Recent News

Graduate Student Awarded Newcombe Fellowship

The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation is pleased to announce that Camisha Russell, a doctoral candidate in philosophy at Pennsylvania State University, is the recipient of a Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship for 2012-13. The Newcombe Fellowship is the nation’s largest and most prestigious such award for Ph.D. candidates in the humanities and social sciences addressing questions of ethical and religious values. Ms. Russell’s dissertation, The Assisted Reproduction of Race: Thinking through Race as a Reproductive Technology, explores the complex relationship between race and assisted reproductive technologies. Congratulations Camisha!

Graduate Student Wins Teaching Award

The philosophy department is pleased to announce that Aaron Krempa is the recipient of a 2012 College of the Liberal Arts Outstanding Teaching Award for Graduate Students. This honor is awarded to graduate students in the college with a sustained record of excellence in teaching. Congratulations Aaron!

Philosophy Department Welcomes Sarah Clark Miller to its Faculty

We are delighted to announce that Sarah Clark Miller will join Penn State University as Associate Professor of Philosophy and Associate Director of the Rock Ethics Institute in January 2013. Professor Miller specializes in ethics, feminist philosophy, and social/political philosophy. She is the author of The Ethics of Need: Agency, Dignity, and Obligation (Routledge, 2011) as well as multiple essays in ethical theory, feminist philosophy, global ethics, and bioethics. Her current research focuses on feminist bioethics, genocidal rape and moral repair, and cosmopolitanism, and she is working on a book entitled Critical Cosmopolitanism: A Feminist Account of Global Responsibility.

Philosophy Department Welcomes Chike Jeffers, 2012 Anna Julia Cooper Fellow

With the Rock Ethics Institute, the philosophy department is pleased to welcome Chike Jeffers as Penn State's 2012 Anna Julia Cooper Fellow. Professor Jeffers is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Dalhousie University (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada). He obtained his Ph.D in 2010 from Northwestern University. He has published articles and book chapters in Africana philosophy and has edited Listening to Ourselves: A Multiligual Anthology in African Philosophy, forthcoming from SUNY Press. He will present "The Cultural Theory of Race: Another Look at Du Bois's 'The Conservation of Races'" on Monday February 20 at 12:15pm in 124 Sparks Building.

Privileged Partnership with University of Freiburg

Penn State University recently expanded its Global Engagement Network with the University of Freiburg, Germany, at a signing ceremony on Penn State’s University Park campus. The official agreement between Penn State and Freiburg formalizes the relationship between the two universities as mutual strategic partners in research, teaching and student education.  For more information on the partnership from Penn State, click here, and from Freiburg click here.

Philosophy Department Welcomes 2011-12 Alain Locke Fellow

The philosophy department welcomes its first Alain Locke Postdoctoral Fellow, Luvell Anderson.  Anderson received his BA in philosophy from University of Missouri at St. Louis and recently completed his PhD in philosophy at Rutgers University.  He specializes in philosophy of language and critical philosophy of race and has published articles on racial slurs and racist humor.  Anderson will teach a special topics course on racist language in spring 2012.

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About us

Sparks Building, home of the Department of Philosophy.The Department of Philosophy at the Pennsylvania State University is characterized by a focus on, and commitment to, the history of philosophy conceived as a basis for pursuing philosophy in an international context. The program includes special emphases on both contemporary Continental philosophy (including phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics, social theory, and postmodernism) and classical American philosophy (including transcendentalism, naturalism, semiotics, pragmatism, and contemporary cultural issues).  The department is strongly committed to both undergraduate and graduate education. The curricula of both the undergraduate and graduate programs are structured so as to foster and promote genuine dialogue across international borders and philosophical traditions, both established and emerging. The program is organized to facilitate the ability to engage meaningfully a variety of philosophical approaches—including feminist theory, analytic philosophy, critical race theory and social/political philosophy—and a range of systematic fields—including aesthetics, ethics, political philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of science.  Our faculty maintain strong professional relationships in Europe and Latin America. Members of the faculty work in close collaboration with students to ensure the depth and breadth of their philosophical education.

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