Dissertations & Placement

2020-21

Dr. Thomas Ball
Cultivating Eliot's Historical Sense: Eliotic Time and The Waste Land's Response to Alienation
Director: Dr. Tom Eyers

Dr. Paul DiGeorgio
The Phenomenology of Conversion
Director: Dr. James Swindal

Dr. Sıla Özkara
Circle of Circles: Rethinking Idealism through Hegel's Epistemology
Director: Prof. Tom Rockmore (Duquesne) & Prof. Anton Koch (Heidelberg)
Instructor, University of Memphis

2019–20

Dr. Jacob Greenstine
The Concept of Not-Being in Aristotle and his Predecessors
Director: Prof. Ron Polansky
Adjunct, Villanova University

Dr. François Kodena, C.S.Sp.
Afrosphia: Knowledge and Method in Cheikh Anta Diop
Director: Prof. Jay Lampert
Religious order appointment

Dr. Jeff Lambert
Relations in Leibniz: Monadological Intimacy
Director: Prof. Daniel Selcer
Initial placement: Thiel College, Visiting Assistant Professor
Current placement: Education Coordinator, Crisis Center North

Dr. Jiho Oh
Hegel's Speculative Anthropology: A Study of Hegel's Theory of the Embodied Mind
Director: Prof. Jennifer Bates
Job search underway

Dr. Alessio Rotundo
The Problem of Nature in the Phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty
Director: Prof. Lanei Rodemeyer
Job search underway

Dr. Joseph Tighe
The In/Authentic Subject: Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Selfhood
Director: Prof. Fred Evans
Mt. Lebanon High School

Dr. Paul Zipfel
The Appearance of the Other in Edmund Husserl's Phenomenology
Director: Dr, Lanei Rodemeyer
Job search underway

2018–19

Dr. Derek Elliott
Beyond Enlightenment: The Evolution of Agency and the Modularity of the Mind in a Post-Darwinian World
Director: Prof. Patrick Miller
Qualitative Research Analyst, Elliott Consulting

Dr. Martin Krahn
Externality in Hegel's Philosophy of Nature
Director: Prof. Jennifer Bates
Taxonomist, Google via HCL

2017–18

Dr. Karim Barakat
On Hypothetical Contracts
Director: Prof. Daniel Selcer
Initial placement: Lecturer (full-time NTT), American University of Beirut
Current placement: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Lebanese American University

Dr. Minglai Dong
To the Effort Itself: A Phenomenological Study of the Theory on Moral Effort of the Yangming School
Director: Prof. Michael Harrington
Associate Professor (tenured), Sichuan University

Dr. Andrew Jussaume
Schelling's ‘Ages of the World': The Beginning of the Beginning
Director: Prof. James Swindal
Instructor, Boston College & Providence College

Dr. Matt Lovett
The Logic of Sexuation in Deleuze and Lacan
Director: Prof. Daniel Selcer
Initial placement: Visiting Lecturer (full-time NTT), University of Pittsburgh, Gender, Sexuality, & Women's Studies Program
Current placement: Lecturer (full-time NTT), University of Pittsburgh, Gender, Sexuality, & Women's Studies Program

Dr. Michael Mburu, S.J.
H. Odera Oruku and the Right to a Human Minimum: A Sagacious-Ethical Quest for Global Justice
Director: Prof. Ron Polansky
Religious order appointment

Dr. Norman Schultz
Semantic Realism and Historicity: Brandom, Habermas, and Hegel
Director: Prof. James Swindal
Non-Academic employment

Dr. Bethany Somma
Non-Rationality and Philosophical Progress: An Historical Investigation into the Neoplatonism of Ibn Tufayl's 'Hayy Ibn Yaqzan'
Directors: Prof. Michael Harrington (Duquesne) & Prof. Peter Adamson (München)
European Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Dr. Kelsey Ward
Toward a New Reading of Cicero's ‘De finibus'
Director: Prof. Ron Polansky
Assistant Professor (TT), Hobart & William Smith

2016–17

Dr. Justin Habash
Early Greek Philosophy and the Discovery of Nature
Director: Prof. Ron Polansky
Initial placement: Program Director, Office of Teaching, Learning & Assessment, College of Pharmacy, Ohio State University
Current placement: Assistant Dean of Teaching and Learning, Johns Hopkins University

