Academics / Graduate Program / Conferences & Dissertations

Conferences & Dissertations

Graduate Student Conferences

  • 25th Annual University of Kentucky Philosophy Graduate Student Conference (2023). "Philosophy’s History, Today’s Challenges" Keynote: Derek Burrows and Gregory Fried(Boston College) Before the Trees Was Strange screening and talk back session. Organized by Andy Marquis
  • 24th Annual University of Kentucky Philosophy Graduate Student Conference (2022). "On Complexity" Keynote Speaker: Angela Potochnik (University of Cincinnati). Organized by Colby Clark.
  • 23rd Annual University of Kentucky Philosophy Graduate Student Conference (2020). Keynote Speaker: Jenifer Sunrise Winter (University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa). Organized by John Roso.
  • 22nd Annual University of Kentucky Philosophy Graduate Student Conference (2019). "Social and Political Philosophy" Keynote Speaker: Peg Birmingham (DePaul University). Organized by Daniel Cole.
  • 21st Annual University of Kentucky Philosophy Graduate Student Conference (2018). "Environmental Philosophy" Keynote Speaker: Kyle Powys Whyte (Michigan State University). Organized by Clay Graham.
  • 20th Annual University of Kentucky Philosophy Graduate Student Conference (2017). "Virtue: Ancient and Modern" Keynote Speaker: Dr. Lawrence J. Jost (University of Cincinnati). Organized by Colin Smith.
  • 19th Annual University of Kentucky Philosophy Graduate Student Conference (2016). "Technology Today" Keynote Speaker: Iain Thomson (University of New Mexico). Organized by Suraj Chaudhary.
  • 18th Annual University of Kentucky Philosophy Graduate Student Conference (2015). "The Good Society"  Keynote Speaker: David Sussman (University of Illinois).  Organized by Shelly Johnson.
  • 17th Annual University of Kentucky Philosophy Graduate Student Conference (2014). "Women and Minorities in the Philosophical Tradition."  Keynote Speaker: Kathleen M. Higgins (University of Texas, Austin).  Organized by Jennifer Hudgens.
  • 16th Annual University of Kentucky Philosophy Graduate Student Conference (2013). "Philosophy and Community."  Keynote Speaker: Julian Young (Wake Forest University).  Organized by Justin Spinks.
  • 15th Annual University of Kentucky Philosophy Graduate Student Conference (2012). "Philosophical Understanding and the Gendered Human Experience."  Keynote Speaker: Annika Thiem (Villanova University).  Organized by Caroline Buchanan.
  • 14th Annual University of Kentucky Philosophy Graduate Student Conference (2011).  "Place and Space."  Keynote speaker: Karsten Harries (Yale).  Organzied by Justin Harmon.
  • 13th Annual University of Kentucky Graduate Student Conference (2010). "Freedom."  Keynote Speaker: Donald Rutherford (UC San Diego). Organized by Clint Jones and Joshua Horn.
  • 12th Annual University of Kentucky Philosophy Graduate Student Conference (2009), "The Interdisciplinary Roles of Perception and Its Connection to Human Experience." Keynote speaker:  Susanna Siegel (Harvard). Organized by Erin Vallicelli and Philippa Satterwhite.
  • 11th Annual Graduate Student Conference (2008). Keynote speaker: James Wolin (City University of New York). Organized by Joan Braune.
  • 10th Annual Graduate Student Conference (2007), "Persons and Selves: Philosophical Perspectives." Keynote speaker: Marilyn Frye (Michigan State University). Organized by Christa Hodapp.
  • The International Graduate Student Conference: Islamic Philosophy and Theology Today was organized by Nazif Muhtaroglu and Oliver Leaman (2007). Keynote speakers Gerald Massey (University of Pittsburgh), Alparslan Acikgenc (Fatih University, Turkey), and Chryssi Sidiroupoulou (Bogazici University, Turkey). 

