Work in Progress:

For the last several years I have been engaged in a phenomenological investigation of electronic mass communications media.  My research focus is on the experience of media (or "mediated" experience) as the key to understanding and criticizing the role we grant the media in intersubjective relations, community-formation, gaining access to information, entertainment, and commerce.  Prior work has included interpretations of advertising, communication through newsgroups and internet "chat," and television.  The next step is a consideration of the "mediated" modes of belief and disbelief and the "mediated" concepts of truth, falsehood, reality and fiction.

Courses Offered:

PHIL 2000	Philosophical Inquiry
PHIL 4401	Professional Ethics
PHIL 3850	Information & Community
PHIL 2005	Honors Critical Thinking Seminar
PHIL 4401	Professional Ethics

Education:

- Duquesne University, Ph.D., Philosophy (1996)
- Dissertation: "Merleau-Ponty's Hegelianism"
- Dissertation Director: Professor Fred Evans
- University of North Carolina Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, B.A., Philosophy (1990), cum laude

Areas of Specialization
19th and 20th Century Continental Philosophy, Philosophy of Media and Technology

Areas of Competence
History of Modern Philosophy, Ethics, Logic, Social and Political Philosophy

Teaching Positions:

California State University at Stanislaus, Visiting Lecturer (Beginning Fall 1998)
Courses Taught: Philosophy of Mind, 20th Century Philosophy, Theory of Knowledge, Professional Ethics, Philosophical Inquiry

Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Assistant Professor (Fall 1997 to Spring 1998)
Courses Taught: Ethics and Public Policy, Ethics, Introduction to Philosophy, Informal Logic

Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA, Adjunct Instructor (Summer 1995, Fall 1995)
Courses Taught: Logic

Carlow College, Pittsburgh, PA, Instructor (Fall 1994 to Fall 1997)
Courses Taught: Postmodernism, Political Philosophy, Ancient Philosophy, Biomedical Ethics, Logic, Introduction to Philosophy, Introduction to Moral Reasoning

Clarion University, Clarion, PA, Instructor (Spring 1995)
Courses Taught: Modern Philosophy, Ethics, Introduction to Philosophy

Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA, Graduate Teaching Assistant (Spring 1992 to Spring 1994)
Courses Taught: Basic Philosophical Questions

Teaching Award:

Duquesne University, College of Liberal Arts Award for Excellence in Teaching by a Graduate Student, 1996

Articles:

"The Gap in Being - Phenomenology Goes Shopping," Journal of Mundane Behavior, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Available: "Truth in Advertising," in Carroll, Michael T., and Tafoya, Eddie, Phenomenological Approaches to Popular Culture (Bowling Green S. U. Press, 1999)

"Introduction," with Michael T. Carroll and Eddie Tafoya, Phenomenological Approaches to Popular Culture, (Bowling Green S. U. Press, 1999)

"Intersubjectivity and the Internet," Analecta Husserliana Vol. LIV (1998)

"Hegelianism in Merleau-Ponty's Philosophy of History," Philosophy Today , Volume 41, Number 2, Summer 1997

"Sexualities: Merleau-Ponty and Foucault on the Meaning of Sex," International Studies in Philosophy , Volume 27, Number 1, Spring 1995

Translation:

"The Paradox of Expression," by Bernard Waldenfels, in Evans, Fred and Lawlor, Leonard, Chiasms (SUNY Press, forthcoming)

Book Reviews:

"Have We Become Posthuman?" Review of N. Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman, in Review of Philosophy and Technology, forthcoming

Hegel's Ethics of Recognition in The Owl of Minerva, Volume 31, No. 2, Spring 2000

The Owl at Dawn in The Owl of Minerva , Volume 28, Number 1, Fall 1996

The Company of Words: Hegel, Language, and Systematic Philosophy in The Owl of Minerva , Volume 28, Number 1, Fall 1996

Overcoming Foundations in The Owl of Minerva , Volume 26, Number 1, Fall 1994

Paper Presentations:

"‘This Mute and Permanent Question Which Constitutes Normal Sexuality': Merleau-Ponty, ‘Sexed Being' and Normativity," to be presented to the American Philosophical Association (Pacific Division), San Francisco, March, 2001