Dr. Boram Jeong
Theory of Subjectification in Gilles Deleuze
Director: Prof. Fred Evans (Duquesne) & Prof. Eric Alliez (Paris 8)
Assistant Professor (TT), University of Colorado, Denver

Dr. Fergus Laughland
Paul Ricœur’s Hermeneutics of the Self: Living in the Truth
Director: Prof. James Swindal
Initial Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor, Towson University
Current placement: University Lecturer (full-time NTT), Towson University

Dr. Evan Strevell
Memory, Phantasia, and the Perception of Time: A Commentary on Aristotle’s ‘De memoria et reminiscentia’
Director: Prof. Ron Polansky
Initial Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor, Xavier University
Current Placement: Teaching Assistant Professor, Xavier University

Dr. James Taylor
Techno-Racism: Heidegger’s Philosophy of Technology and Critical Philosophies of Race
Director: Prof. George Yancy

2015–16

Dr. Stephanie Adair
Thinking Without Concepts: The Aesthetic Use of the Logical Functions in Kant’s Third Critique
Directors: Prof. Jennifer Bates (Duquesne) & Prof. Dr. Claudia Bickmann (Cologne)
Initial placement: Visiting Assistant Professor, Grand Valley State University
Current placement: Assistant Professor (TT), Harper College

Dr. James Bahoh
Heidegger and Deleuze: The Groundwork of Evental Ontology
Director: Prof. Daniel Selcer
Initial placement: Postdoctoral Fellow, Volkswagenstiftung / Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Bonn University
Current placement: Assistant Professor (TT), University of Memphis 

Dr. Ariana Ragusa
Vico’s Fabulous Beginnings: From the Forests to the Academies
Director: Prof. Fred Evans

Dr. Christina Rawls
Spinoza’s Ethology: Recognizing the Dynamic Transitions Between Imagination, Reason, and Intuition
Director: Prof. Daniel Selcer
Initial placement: Lecturer (full-time NTT), University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Current placement: Lecturer (full-time NTT), Roger Williams University

Dr. Nalan Saraç
A Study on Conscience: The Content and Function
Director: Prof. Ronald Polansky
Instructor (full-time NTT), Koç University, Istanbul

Dr. Matthew Valentine
Kant with Foucault: On the Dangers of the Theoretical Reification of the Subject to Freedom and the Need for a Practical Psychology
Director: Prof. James Swindal
Adjunct, Duquesne University

Dr. Becky Vartabedian
Rethinking Multiplicity After Deleuze and Badiou
Director: Prof. Daniel Selcer
Associate Professor (tenured), Regis University

2014–15

Dr. Patrick Craig
The A Priori Nature of the Political: Democracy and Scientific Method in Hobbes
Director: Prof. Daniel Selcer
Adjunct, Kent State University

Dr. Nathan Eckstrand
The Event of Revolution
Director: Prof. Fred Evans
Initial placement: Merton Postdoctoral Fellow, Mercyhurst University
Current Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor, Sam Houston State University

Dr. Benjamin Hampshire
Is Wrong Life all that is Possible? Adorno and Aquinas on Ethics
Director: Prof. James Swindal
Adjunct, Ohio University — Lancaster

Dr. Kazue Koishikawa
A Phenomenological Analysis of the Relation Between Intersubjectivity and Imagination in Hannah Arendt
Director: Prof. Lanei Rodemeyer
Adjunct, Tsukuba University

Dr. Stanton Marlan
The Philosophers’ Stone: The Alchemical Imagination and the Logical Life of the Soul
Director: Prof. Tom Rockmore
Private psychoanalytic practice

Dr. Eric J. Mohr
Max Scheler’s Critical Theory: The Idea of Critical Phenomenology
Director: Prof. James Swindal
Assistant Professor, St. Vincent College

Dr. George W. Shea, IV
Inheriting Nietzsche: The Frankfurt School and Foucault on the Foundation of Critique
Director: Prof. James Swindal
Initial placement: Assistant Professor (non-TT), Misericordia University
Current placement: Assistant Professor (TT), Misericordia University

Dr. Clancy Smith
Critical Pragmatism: Peirce and Marcuse on the Artificial Stagnation of Human Development in Advanced Industrial Societies
Director: Prof. James Swindal
Adjunct, Belmont University

