professor, Koç University (since 2010)

Janae Sholtz (PhD 2009)
Dissertation: "The Transformative Potential of Art, Creating a People in Heidegger and Deleuze"
Position: Associate Professor and Coordinator of Women's and Gender Studies at Alvernia University
Previous position: Assistant Professor, Alvernia University (since 2010)

Bryan Bannon (PhD 2008)
Dissertation: "Developing a Theoretical Framework for an Ethical Understanding of Nature through the Phenomenologies of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty"
Position: Associate Professor and Director of the Environmental Studies and Sustainability Program at Merrimack College
Previous positions: Associate Professor, Merrimack College (since 2014)

David Scott (PhD 2008)
Dissertation: "The Naïveté of Thought: The 'Critique' of Phenomenology in the Philosophy of Gilles Delouse"
Position: Associate Professor, Copping State University (since 2008)

Suzanne Antley (PhD 2007)
Dissertation: "Collective Utterances and Meaning in Legislative Utterances"
Sought and secured non-academic position

Kristie Dotson (PhD 2007)
Dissertation: "On Epistemic Partiality in Testimony"
Position: Professor of Philosophy, Michigan State University (since 2008) and Senior Fellow, Columbia Law School (since 2014)
Previous position: Assistant Professor, Purdue University (2007)

Erinn Gilson (PhD 2007)
Dissertation: "From Resemblance to Resonance: The Production of Thought in Deleuze's Ontology"
Position: Associate Professor at Skidmore College
Previous positions: Assistant Professor, University of North Florida (since 2010)

David Gougelet (PhD 2007)
Dissertation: "Life Invested: Biopower's Taming of Chance and Difference in Foucault"
Position: Visiting Assistant Professor, Simpson College (since 2010)
Previous positions: Visiting Assistant Professor, American University (2007-2010)

Debbie Zeller (PhD 2006)
Position: Instructor at Cleveland State University

Sister Mary Bernard (PhD 2006; † February 5, 2017)
Dissertation: "The Relationship between Intentionality and the Concept of God in Malebranche's 'Vision of God'"
Sought and secured non-academic position

Bethany Dunn (PhD 2006)
Dissertation: "Rethinking Hobbesian Power: A Critical Engagement with Arendt, Foucault, and Agamben"
Position: non-academic employment
Previous position: Visiting Assistant Professor, Vassar College (since 2007)

Jill Hernandez (PhD 2006)
Position: Dean of the College of Arts & Humanities and Professor of Philosophy at Central Washington University (since 2020)
Previous position: Associate Professor and Associate Dean, University of Texas-San Antonio (since 2007)

Kris Sealy (PhD 2006)
Dissertation: "Positionality and Transcendence in Emmanuel Levinas and Jean-Paul Sartre"
Position: Associate Professor, Fairfield University (since 2006)

Marda Kaiser (PhD 2005)
Dissertation: "Apertures of Language in Derrida and Foucault: The Aporia and Archive as Passage to Thinking Otherwise"
Position: Adjunct Professor, University of Memphis

Heath Massey (PhD 2005)
Dissertation: "The Persistence of the Past: Bergson and Heidegger on Time"
Position: Associate Professor, Beloit College (since 2005)

Steve Tammelleo (PhD 2005)
Dissertation: "Constructing a Social Ontology of Ethnic Identity"
Position: Assistant Professor, University of San Diego (since 2013)
Previous position: Assistant Professor, Lake Forest College (since 2005)

Anika Simpson (PhD 2004)
Dissertation: "Ethics from the Standpoint of Race and Gender: Sartre, Fanon and Feminist Standpoint Theory"
Position: Associate Professor, Morgan State University

Donna Dale-Marcano (PhD 2004)
Dissertation: "Sartre and the Social Construction of Race"
Position: Associate Professor, Trinity College (since 2005)

Athena Colman (PhD 2003)
Dissertation: "Subjectivity, Embodiment, and Meaning in Merleau-Ponty"
Position: Associate Professor, Brock University
Previous position: Assistant Professor, Lewis University

Chris Fox (PhD 2003)
Dissertation: "Structure of the Holy: Religion in Hegel and Levinas"
Position: Associate Professor, Newman University (since 2004)
Previous position: Instructor, Emporia State University (2003)

Kathryn Sophia Belle (formerly Kathryn T. Gines) (PhD 2003)
Dissertation: "From Political Space to Political Agency: Arendt, Sartre, and Fanon on Race and Revolutionary Violence"
Position: Associate Professor, Penn State University (since 2008)
Previous position: Assistant Professor, Vanderbilt University

Valentine Moulard (PhD 2003)
Dissertation: "Virtual Unconscious and Transcendental Time: Bergson and Deleuze's New Ontology of Experience"
Sought and secured non-academic position

Brad Stone (PhD 2003)
Dissertation: "Dominions and Domains: Machination, Discipline, and Power in Heidegger and Foucault"
Position: Professor, Loyola Marymount University (since 2003)

Karin Fry (PhD 2002)
Dissertation: "In the Spirit of Kant: Political Judgment in Arendt and Lyotard"
Position: Professor and Chair at Georgia Southern University
Previous position: Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point (since 2002)

