News in Brief – END OF 2019!
Featured Research
Are beautiful things natural & 'lifelike' or artificial & 'well-preserved'? On 29th January, 5.30pm, Yiota Vassiloupoulou will be the first of five SOTA academics in the Public Lectures in the Arts series on the theme 'Beauty, Utility, Time'. In 'Drop Dead Gorgeous' Yiota will argue that an artificial, dead-like conception of beauty motivates many current cosmetic procedures. Tickets available here
Climate change: three ways to market the science to reach the sceptics, by Robin McKenna. Originally published on the Conversation. This piece is part of Dr McKenna’s BA-funded project, The Psychology and Epistemology of Political Cognition
Professor Oliver Hallich, University of Duisburg-Essen joined Philosophy as Visiting Professor (September – December 2019).
Featured Teaching
New student-staff philosophy reading group 30th October saw the inaugural meeting of the Student-Staff Philosophy Reading Group, facilitated by Dr Rob Booth. The rationale behind the initiative is simple: to provide an inclusive and non-hierarchical, student-led forum for philosophers to pursue interests that build upon and stretch beyond our current curricula. Read more
Other News
We adopted the BPA environmental responsibility guidelines.
Rachael Wiseman’s Notes from a Biscuit Tin (funded by BSA) had its December meeting in Liverpool, with poet Deryn Rees-Jones on the theme ‘Reason and Poetry’. The tin is now on its way to Queens University, Canada. You can follow its progress via Instagram.
Dr Matt Hart was awarded his PhD for his thesis on 'Theological Determinism and the Goodness of God'. Examiners were Chris Bartley and David Efird. Dr Hart defends theological determinism—the doctrine that God determines everything that occurs—in a Reformed or Calvinistic context.
Is it possible to upload our minds to the internet? Could this be the key to eternal life? Michael Hauskeller was on SparkDialogu discussing mind uploading, immortality, and transhumanism.
Rachael Wiseman was the keynote (with Clare MacCumhaill, Durham) at the ‘Women In Parenthesis’ workshop, VU Amsterdam.
The Department hosted a workshop on ‘David Benatar and the Evil of Existence’. Speakers were Michael Hauskeller, Oliver Hallich, Chris Belshaw and Ema Sullivan-Bissett
The Department hosted a workshop on Epistemic Vices, organised by Robin McKenna and Ian James Kidd (Nottingham). Speakers were Lani Watson, Henry Roe, Alice Monypenny, Daniella Meehan and Quassin Cassam.
Phd researcher Xiaoyan Hu gave a lecture on classical Chinese painting at the Confucius Institute
To celebrate World Philosophy Day on 21st November, Prof Thomas Schramme and Prof Amanda Fulford (Edge Hill) debated ‘The Idea of the University, Present and Future’.
Chris Bartley spoke at the Queens College, Oxford workshop on ‘Chinese Philosophy in the Curriculum – Challenges and Prospects’.
Publications
Rachael Wiseman published a review of Mary Midgley’s ‘What is Philosophy For?’ in Ethics.
'All Good Things Laugh' -- Michael Hauskeller considers Nietzsche on the death of God and the birth of the superhuman in The Philosophers’ Magazine.
PhD student Sam Cooper has a paper ‘Anscombe’s Two Cases of Moral Corruption’ in Forma de Vida.