Dr. Dana Trusso
The Erotic Charms of Platonic Discourse: Mythmaking, Love Potions, and Role Reversals
Director: Prof. Patrick Miller
Initial placement: Assistant Professor (non-TT), LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
Current placement: Assistant Professor (TT), LaGuardia Community College, CUNY

2013–14

Dr. Brock Bahler
Merleau-Ponty and Levinas: Traces of Childlike Peace in a World at War
Director: Prof. Fred Evans
Initial placement: Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Pittsburgh
Current placement: Lecturer (full-time NTT), University of Pittsburgh (Religious Studies)

Dr. Joseph Cimakasky
All of a Sudden: The Role of exaiphnés in Plato’s Dialogues
Director: Prof. Ron Polansky
Assistant Professor (TT), Cabrini College

Dr. John Fritz
Character, Time, and Place in the Dialogues of Plato
Director: Prof. Ron Polansky
Non-Academic Employment

Dr. James Haile
Black Existential Philosophy: Truth in Virtue of Self-Discovery
Director: Prof. James Swindal
Initial placement: Visiting Assistant Professor, Dickinson College
Current placement: Assistant Professor (TT), University of Rhode Island

Dr. David Hoinski
Human Life and the Advent of Philosophy: A Theory of Philosophical Autobiography
Director: Prof. Ron Polansky
Initial placement: Visiting Assistant Professor, West Virginia University
Current Placement: Teaching Assistant Professor (full-time NTT), West Virginia University; President & CEO of Studium Consulting

Dr. Ryan Johnson
The Problem: The Theory of Ideas in Ancient Atomism and Deleuze
Director: Prof. Daniel Selcer
Initial placement: Visiting Assistant Professor, Rochester Institute of Technology
Current placement: Assistant Professor (TT), Elon University

Dr. Christopher Mountenay
In the Shadow of Anaximander: Philosophical Temperaments and Schopenhauerian Pessimism in Nietzsche’s ‘Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks’
Director: Prof. Patrick Miller
Adjunct, Duquesne University

Dr. Harry A. Nethery IV
Husserl and Foucault on the Subject: The Companions
Director: Prof. Lanei Rodemeyer
Assistant Professor (TT), Florida Southern College

Dr. Michael Rudar
Nietzsche and Comedy: Provocative Laughter Amidst a Tragic Philosophy
Director: Prof. James Swindal
Adjunct, Duquesne University

Dr. James Stover
Aristotle’s Ethics: A Viable System for Today’s Life and Business
Director: Prof. Ron Polansky
Initial placement: Instructor, Wheeling Jesuit University
Current placement: Assistant Professor (TT), Wheeling Jesuit University

2012–13

Dr. Chelsea Harry
Time (Chronos) in Aristotle's Natural Philosophy and its Place in Early Naturphilosophie (1750–1800)
Director: Prof. Ron Polansky
Associate Professor (tenured), Southern Connecticut State University

Dr. Kamal Shlbei
Sadra and Hegel on the Relationship between Essence/Existence and Subject/Object
Director: Prof. Jennifer Bates
Professor & Chair (tenure-equivalent), Al-Asmarya University

2011–12

Dr. Clayton Bohnet
Logic, Thought, and the Unconditioned: An Essay on Kant and Hegel
Director: Prof. Tom Rockmore
Lecturer (full-time NTT), Central Washington University

Dr. Jacob Graham
Flourishing Selfhood in Aristotle and the Authentic Selfhood in Heidegger
Director: Prof. Michael Harrington
Associate Professor (tenured), Bridgewater College

Dr. Keith Martel
The Narrative Subject and Place
Director: Prof. Lanei Rodemeyer
Associate Professor (tenured), Geneva College

Dr. Patrick Reider
German Idealism, Analytic Philosophy, and Realism
Director: Prof. Tom Rockmore
Adjunct, University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg

2010–11

Dr. Taine Duncan
Habermas and the Feminist Engagement with Communicative Ethics: Solidarity and Utopian Interests as a Corrective to Normative Political Problematics
Director: Prof. James Swindal
Associate Professor (tenured) & Director of Gender Studies Program, University of Central Arkansas

Dr. Grant Julin
Kierkegaard's Ethics of Repetition: A Re-examining of the Ethical in the 1843 Authorship
Director: Prof. Ron Polansky
Associate Professor (tenured), St. Francis University

