In November, the James W. Stuckert Career Center assembled a UK team to participate in the Clinton Global Initiative University, a program through which university students propose solutions to the world's humanitarian problems. While each of the students came from different backgrounds, from the College of Arts and

By Sarah Geegan

Ted Schatzki, senior associate dean in the College of Arts and Sciences and professor of philosophy and geography, recently delivered the 2012 Distinguished Lecture at the Centre for Theoretical Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Essex in England.

Founded by the renowned theorist Ernesto Laclau, the centre has historically been home to a collection of thinkers known as the Essex School of Discourse Theory. Since its founding, the centre has sponsored a range of activities, including weekly seminars, mini-courses, graduate conferences, and an annual distinguished lecturer. 

By Kathy Johnson

The University of Kentucky Appalachian Center, Appalachian Studies and the Graduate Appalachian Research Community are making a call for papers for the 2012 UK Appalachian Research Symposium and Arts Showcase. The topic of the work must be related to Appalachia, original, and produced in the last three years. 

The deadline for submitting an abstract of work online is midnight Dec. 15. The submission can be made by going to the GARC tab on www.

By Erin Holaday Ziegler

The University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences will host a trailblazing American diplomat next week to continue the college's Year of China initiative.

Former U.S. Ambassador Julia Chang Bloch will speak on “Leadership and Education in a Globalizing World: China’s Challenge” at 5 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 10, in Room 118 of the White Hall Classroom Building on UK's campus.

Bloch’s talk, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the "Passport to China: Global Issues & Local Understanding" course taught by UK sociology Professor Keiko Tanaka.

Ambassador Bloch, the first Asian-American ambassador in American history, has had a broad career in U.S. government service. She is currently president of the U.S.-China Education Trust, a nonprofit

By Whitney Hale

The University of Kentucky Gaines Center for the Humanities will present the 2011 Bale Boone Symposium in the Humanities Oct. 10-12 on the topic of religion. The free public symposium, "Religion in the 21st Century," will give the public an opportunity to explore the connections between religion and such topics as history, science and politics.            

Three presentations on religion are scheduled for the 2011 Bale Boone Symposium. The event will open with the session "Are Faith and History Compatible?" featuring speakers Bart Ehrman, the James A. Gray Professor at the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and 

By Gail Hairston, Erin Holaday Ziegler

There's an academic side of Martin Luther King Jr. that few people know about. From John Locke to Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, King studied them all and considered going into academia himself.

University of Kentucky philosophy Professor in the College of Arts & Sciences and the inaugural UK Martin Luther King Jr. Cultural Center Scholar-in-Residence Arnold Farr would like to bring this integral aspect of King's life to the forefront of discussion at UK.

To that end, he has initiated a MLK Scholar-in-Residence Series

For philosophy alum Will Sanders, attending the University of Kentucky was always part of the plan. The Frankfort native’s parents both attended the university and it was natural for him to follow in their steps. Choosing a major was the challenge.

The College of Arts and Sciences was the perfect place to land when it came to finding his footing, according to Sanders.

“I started as a French major but then switched to philosophy,” Sanders said. “My interest in East Asian thought systems then led me to study Japanese and eventually Chinese.”

Sanders said he was drawn to Eastern philosophy in part because of his interest in the “beats,” a group of American writers who were popular in the 1950s and known, among other things, for

The University of Kentucky Office for Institutional Diversity has announced the inaugural event for its newly established Martin Luther King Jr. Cultural Center Scholar-in-Residence Program. Arnold Farr, associate professor in the UK College of Arts and Sciences Department of Philosophy, has been named as the program’s first Scholar-In-Residence.

The goal of the new Scholar-in-Residence Program is to anchor a critical aspect of the MLK Cultural Center’s programming firmly in the heart of the academic life of the campus through the leadership of faculty from various departments throughout the university.  The Scholar-in-Residence is a two-year

The University of Kentucky Gaines Center for the Humanities has selected 11 outstanding undergraduates as new scholars for the university's Gaines Fellowship Program for the 2011-12 and 2012-13 academic years.

Gaines Fellowships are given in recognition of students’ outstanding academic performance, demonstrated ability to conduct independent research, interest in public issues, and desire to enhance understanding of the human condition through the humanities. Fellowships are awarded for the tenure of a student's junior and senior years, or for the last two years of a five-year program; students in all disciplines and with any intended profession are given equal consideration.

The 11 students selected as Gaines Scholars are as follows:

PhD Student

By Leah Bayens

Photos by Mark Cornelison

Philosophy doctoral candidate Christa Hodapp is sorting out an issue most people superficially acknowledge before returning to business as usual: humans are animals.

“The traditional, neo-Lockean claim is that you’re fundamentally a person, which is a rational, thinking being, and you happen to be related to an animal in some way,” Hodapp explained. Thus, many people imagine that personhood separates us from the likes of dogs, horses, and ants. In the process, they also tend to place humans on a higher rung than our nonhuman counterparts.

Hodapp, however, refuses to split nature and mind in this way. Instead, her dissertation, Personal Identity and the Biological View of Human Persistence, foregrounds the notion that human beings are not simply related to

Dean Mark Kornbluh of A&S welcomed new Philosophy faculty in his blog. Congratulations to Timothy Sundell, Megan Wallace, Natalie Nenadic, and Stefan Bird-Pollan!

Kevin Harrelson discovered the works of 17th century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza and early-19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel while an undergraduate philosophy major at Villanova University. 

Their writing—and their questions—captivated him. His readings of Hegel led to an interest in German Idealism in general, and led him to pursue his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Kentucky. 

“There were a lot of people at UK studying German Idealism, and it was a good place to pursue that,” said Harrelson, who completed his Ph.D. at UK in 2004.

Harrelson is now in his first year as visiting assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Ball State University. 

His first book, “