Department News, June 2018

The department has kept busy since our last newsletter. The curriculum saw significant innovation with new undergraduate courses on Philosophy of Chemistry (Professor Friend), The Mind/Body Problem (Professor Saidel), Humor (Professor Ralkowski), Action Theory (Professor Archer), Philosophy of Fascism and Anti-Fascism (Professor Wills) and Utopianism (Professor Trullinger). Our MA curricula included new seminars on Cognitive Science and Public Policy: Philosophy of Psychiatry (Professor Zawidzki), The Nature of Animal Minds (Professor Saidel) and Queer(ing) Philosophy (Professor Weiss).

Faculty scholarly output was also impressive, including a new book by Laura Papish, Kant on Evil, Self-Deception, and Moral Reform from Oxford University Press. David DeGrazia received the Distinguished Scholar Award from GWU’s Office of the Vice President for Research, the first philosophy faculty member to be so honored. Our MA students also saw many successes, including numerous conference appearances, and two successful applications to PhD programs: Tal-Hi Bitton will be joining the PhD program at the University of Oregon, and Molly Kelly the PhD program at Emory University, both in fall 2018.

Finally, in between her heroic efforts keeping the department afloat and planning her June wedding in Ireland, our administrator, Hyehmi Nolan, completed a successful application to GW’s master’s in higher education administration, as well as her two first classes in the program.

Our alumni continue to be extremely supportive both financially and morally. We are extremely grateful to Michael Thacher, BA ’70, for his continued support of the Thacher Lecture and Thacher-Reynolds Prize, and his recent ideas for outreach to Thacher-Reynolds alumni. We also greatly appreciate Tom Goutman, BA ’76, for his continued support of the Griffith Lecture. We are planning an alumni conference for fall 2019, so please keep an eye out for more information. We also welcome any suggestions or help in planning this conference.

Tad Zawidzki

Chair, Department of Philosophy

Receiving the OVPR Distinguished Scholar Award for 2018, as he completed his 29th year at GW, prompted Professor David DeGrazia to share some reflections about his time and experience here:

The matter of time amazes me. I joined the faculty when I was just shy of 27, and have now worked at GW more than half my life. Yet I recall details of the initial interview, the campus visit and the first semester as if they happened fairly recently. The Department of Philosophy, the College of Arts and Sciences and the university have given me a precious gift: the opportunity to have an academic career. With this overarching, abstractly defined gift have come innumerable concrete ones: opportunities to teach this class or write that book, mentor this wonderful student or dive into that exciting topic. I am humbled by the realization that at any number of junctures things might have gone differently and less well for me. I feel blessed by my good fortune and grateful to the many people at GW who have supported me—and, honestly, to everyone who makes this university possible. Like the opportunities it creates, a university is a precious thing.

One aspect of working here that I have especially treasured is the climate of academic freedom. My first clue that GW was serious about academic freedom was the decision to hire me. I wrote my dissertation on the moral status of animals, a topic that seemed far out and potentially threatening to many or most academics in 1989. Certainly the mainstream view in biomedicine was (and sadly, though to a lesser extent, still is) that we had better not embrace any thinking about animals that might prompt challenges to animal research. Nevertheless, my first position at GW included a joint appointment in Health Care Sciences, part of the School of Medicine.

Over the years, my research has addressed a wide array of ethical issues, including many that are controversial and politically charged. I have argued for the abolition of factory farming, the enactment of a type of single-payer health care system, physician assistance-in-dying and even openness to the biomedical enhancement of human moral capacities. I have also challenged American gun policy, the current legal regime for defining death, prevailing attitudes about charity and distributive justice and (although not yet in writing) the excessive job security that tenured professors like me enjoy. And I have weighed in on such topics as embryo research, abortion and the differential disvalue of death. Despite having the personality of a moderate—possibly rooted in my family of origin’s peacemaker role—I often find myself defending controversial positions on sensitive subjects. Yet, in my 29 years at GW, I have never once felt pressured to avoid any topic or change what I want to say about it. Such freedom of thought and inquiry is another precious gift, not to be taken for granted.