Dr. Michael Kilivris
Elective Affinities: Heidegger and Adorno on Subjectivity
Director: Prof. James Swindal
Assistant Professor & Chair, Contra Costa College

Dr. Jonathan Mounts
The Salvation of the Damned within the Periphyseon
Director: Prof. Michael Harrington
Non-academic employment

Dr. Frank Scalambrino
Non-Being and Memory: A Critique of Pure Difference in Deleuze and Derrida
Director: Prof. Daniel Selcer
Initial Placement: Assistant Professor, University of Dallas
Current Placement: Senior Lecturer (full-time NTT), University of Akron

2009–10

Dr. Geoff Bagwell
A Study of Plato’s Cratylus
Director: Prof. Ron Polansky
Instructor (tenured), Spokane Community College

Rev. Dr. Douglas Peduti, S.J.
Sprache als Be-wëgen: The Unfolding of Language and Being in Heidegger's Later Work, 1949–1976
Director: Prof. James Swindal
Assistant Professor (TT), Fairfield University

Dr. Tom Sparrow
Sensation Rebuilt: Carnal Ontology in Levinas and Merleau-Ponty
Director: Prof. Fred Evans
Initial placement: Instructor (full-time NTT), Slippery Rock University
Current placement: Assistant Professor (TT), Slippery Rock University

Dr. Mélanie Walton
Expressing the Inexpressible: Bearing Witness in Jean-François Lyotard and Pseudo-Dionysius
Director: Prof. Lanei Rodemeyer
Associate Professor (tenured), Belmont University

2008–09

Rev. Dr. Kenneth Agede, CSSp
The Transformation of Kant’s Transcendental Idealism: Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre
Director: Prof. Tom Rockmore
Lecturer (full-time NTT), Benue State University, Nigeria

Dr. Eric Duffy
Mounting the Stage of the World: Theory of the Subject as Actor in the Parallel Positions of Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Jean-Paul Sartre
Director: Prof. Tom Rockmore
Adjunct, Westmoreland Community College

Dr. Michael Ivins
The Problem of Substantial Generation in Aristotle's Physical Writings
Director: Prof. Ron Polansky
Adjunct, St. Vincent College

Dr. Joshua Miller
On Whether Or Not Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Lived Body Experience Can Enrich St. Thomas Aquinas’s Integral Anthropology
Director: Prof. James Swindal
Instructor, Franciscan University of Steubenville

2007–08

Dr. Emily Katz
A Question of Numbers: Aristotle’s Critique of Platonic Mathematical Objects, Form-Numbers, and First Principles in Metaphysics M–N
Director: Prof. Ron Polansky
Initial Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor, Michigan State University
Current Placement: Assistant Professor (TT), Michigan State University

Dr. Clifford Lee
Aesthetic Pedagogy: Kierkegaard and Adorno on the Communication of Possibility
Director: Prof. Ron Polansky
Assistant Professor (TT), Troy University

Dr. Patrick Macfarlane
A Philosophical Commentary On Aristotle’s De Spiritu
Director: Prof. Ron Polansky
Assistant Professor (tenured), Providence College

2006–07

Dr. Matthew Morgan
Attending Intending: Meaning and Making Sense in Husserl and Wittgenstein
Director: Prof. Lanei Rodemeyer
Professor (tenured) & Director of Dietrich Honors Institute, Thiel College

Rev. Dr. Casimir L. Nyaki, CSSp
Julius K. Nyerere: Radical Equality and Socialism (Ujama)
Director: Prof. Ron Polansky
Instructor, Spiritan Missionary Seminary, Arusha, Tanzania

Dr. Wade Roberts
Life of the People, Body of the People: Re-Reading the Imagery of the Body Politic
Director: Prof. Diane Perpich
Associate Professor (tenured), Juniata College

2005–06

Rev. Dr. Thomas Akpen, CSSp
Authentic Da-sein as Pathway to Heideggarianism as a Political Philosophy — A Political Vibration of Being and Time
Director: Prof. Wilhelm Wurzer
Assistant Professor (TT), Spiritan School of Philosophy, Isienu, Nsukka, Nigeria

Dr. Faith Bjalobok
Kantian Meadows: A Just Nursing Home Grounded in the Categorical Imperative
Director: Prof. Fred Evans
Instructor (full-time NTT), Duquesne University