Stacy Keltner (PhD 2002)
Dissertation: "Existential Social Theory and the Philosophy of History: Toward a Dialectic of Political Judgment in the work of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre"
Position: Professor and Coordinator of Gender and Women's Studies at Kennesaw State University

Ann Murphy (PhD 2002)
Dissertation: "Ethics in History: Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and Foucault on Historicity and Ethics"
Position: Associate Professor at the University of New Mexico
Previous position: Assistant Professor, Fordham University

Josh Glasgow (PhD 2001)
Dissertation: "Value In Kant's Ethics: In Defense of a Value-based Deontology"
Position: Associate Professor, Sonoma State University (since 2014)
Previous positions: Lecturer, Sonoma State University (since 2009); Visiting Associate Professor, UC Berkeley (2008); Senior Lecturer (tenured, continuing), Victoria University of Wellington (2007); Lecturer, Victoria University of Wellington (2005); Visiting Assistant Professor, Occidental College (2004); Lecturer, California State University, Bakersfield (2001)

Randy Kagle (PhD 2001)
Dissertation: "A Narrative of Aufklärung: Kant's Doctrine of Moral Progress Toward Perpetual Peace"
Position: Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of Philosophy at Minnesota State University
Previous position: Professor, Minnesota State University, Moorhead (since 2003)

Robert Barnard (PhD 2000)
Dissertation: "The Naturalist's Dilemma: Logic and Ontological Naturalisms"
Position: Associate Professor, University of Mississippi

Rex Gilliland (PhD 2000)
Dissertation: "Heidegger's Concept of Freedom: His Confrontation with the Ethics of Kant and Schelling"
Position: Associate Professor, Southern Connecticut State University

Max Maloney (PhD 2000)
Dissertation: "Subjectivity as Saintliness in the Ethical Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas"
Position: Professor, Christian Brothers University

Maria Cimitile (PhD 1999
Dissertation: "The Truth in Mimesis: Phenomenological Transformation in Gadamer, Heidegger, Irigaray"
Position: Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs and Professor, Grand Valley State University

Claire Katz (PhD 1999)
Dissertation: "Eros, Dwelling, Ethics: The Face of the Feminine and the Judaic in the Work of Emmanuel Levinas"
Position: Murry and Celeste Fasken Chair in Distinguished Teaching and Professor of Philosophy, Texas A&M University (since 2006)
Previous positions: Associate Professor,Pennsylvania State University (since 2000); Assistant Professor, Washington College (1999)

Zeynep Direk (PhD 1998)
Dissertation: "The Renovation of the Notion of Experience in Derrida's Philosophy"
Position: Professor at Koç University, Turkey
Previous position: Professor, Universite de Galatasaray (since 1999)

Amy Morgenstern (PhD 1998)
Dissertation: "Plato's Umschlag: The Turn Away From the Nothing in Plato's Sophist"
Position: Blue Stars Admissions Consulting (non-academic)
Previous position: Assistant Professor, Wright State University

Mary Bloodsworth-Lugo (PhD 1997)
Dissertation: "Irigaray's Figures of Sexual Difference: Embodiment, Ambiguity, and 'Race'"
Position: Professor, Washington State University (since 1997)

John Drabinski (PhD 1996)
Dissertation: "Difference and Sense: The Problem of Relation in the Work of Emmanuel Levinas"
Position: Charles Hamilton Houston 1915 Professor of Black Studies, Amherst College
Previous positions: Visiting Assistant Professor, Hampshire College

Mitchell Haney (PhD 1996)
Dissertation: "Re-Thinking the Archangel and the Prole: The Structure of Moral Normatively"
Position: Associate Professor, University of North Florida

Ted Toadvine (PhD 1996)
Dissertation: "Contradiction, Expression, and Chiasm: The Development of Intersubjectivity in Maurice Mzerleau-Ponty"
Position: Nancy Tuana Director of the Rock Ethics Institute and Associate Professor at Penn State University
Previous positions: Associate Professor, University of Oregon (since 2003)

Herman Stark (PhD 1995)
Dissertation: "Rationality without Rules"
Position: Associate Professor, South Suburban College, Chicago

Kevin Thompson (PhD 1995)
Dissertation: "The Logical Structure of Civil Society in Hegel's Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts"
Position: Professor, DePaul University (since 2003)
Previous positions: Assistant Professor, Southern Illinois University - Carbondale (since 1999); Visiting Assistant Professor, Washington University, St. Louis (1998); Visiting Assistant Professor, Arkansas State University (1997); William F. Dietrich Research Fellow, Florida Atlantic University (since 1994)


MA Graduate Placement

George Andrews (MA 2018): Johns Hopkins University (Political Theory)

Thomas Mann (MA 2017): Johns Hopkins University (Political Theory)

Tyler Colwell (MA 2016): Marquette University

Jonathan Wurtz (MA 2015): University of Memphis

Sarah Vincent (MA 2013): University of Memphis

Chris Lucibella (MA 2013): University of Memphis

Maia Huff-Owen (MA 2013): Université Paris - Sorbonne

Alice Everly (MA 2013): McGill University

D.J. Hobbs (MA 2013): Marquette University

Jasmine Wallace (MA 2013): Villanova University