In closing, I wish to convey special thanks to several people who made it possible for me to receive the Distinguished Scholar Award: Leo Chalupa, who permitted my nomination despite the fact that I currently work part time at NIH (and therefore not full time at GW); whoever else in OVPR reviewed my materials and found value in them; and my dear colleagues who wrote letters of support: Jeff Brand, Tad Zawidzki, Laura Papish and Paul Churchill (who nominated me in 2017)—along with my NIH colleague Christine Grady. Thank you so much.

Three of our professors have been selected to participate in NEH Summer Institutes this summer: Mark Ralkowski and Michael Sigrist at the Philosophy as a Way of Life Institute at Wesleyan in July, and Tad Zawidzki at the Self-Knowledge in Eastern and Western Traditions Institute at the College of Charleston in May, who will be joined by Eyal Aviv, a colleague in GW's Religion Department and Honors Program. This is terrific news for the department. The chair urges all faculty to apply to these institutes when their summer offerings match their interests. There are benefits to departmental prestige both in the college and externally, you’re paid to attend, you get to know influential members of our profession personally and you gain invaluable knowledge that can help with pedagogical and scholarly innovation. We look forward to hearing from this year’s NEH Institute attendees about their experiences, which we will share in next year’s newsletter.

Current master’s student Rostam Assadi has had a grant proposal approved by the Davis Foundation’s Projects for Peace Initiative. The grant will fund a documentary project detailing their experiences interviewing Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans across the United States. More about his project below:

My project is inspired by observations of growing antipathy toward Muslim and Middle Eastern Americans in the overarching political and social discourses. Particularly, as the child of Iranian immigrants, and acquainted with many affected by the so-called "Muslim Travel Ban," I saw an opportunity to provide a voice to a marginalized community. I am of the belief that as Americans, we all want many of the same things: economic opportunity, strong communities and social freedoms. I hope to demonstrate this through a media project documenting interviews with experts, scholars and community leaders. Most importantly I also hope to meet Muslims and individuals of Middle Eastern heritage from a plurality of socioeconomic backgrounds to understand their perspectives on what it means to be an American.

Last summer, Professor Mark Ralkowski spent a week on a farm in Umbria, studying Plato's Timaeus with Plato scholars from the United Kingdom and the United States. In the fall, he was on sabbatical and finished his book, Plato's Trial of Athens, which will be released in November 2018. This summer, Ralkowski will attend a Plato conference in Sicily, and he will then meet up with 10 students in Athens, where he will lead this year's study abroad program in Greece. Shortly after returning home, Ralkowski will travel to Wesleyan University for two weeks to participate in an NEH seminar called "Reviving Philosophy as a Way of Life."

Since the last newsletter, Avery Archer has given a total of seven talks at conferences or colloquia, including a presentation at the Agency, Rationality and Value Conference at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid in Spain, a colloquium talk at the University of California, Riverside, and a workshop-style presentation at the Ohio Philosophical Association Annual Meeting in Cincinnati.  He also has had a pair of papers accepted for publication: “Wondering about What You Know” (forthcoming in Analysis) and “Trying Cognitivism: A Defence of the Strong Belief Thesis” (forthcoming in Theoria), with two additional papers currently in the revise and resubmit stage of the journal review process.

Jeff Brand is finishing his fourth year in the Columbian College dean's office. He spends as much time as possible with his sons Quentin (12) and Felix (5).

In June 2017, Vanessa Wills traveled to Braga, Portugal, to deliver her talk, "'Heaven is a Place on Earth': Marx's Call for the Abolition of Morality," at the Eighth Annual Braga Meeting on Ethics and Political Philosophy. On May 5, 2018, she and other area academics and artists participated in the Goethe-Institut's celebration to honor the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx's birth. The event, called the "Dictionary of Marx" played to a sold-out crowd as presenters brought Marx's ideas to life. This was also the first year that Vanessa offered Philosophy of Fascism and Anti-Fascism, a capstone pro-seminar for philosophy majors, which explored the nature of fascism, writings by philosophers influential on fascist ideology and liberal, anarchist and socialist antifascist perspectives.

