Steve Vogel is spending the 2011-2012 academic year on sabbatical leave, partially funded by an R.C. Good Fellowship from Denison.  He is spending much of the year in New York City, where he is the Visiting Scholar in the Environmental Studies Program at Pace University.  While there, he is completing work on a book tentatively entitled Environmental Philosophy After the End of Nature, to be published by MIT Press.  Last summer he presented a paper titled "Thinking Like a Mall" at a joint meeting of the International Association for Environmental Philosophy and the International Society for Environmental Ethics at Nijmegen, the Netherlands; later this spring he will be speaking at the meetings of the Western Political Science Association in Portland, Oregon and as a guest lecturer at Oberlin College.  Two essays of his have recently been published in edited volumes:  "On Nature and Alienation" in Andrew Biro's Critical Ecologies:  The Frankfurt School and Contemporary Environmental Crises (Toronto) and "Why ‘Nature’ Has No Place In Environmental Philosophy,” in Gregory E. Kaebnick, ed., The Ideal of Nature:  The Appeal to Nature in Debates about Biotechnology and the Environment (Johns Hopkins).

 

Dr. Fultner is back on campus after spending the 08/09 school year on a  Faculty Research Fellowship at the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute, Storrs, CT. She was also granted Denison’s R.C. Good Fellowship. Dr. Fultner’s conference presentations and invited lectures: “Re-Imagining Normativity: Meaning, Rules, and the Imagination,” American Philosophical Association (Pacific Division), Vancouver, Canada, April 2009; “Why Philosophers of Language Need a Social Theory,” University of Connecticut Humanities Institute, March 2009 (an earlier version presented to the Department of Philosophy, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, January 2009); “Heidegger’s Existential-Pragmatic Conception of Language: Utterance and Assertion,” Department of Philosophy, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, February 2009 (also presented to Department of Philosophy, University of Connecticut, February 2009); “Meaning, Norms, and Imagination,” Critical Theory Roundtable, New York, NY, September 2008; “Normativity: From Language to Social Practice and Back Again,” Language, Culture, and Mind III, Odense, Denmark, July 2008; “Lifeworld, Meaning, and Intersubjectivity,” LCM III, Odense, Denmark, July 2008. “A Non-Essentialist Approach to Discourse and Gender,” Canadian Philosophical Association Meeting, Vancouver, Canada, June 2008; “Intersubjectivity: The Lifeworld and Child Development,” CPA, Vancouver, Canada, June 2008; “Meaning, Norms, and Creativity,” Colloquium on Philosophy and Social Theory, Prague, Czech Republic, May 2008.

 

Dr. Maskit published “The Aesthetics of Elsewhere: An Everyday Environmentalist Aesthetic” in Aesthetic Pathways (2011); “Continental Philosophy and the Environment” in The History of Continental Philosophy Volume 8: New Developments (2010); and “On the Recuperation of Postindustrial Sites: An Aesthetic Anaylsis” in The European Journal of Geography/Revue européene de géographie (2009).  His earlier article “‘Line of Wreckage’: Towards a Postindustrial Environmental Aesthetics” was re-published in a four volume collection entitled Post-Industrial Society (2010).  Dr. Maskit was invited to present “Technical and Cultural Challenges in the Renovation of Postindustrial Sites” at the Society for Ecological Restoration (Mérida, Mexico, August 2011).  He also presented “On Universalism and Cultural Historicism in Environmental Aesthetics” at the International Association for Environmental Philosophy (Philadelphia, October 2011) as well as an earlier version with the title “European and American Approaches to Environmental Aesthetics” at the International Society for Environmental Ethics (Nijmegen, Netherlands, June 2011).  Dr. Maskit gave a colloquium entitled “The Aesthetics of Elsewhere: An Everyday Environmentalist Aesthetic” at Eesti Kunstiakadeemia (the Estonian Art Academy) in Tallinn, Estonia in June 2010.

 

Dr. Bradner and Seth Chin-Parker, assistant professor of psychology, presented a poster entitled "Empirical Support for the Pragmatic Approach to Explanation" at the 34th annual conference of the Society of Philosophy and Psychology, in Philadelphia (June 2008).  In July, they presented "The Pragmatics of Explanation" at the 30th annual Cognitive Science Society conference in Washington, D.C., and the accompanying paper was published in the conference proceedings. Dr. Bradner will present "On the Very Idea of a Style of Reasoning," at The Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice, Minneapolis, MN, June 2009. She also published a paper, Teaching Modernity in Appalachia." Teaching Philosophy 31, no. 3 (2008): 229-247.  Dr. Bradner was awarded a grant and attended the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute on Experimental Philosophy, University of Utah, June-July 2009.