"Inauthenticity and Media Experience," to be presented to the Society for Phenomenology and Media, San Diego, February 2001

"The Ideology of the Information Gap," presented to the Radical Philosophy Association, Chicago, November, 2000

"Spatial and Geographic Metaphors and New Media," presented to the International Association for Philosophy and Literature, SUNY Stony Brook, May, 2000

"Virtual Information: A Phenomenology of Ambivalence," presented to the Society for Phenomenology and Media, San Diego, February, 2000

"Watching TV" presented to the Society for Phenomenology and Media, San Diego, February, 1999.

"The Truth About the Media" presented to the Popular Culture Association, San Diego, March, 1999.

"What is TV?" presented to the Fifth Annual Conference of the Society for Philosophy in the Contemporary World, Estes Park, Colorado, August, 1998

"From Reflection to Hyper-Reflection: Merleau-Ponty's Final Cartesian Meditations," presented to the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, University of Kentucky, October, 1997

"Hegelianism in Merleau-Ponty's Philosophy of History," presented to the 21st Annual Conference of the International Merleau-Ponty Circle, University of Memphis, September, 1996

"Can Philosophy Be Popular?" presented to the Philosophy, Interpretation and Culture Conference, Binghamton University, April, 1996

"The Animal of Words," presented to the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, De Paul University, October 1995

"Intersubjectivity and the Internet," presented to the Second World Phenomenology Congress, Guadalajara, Mexico, September, 1995

"Intersubjective Community and the Constituted World," presented to the Philosophy, Interpretation and Culture Conference, Binghamton University, April, 1995

"Access and Recess in the Structure of Intersubjectivity," presented to the Back to the Things Themselves Conference, University of New Hampshire, March, 1995

"Merleau-Ponty on Ambiguity and Political Commitment," presented to the 19th Annual Conference of the International Merleau-Ponty Circle, Berry College, September, 1994

"Sexualities," presented to the Philosophy, Interpretation and Culture Conference, Binghamton University, April, 1994

Academic Awards & Honors:

- Duquesne University, Award for Excellence in Teaching by a Graduate Student, 1996
- Duquesne University, Graduate Teaching Assistantship, 1990-1993
- University of North Carolina Charlotte, Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society, 1990

Other Academic Experience & Activities:

- Member of Executive Board, Society for Phenomenology and Media
- Assistant Director, 20th Annual Meeting of the International Merleau-Ponty Circle, Duquesne University, September, 1995
- Organizer, Duquesne Graduate Philosophy Colloquium, 1991-1993
- Graduate Philosophy Club Chair, 1992
- Graduate Student Representative to Faculty Meetings, 1994

Membership in Professional Societies:

- American Philosophical Association
- Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy
- Society for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences
- Society for Phenomenology and Media
- Hegel Society of America
- International Merleau-Ponty Circle

References:

Professor Fred Evans Department of Philosophy Duquesne University Pittsburgh, PA 15282 (412) 396-6500 Professor Bob Madden Department of Philosophy Duquesne University Pittsburgh, PA 15282 (412) 396-6500

Professor Tom Rockmore Department of Philosophy Duquesne University Pittsburgh, PA 15282 (412) 396-6500 Professor James Carmine Department of Philosophy Carlow College Pittsburgh, PA 15213 (412) 578-6062

Dissertation Abstract:

Maurice Merleau-Ponty asserts his indebtedness to G.W.F. Hegel in the development of his own philosophy. But Merleau-Ponty's approach to Hegel is not fully considered in commentaries on Merleau-Ponty. My dissertation is the first systematic account of Merleau-Ponty's appropriation of Hegel's thought. By interpreting Merleau-Ponty's philosophy through his Hegelianism, I am also able to clarify many issues in Merleau-Ponty scholarship, for example, the contextual understanding of the rationality of history and the role of concrete individuals in the course of history. In a final chapter I sketch how Merleau-Ponty's philosophy provides the basis of a response to Michel Foucault's critique of phenomenology and traditional reason.