Congratulations to Allie Geoca for completing her Thacher-Reynolds Fellowship winning project, “The Explanatory Role of Mechanisms in Providing Successful Medical Treatment,” which she presented to an audience of Department of Philosophy faculty and students. About her experience Allie said, “I learned a lot, had a ton of fun, and am very thankful that I was able to receive this fellowship.”

Ethan Terrill, a second-year PSP student, attended a variety of conferences in the fall and spring semesters (and he cannot thank the Philosophy Department enough for their kind assistance). What follows are a few highlights: In October 2017, he—alongside fellow cohort-mates Tali Bitton and Richard Culbreth—drove down to the 78th Annual Virginia Philosophical Association to provide comments to VPA presenters. Additionally, he was able to fly over to Ireland to present a paper from Professor Gail Weiss' Feminist Ethics and Policy Implications seminar. Aside from getting stuck in Iceland for a night due to treacherous weather conditions, the international trip was wonderful. Finally, in April 2018, he decided to take a 15-hour bus ride up to York University to present a draft of a paper for their Graduate Student Philosophy Conference on Bioethics and Applied Philosophy. As for the future, he plans on applying to PhD programs in the upcoming fall. In the meantime, he will be sticking around the D.C. area while on the lookout for policy positions and teaching opportunities.

Tal-Hi (Tali) Bitton, a master’s student in philosophy, attended a number of conferences this past academic year. These included the American Academy of Religion Southeast Commissions for the Study of Religion and the Southwest Commission of Religious studies where Tali presented “Discerning the Christian Historical Preconditions to the Secular ‘Truths’ of Nation, Race, State, and Capital” and “The Then Religious, Now Secular Experience of Consanguinity and its Relation to Blackness,” respectively. Tali completed his master’s degree in spring 2018 and will be matriculating at the University of Oregon where he will begin his doctoral studies in philosophy.

The 2018 Griffith Lecture was delivered on April 26, 2018. This lecture, “Taking Responsibility for Racial Violence: Shooting the Racist Imagination,” was presented by Dr. Jose Medina, Walter Bill Scott Professor at Northwestern University. Dr. José Medina is professor of philosophy who taught previously at Vanderbilt University and works in critical race theory, gender/queer theory and political philosophy. His latest book is The Epistemology of Resistance: Gender and Racial Oppression, Epistemic Injustice, and Resistant Imaginations (Oxford University Press).

Dr. Eduardo Mendieta presented the 2018 Elton Lecture, “Rorty and Post-Post Truth,” on April 20, 2018. He is a professor of philosophy at Penn State, associate director of the Rock Ethics Institute and affiliated faculty at the School of International Affairs and the Bioethics Program at Penn State University. He is the author of The Adventures of Transcendental Philosophy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002) and Global Fragments: Globalizations, Latinamericanisms, and Critical Theory (SUNY Press, 2007). He is also co-editor with Jonathan Van Antwerpen of The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere (Columbia University Press, 2011), and with Craig Calhoun and Jonathan VanAntwerpen of Habermas and Religion (Polity, 2013), and with Stuart Elden of Reading Kant’s Geography (SUNY Press, 2011). He recently finished a book titled The Philosophical Animal, which will be published by SUNY Press in 2018. He is the 2017 recipient of the Frantz Fanon Outstanding Achievements Award.

The 2018 Sophia Lecture, “The Ethical cost of Upward Mobility,” was presented on October 6, 2017, by Jennifer Morton, assistant professor of philosophy at the City College of New York. Jennifer Morton’s areas of research are philosophy of action, moral philosophy, philosophy of education and political philosophy. In 2017,  she was awarded the inaugural Scheffler Prize for her work in Philosophy of Education by the American Philosophical Society.

The annual Thacher Lecture, “Flesh Matters: The Body in Cognition,” was presented on October 20, 2017  by Larry Shapiro, professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin. Professor Shapiro’s research spans philosophy of mind and philosophy of psychology. Within philosophy of mind he has focused on issues related to reduction, especially concerning the thesis of multiple realization.

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