Academics

Our Program

We assist our students to become excellent communicators and problem solvers in their personal and professional lives by helping them to reason cogently, formulate concepts and questions clearly, and solve problems with intelligence and an appreciation for their complexity.

Through the content of our courses and our modes of instruction, we work to increase our own and our students’ awareness of the constructions in our society and in other societies that disadvantage some people, while enabling others.

We work to create a collaborative environment where faculty, students, staff and community members are valued for the questions they pose and the critiques that they formulate as much as for their contributions to the project of answering the timeless questions that philosophers have asked throughout history—in addition to the mysteries and difficulties that arise due to our current position in time and in the natural world.

 

Departmental Distinction

Our department offers you the chance to graduate with distinction in the program by:

1. earning a GPA of 3.85 or better for all the philosophy courses you take and an overall GPA of 3.4;
2. taking at least 20 hours of philosophy courses at the 3000 level; and
3. writing and defending an honor's thesis under the advisement of a Department of Philosophy faculty member.

• Timeline for Earning a Distinction in Philosophy

  Junior year

  • First quarter: Register for the program with the department.
  • Second quarter: Choose a thesis advisor and begin work on your thesis proposal.
  • Sixth week of the third quarter: Submit a formal written proposal that has been approved by the thesis advisor to the departmental honors advisor.

   

  Senior year

  • Second quarter: Submit a complete draft of the thesis to the thesis advisor.
  • Fifth week of the quarter in which the student plans to graduate: Submit the final version of the thesis to the advisor.

  You must present an oral defense of your thesis before a committee of two to three faculty from our department and other appropriate ones. Other interested members of the faculty may attend and students may attend at the discretion of the candidate.

  The oral exam will take place toward the end of the final quarter. The honors thesis fulfills the competency paper requirement for the philosophy major.

• Earning Distinction Outside the Honors Program

  You don't need to participate in the University Honors Program to earn a distinction in philosophy. However, students who are members of the University Honors Program must choose a major in which to achieve distinction and follow the above guidelines.

  If you have any questions about honors in philosophy, contact Thomas Nail, PhD, our undergraduate advisor. 

Specialization in Critical Theory

The Department of Philosophy offers an undergraduate specialization in critical theory. Our critical theory curriculum consists of graduate and undergraduate courses taught by faculty across the humanities, including philosophy, communications, religious studies, English, economics, Emergent Digital Practices and Gender & Women’s Studies.

We host international scholars and present public lectures, seminars and other events open to the wider university and public. CAHSS also offers fellowships to both faculty and graduate students to fund summer study at The School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell University; all CAHSS faculty and graduate students may apply.

Want to declare critical theory as your specialization? Contact Thomas Nail, PhD, our undergraduate advisor.

• What is Critical Theory?

  Critical theory seeks "to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them,” as Max Horkheimer writes. The concept of critique begins with the work of 18th and 19th century philosophers Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel and Karl Marx, but was taken up in the 1920s by the Frankfurt School and expanded as a critique of cultural capitalism, fascism and the repression of desire. Critical theory was taken up again by later 20th century French theorists following similar and expanded aims. Today, critical theory has become even more broad in scope and includes a range of topical critiques of racial, gendered and colonial power structures.

• Our Three Major Areas of Study

  The specialization in critical theory within our department requires students to take at least one course in three major areas of critical theory at the undergraduate or graduate level.

  • 19th Century Critical Theory, such as Freud, Kant and Nietzsche
  • 20th Century Critical Theory, such as Adorno, Butler, Derrida and Du Bois
  • Contemporary Topics in Critical Theory, such as Critical Race and Post-Colonial Theory, Queer Theory, and Structuralism and Post-Structuralism

  
  The Department of Philosophy offers the Critical Theory Colloquium once a year.

• Critical Theory Faculty

  Christina R. Foust, associate professor in Communication Studies
  R.D. Perry, assistant professor in English
  Joshua Hanan, associate professor in Communication Studies
  Darrin Hicks, professor in Communication Studies
  Robert Urquhart, associate professor in Economics
  Trace Reddell, associate professor in Emergent Digital Practices
  W. Scott Howard, professor in English
  Billy Stratton, associate professor in English
  Lindsey Feitz, lecturer in Gender & Women's Studies
  Thomas Nail, associate professor in Philosophy
  Sarah Pessin, professor in Philosophy and Center for Judaic Studies
  Sandra Dixon, associate professor in Religious Studies
  Carl Raschke, professor in Religious Studies

• Useful Links
  • Critical-Theory.com
  • Progressive Geographies
  • Verso Books
  • Foucault News
  • Foucault Studies
  • Larval Subjects
  • The Pinocchio Theory
  • Critical Legal Thinking
  • Reading Marx with David Harvey
  • Critical Animal
  • An und für sich
  • Continental Philosophy
  • John Protevi
  • Academia.edu
  • Groundwork
  • The Brooklyn Institute for Social Research
  • London Critical Summer Theory School
  • The School of Criticism and Theory