Completed Dissertations

  • Tyler van Wulven (2024) “Hegelianism as Anti-Authoritarianism”(Sanday)
  • Thayne Cameron (2024) “Relationality in Rousseau’s Philosophy of Education" (Schatzki)
  • Ryan McCoy (2024) "The Role of Local Knowledge in Climate Change Research" (Bursten)
  • Lila Wakeman (2024) "A Praxis Towards Social Change Based on Foucault's Conceptualization of Experience as Relational" (Farr)
  • Kristian Sheeley (2023) "The Virtue of Sôphrosunê in Plato's Gorgias and Phaedrus" (Sanday)
  • Lauren O'Dell (2023) "Redefining Paternalistic Practices in Women's Health: How Dysfunctional Trust Relationships Impact Medical Autonomy of Female Patients in the Contemporary Clinical Setting" (Bursten)
  • Colby Clark (2023) "The Primacy of Openness in Ecological Complexity Theory"(Schatzki)
  • Jarrad Felgenhauer (2022) "Being and Historical Change in Hegel’s Science of Logic" (Sanday)
  • Mary Cunningham (2022) "The Role of Sexual Difference in Plato's Timaeus" (Sanday)
  • Christopher Grimsley (2022) "Contextualizing Artificial Intelligence: The History, Values, and Epistemology of Technology in the Philosophy of Science” (Bursten)
  • Kayla Bohannon (2022) "The Ideal Religious Community: Articulating the Possibility of Collaborative Community Within Religious Contexts" (Look)
  • Michelle Catlin (2021) "Making Sense of the Divinely Beautiful: Essays on Friendship, Love and Attraction" (Bradshaw)
  • Clay Graham (2021) "Spinoza’s Methodology: A Genetic Account of Fundamental Concepts in His Early Writings" (Look)
  • D Cole (2021) “Metaphor and the Struggle Between Populism and Liberal Democracy” (Sanday)
  • Drew Van't Land (2020) "Care Working Conditions: The Ethics and Politics of Social Reproductive Labor from Aristotle to Marxist Feminism" (Farr)
  • James Lincoln (2020) "Reconsidering Moral Perception" (Batty)
  • Luke Wadhams (2020) "Kierkegaard's Theory of Boredom and the Development of Personality" (Bird-Pollan) 
  • Suraj Chaudhary (2020) "Place and Digital Space" (Schatzki)
  • Timothy Fitzjohn (2019) "The Idea of absolute ethical life:  Hegel’s account of freedom and natural law in his early philosophical works" (Breazeale)
  • Colin Smith (2019) "Being and Structure in Plato's Sophist" (Sanday)
  • David Scott (2018) "The Free Exercise Clause, Minority Faiths, and the Possibility of Religious Independence after Rawlsian Liberalism" (Bradshaw)
  • Peter Moore (2018) “Interpreting the Republic as a Protreptic Dialogue” (Sanday)
  • Peter Antich (2017) "Motivation and the Primacy of Perception" (Sanday)
  • Eric Peterson (2017) “On Supposing, Imagining, and Resisting” (Batty)
  • Brian Carlson (2017) "Four-Dimensional Nihilism: A New Ontology of Material Objects” (Wallace)
  • Caroline Buchanan (2017), "Transcendental Idealism’s Theory of Selfhood: Fichte on the Relationship Between Knowing Oneself and Moral Deliberation” (Breazeale)
  • Daniel Sheffler (2017) "The Metaphysics of Personhood in Plato's Dialogues" (Bradshaw)
  • Keith Buhler (2016) "Become What We Are: Virtue and Practical Wisdom as Natural Ends in Recent Neo-Aristotelian Ethics" (Bradshaw)
  • Robert Guerin (2016) "Imagination Bound: A Theoretical Imperative" (Breazeale)
  • Jennifer Hudgens (2016) "Forget Not the Whip! Nietzsche, Perspectivism, and Feminism: A Non-Apologist Interpretation of Nietzsche’s Polemical Axiology" (Farr)
  • Kyle Burchett (2016) “Anthropocentrism as Environmental Ethic" (Schatzki)