 

Maria Theresa Barney professor of philosophy, Dr. Lisska presented "Scotus, Ockham and the Rise of Voluntarism" at the Ohio Medieval Colloquium, Bowling Green State University, October 2009.  He also presented "The Convergence of Analytic Philosophy and Thomistic Philosophy of Nature: The Example of Everett J. Nelson" at The Society for Thomistic Natural Philosophy meetings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, New Orleans, LA, November 2009.  He read an invited paper, "The Common Good and Legal Theory in Thomas Aquinas,"  at the session on Revealed Religion and Politics," at the Northeastern Political Science Association meetings, Philadelphia, PA, November 2009--along with comment papers on two presentations for the session, "Ancients and Moderns in Dialogue."  He also presented "God, Aquinas and Revisionist Natural Law Theory" at a special session of the American Philosophical Association:  Eastern Division Meetings, New York City, December 2009.  An earlier version was presented at a Philosophy Colloquium at the University of Kentucky, March 2009.  His review of Nature as a Reason: A Thomistic Theory of Natural Law, Jean Porter (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.), appeared in The Scottish Journal of Theology, Volume 62, issue 3 (August 2009), pp. 374-376.

 

Dr. Ron Santoni continues to be active in scholarship. His article “Is Bad Faith Necessarily Social?” was published in 2009 in Volume 14, Issue 2 of Sartre Studies International. His extended commentary in “The Memphis Session on Living Without God--Including Sartre and Atheism” was published in Volume 16, 2010 of the same journal. In March 2011, he was one of six invited international specialists on Sartre--two each from France, Germany, and North America--to present and discuss a paper in a two-day international colloquium titled “Zur Aktualität Jean-Paul Sartres: Philosophie, Literatur, Politik,” at the University of Lucerne in Switzerland. His paper, “The Persuasiveness of ‘Bad Faith’ in Sartre’s Philosophy--and the Continuing Impact of It” (“L’Omniprésence de la mauvaise foi dans l’oeuvre de Sartre--et son influence rétentissante”) will appear (in French) this year in a special book, titled “L’Actualité de Jean-Paul Sartre: Philosophie, littérature, politique,” featuring the six Colloquium papers. Another of Ron’s papers on Sartre is scheduled to be published within the next year.

Ron’s book, Sartre on Violence: Curiously Ambivalent (Penn State Press; 2001-02) continues to get much attention and stir controversy. A recent book, Sartre and the Moral Limits of War and Terrorism by Jennifer Mei Sze (Routledge; 2010) is prompted by Ron’s work and takes issue throughout with his contention that Sartre sometimes justifies violence and is ambivalent in his confrontation with the issue. In Albert Camus: From the Absurd to Revolt (McGill/Queen’s; 2008) John Foley, while relying on Santoni’s treatment of Sartre on political violence, also parts from some of Ron’s critique of Sartre’s philosophical engagement with Sartre. Most recently, Michael Fleming, in an article titled, “Sartre on Violence: Not So Ambivalent?” (Sartre Studies International, No. 2, 2011), depending on another article by Marguerite La Caze, “Sartre Integrating Ethics and Politics,” also raises questions about some of Ron’s controversial contentions.

Ron also continues to appear in publications outside of strict professional philosophy. In April 2011, both the Newark Advocate and Granville Sentinel, in observance of the Martin Luther King holiday, chose to reprint Ron’s June 29, 1967 “Open Letter to Martin Luther King,” in which he offered his strong philosophical and moral support of King’s historic speech of April 4, 1967 in opposition to the Vietnam War. His guest editorial, titled “Democracy and Capitalism--a Troubled Pair,” was published in the Sentinel on March 15 and in the Newark Advocate on March 17. Other of his contributions have appeared in the monthly newspaper, Hospitality, in Atlanta, Georgia.

Ron and Margo always welcome and appreciate communication and visits from former students (santoni@denison.edu, or 500 Burg St., Granville, OH 43023 Telephone: 740-587-2327). So, let’s hear from you.

 

Dr. Moller received tenure and was promoted to associate professor in January 2009. He also published a paper, “Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research, Justice and the Problem of Unequal Biological Access,” in Philosophy, Ethics and Humanities in Medicine (2008), 3:22 doi:10.1186/1747-5341-3-22. Dr. Moller’s paper, “The “Many and the One” and the Problem of Two Minds Knowing the Same Thing,” was published in the William James Studies (2008), 3. Dr. Moller published another paper, “Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and the Discarded Embryo Argument,” in the journal Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics. (2009) 30, 2, pp. 131-145.