Summer 2016 Newsletter

All good things come to an end.  After five years as chair of the Department of Philosophy, I’ve stepped down and will resume my regular duties as a professor.  Andrea Woody has been appointed as the new chair and I am thrilled for her and for the Department.  We will be in capable hands.  My goal when I started this job was to help each member of the Department and the Department as a whole to flourish.  When you are in the administrative trenches, sometimes it is hard to see the big picture… Read more
Congratulations to Department of Philosophy PhD Candidate, Jon Rosenberg, on receiving the highly competitive Excellence in Teaching Award for 2016! Jon was presented with his award by Provost Gerald Baldasty at the… Read more
We are proud to annouce that Professor Bill Talbott has been selected to serve a two-year term as the Joff Hanauer Honors Professor in Western Civilization, beginning September 1, 2016.  In this capacity, he will teach one course per year in the University Honors Program, serve on the Honors Council and occasional associated sub-committees, hold regular office hours for Honors students, and work with the Director of Honors to coordinate student activities in the Honors Program.  He will also… Read more
The Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities has awarded PhD Candidate, Janice Moskalik, two Andrew W. Mellon Fellowships, through their new program Reimagining the Humanities PhD and Reaching New Publics. During the 2015-2016 academic year, Janice was one of the Simpson Center’s inaugural Mellon Fellows for Reaching New Publics. As part of this program, Janice… Read more
Five of our faculty members: Carina Fourie, Carole Lee, Colin Marshall, Conor Mayo-Wilson and Ian Schnee, participated in the University’s Evidence-Based Teaching pilot. Instructional consultants from the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) and UW-IT collaborate with the pilot participants as they design, enact and assess techniques of evidence-based teaching practices. The project also encourages the participants to use each other as resources by discussing practices and difficulties in the… Read more
Michael Rosenthal's interview with Hannah Pressman of Jewish Studies at the University of Washington: The Stroum Center is delighted to announce that Michael Rosenthal has been selected as the next Samuel and Althea Stroum Chair in Jewish Studies. This is an honorary three-year position that recognizes Professor Rosenthal’s contributions to the program and provides him with additional research funding thanks to the Samuel and Althea Stroum Endowment. (Editor’s note: This position is… Read more
The Department of Philosophy is thrilled to announce that Professor Alison Wylie has been elected the next President of the Philosophy of Science Association (PSA).  PSA, established in 1933, is the premier international organization for professional philosophers of science, and election to the presidency of the association is one of the highest honors conferred on members of our field, recognizing both significant intellectual achievement and high regard… Read more
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Professor Alison Wylie’s Katz Distinguished Lecture in the Humanities “What Knowers Know Well: Why Feminism Matters to Archaeology” served as the opening keynote for the conference Feminism and Classics 7: Visions. Professor Wylie’s lecture looked at neglected questions about women, gender, and sexuality that have been on the archaeological agenda since the late 1980s, and gender-inclusive archaeology which has transformed what we know about the past. But some of its strongest… Read more
The Department of Philosophy hosted three events during spring quarter. Reaching across campus to other departments, students, faculty, staff and alumni to join us in days of philosophical inquiry and reflection. In April, Professor Sara Goering organized “Stimulating the Self: Neurotechnology, Identity and Agency” along with the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering and the Program on Values of Society. The main talks at the symposium were: "Agency ex Machina: Neuroprosthetics and the Re-… Read more
Congratulations to PhD student Julio Covarrubias-Cabeza, who was part of the inaugural cohort of graduate student fellows participating in the Summer Institute on Global Indigeneities (SIGI) at the University of Washington. Hosted on the traditional homelands and waters of the Duwamish, Suquamish, Muckleshoot, Tulalip, and other Coast Salish peoples, SIGI is a pilot program that hopes to be an annual meeting of junior and senior scholars in the interdisciplinary and global field of Indigenous… Read more
Congratulations to Julie Michlal who has been awarded the Elizabeth Kerr Macfarlane Endowed Scholarship from the UW College of Arts and Sciences for 2016-2017! Julie is double majoring in philosophy and political science, and is currently in her junior year. In her senior year, Julie will pursue both the philosophy and political science honors programs, in which she plans to write a thesis in political philosophy, while simultaneously enrolling in graduate seminars across both departments. She… Read more
Congratulations to Philosophy PhD Candidate Olin Robus, who was awarded the prestigious Graduate School Presidential Dissertation Fellowship for 2016-2017! This competitive award, which provides one quarter of full fellowship funding with tuition and benefits, is intended to assist PhD candidates in the final stages of writing and… Read more
On June 10th, we celebrated the graduates of the class of 2016, who together earned sixty-eight bachelor’s, six master’s, and three doctoral degrees in philosophy, at the UW Center for Urban Horticulture.  Professor Andrea Woody toasted the graduates wishing them the best in their new endeavors, and Alison Bacon gave an inspirational speech to her fellow graduates.  Alisa voiced what so many of our students and alumni feel, that “philosophy shows us how important it is that we develop ourselves… Read more
Thank you to all who joined us and sent well wishes in celebration of the retirement of our two faculty members Ron Moore and Lynn Hankinson Nelson. We had a wonderful evening filled with charming stories of Lynn and Ron from students, alumni and faculty. It is not too late to email your well wishes to both Ron and Lynn, and to make a gift in their honor to the… Read more
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