  • Justin Harmon (2016) "The Normative Architecture of Reality: Towards an Object-Oriented Ethics" (Schatzki)
  • Shelly Johnson (2016) “A Pedagogy for Justice: Kant, Hegel, Marcuse and Freire on Education and the Good Society” (Farr)
  • Kimberly Goard (2015), "Unconditional Forgivingness" (Bradshaw & Superson)
  • Margot Wielgus (2015), "Critical-Reflective Thinking: A Phenomenology" (Schatzki)
  • Paul Dirado (2015), "Perception and Judgment in Plato's Theaetetus" (Sanday)
  • Michael Wittala (2014), "Truth and Falsehood in Plato's Sophist" (Sanday)
  • Jesse Delaney (2014), "Husserl's Dyadic Semantics" (Bruzina)
  • Adam Labecki (2013), "Necessary Substances: An Exercise in Axiomatic Metaphysics" (Look)
  • Tyler Klaskow (2013), "Martin Heidegger's Husserlian Methods"  (Bruzina)
  • Clint Jones (2013), "Fairness, Family, and Founding Murder: A Social Contract Critique of the Girardian Origins of Violence". (Farr)
  • Charles Horn (2013), "Leibniz and the Nature of Compossibility: God, Substance, and the Possibility of Worlds"  (Look)
  • Kamper Floyd (2013), "Truly Normative Matters:  An Essay on the Value of Truth" (Look)
  • Joan Braune (2013), "Erich Fromm's prophetic messianism : towards a critical theory of hope" (Farr)
  • Levis Zerpa (2012), "The interrogative approach to inquiry : a defense of moderate contextualism in the theory of questions"  (Look)
  • Jennifer Woodward (2012), "Cartesian skepticism as moral dilemma"  (Look)
  • Nazif Muhtaroglu (2012), "Islamic and Cartesian roots of occasionalism"  (Look)
  • Michael Horton, (2012) "Inflationary Truth-Theoretic Semantics" (Look)
  • Brett Fulkerson-Smith (2012), "Experimentation in Transcendental Philosophy in Kant and Fichte" (Breazeale)
  • Charles DeBord (2012), Hegel's aesthetics : three problems and an interpretation" (Breazeale)
  • Craig Streetman (2011), "Al-Fārābī's interpretation of Aristotle's theory of intellect"  (Leaman)
  • Joshua Mills-Knutsen (2011), "Composing Nietzsche's Groundwork : the limits of a systematic interpretation of Nietzsche's ethical philosophy"  (Breazeale)
  • Christa Hodapp (2011), "Biological human ontology and persistence : animalism and the implications of human identity without psychology"  (Look)
  • Brandon Absher (2011) ""Situating Language:  Meaning, Understanding, and Intelligibility in Wittgenstein and Heidegger"  (Schatzki)
  • Joseph Trullinger (2010), "The Hidden Life of God: The German Idealists on Ethical Purity" (Breazeale)
  • Gilbert Lepadatu (2009), "The Early Heidegger's Transition from Life to Being" (Bruzina)
  • Paul Carelli (2008), "Plato on Moral Wisdom & the Partition of the Soul" (Bradshaw)
  • Joel Hunter (2008), "Measuring the World: Phenomenology and the Measurement Problem in Quantum Mechanics" (Bruzina)
  • Christine Metzo (2008), "Bodily Being: The Intercorporeal Nature of the Materiality of Human Life" (Bruzina)
  • Michael Tilley (2008), "Interpersonal Relationships and Community in Kierkegaard’s Thought" (Breazeale)
  • Ronald Mercer (2007), "The Infinite as Originative of the Human as Human: A Transcendental Phenomenological Explication of the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas" (Bruzina)
  • Joseph Okello (2007), "A Critique of Methodological Naturalism" (Bradshaw)
  • Robert Sandmeyer (2007), "The Promised Land: The Problem of Edmund Husserl’s True Philosophy" (Bruzina)