Dr. Antonis Coumoundouros
Plato's View of Tyranny
Director: Prof. Ron Polansky
Associate Professor (tenured), Adrian College

Dr. Matthew C. Eshleman
Power, Subjectivity, and Freedom in the French Context: Sartre and Foucault on a ‘Post-Modern Problem of Agency
Director: Prof. Tom Rockmore
Associate Professor (tenured), University of North Carolina-Wilmington

Rev. Dr. Pachomius Okogie, OSB
An Adequate Account of the Sensible World: Aristotle and Merleau-Ponty. A Comparative Study
Director: Prof. Wilhelm Wurzer
Secretary General/Registrar, Pontifical University of Saint Anselmo, Rome, Italy

Sr. Dr. Judith K. Parsons, IHM
Edith Stein: Toward an Ethic of Relationship and Responsibility
Director: Prof. Lanei Rodemeyer
Assistant Professor (TT) and Chair, Immaculata University

Dr. George Yancy
Whiteness and Return of the “Black Body”
Director: Prof. Fred Evans
Initial placement: Assistant Professor (TT), Duquesne University
Current placement: Professor (tenured), Emory University

2004–05

Dr. Diane Bowser
Being-in-the-Web: A Philosophical Investigation of Digital Existence in the Virtual Age
Director: Prof. Wilhelm Wurzer
Instructor, University of Pittsburgh, The Art Institute of Pittsburgh & Clarion University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Mark Brouwer
The Limits of Philosophy: Plato’s Sophist and Statesman
Director: Prof. Ron Polansky
Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellow, Indianapolis
Mathematics Teacher, Christel House Academy, Indianapolis

Dr. Joseph Campisi
The Morals of Language: Habermas, Levinas and Discourse Ethics
Director: Prof. Fred Evans
Professor (tenured) & Chair, Marist College

Dr. Daniel Collins-Cavanaugh
Bergson’s Aristotelian Theory of Duration & The History of Temporality
Director: Prof. Tom Rockmore
Associate Professor (tenured), Prince George’s Community College

Dr. Mary Ann Fenicato
Thinking Outside Pandora’s Box: Now That the Idea of God Has Been Declared Dead, Has All Hope Been Lost for Philosophy and Humankind?
Director: Prof. Wilhelm Wurzer
Non-academic employment

Rev. Dr. Joseph Penlong Nietlong
Feuerbach in Context: A Philosophical Reassessment
Director: Prof. Tom Rockmore
Lecturer, Benue State University, Makurdi, Nigeria

Rev. Dr. Felix Charles Owino
Play and Language in Gadamer: An Ontological Interpretation of Nuptial Union
Director: Prof. Wilhelm Wurzer

Dr. Agnieszka Patkowkska
The Language Economy: Literature, Violence, Ethics in Sartre, Blanchot and Edward Said
Director: Prof. Eleanore Holveck
Non-academic employment

Sr. Dr. Theresa Wambui
Recasting Hegel’s Ethical Theory
Director: Prof. Wilhelm Wurzer
Lecturer, Moi University, Kenya

Dr. John Baynard Woods
Plato’s Villains: The Ethical Implications of Plato’s Portrayal of Alcibiades and Critias
Director: Prof. Ron Polansky
Managing Editor/Arts Editor, Baltimore City Paper

2003–04

Dr. Andre Archie
Socratic Encounters: Plato’s Alcibiades
Director: Prof. Ron Polansky
Associate Professor (tenured), Colorado State University

Dr. Paul Kinsman
Figuring Zarathustra
Director: Prof. Wilhelm Wurzer
Non-academic employment

2002–03

Dr. David Cale
The Kantian Element in the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
Director: Prof. Tom Rockmore
Teaching Assistant Professor, Department of Management, West Virginia University

Dr. Michelle Carpenter
Beauty and the Beast: Commentaries on Plato’s Two Hippias Dialogues
Director: Prof. Ronald Polansky
Lecturer (full-time NTT), Central Washington University

Dr. Scott Davidson
Reflected Freedom: Levinas’ Defense of Ethical Subjectivity
Director: Prof. Diane Perpich
Professor (tenured), West Virginia University

Dr. Robert Johnson
Bodies of Knowledge: Perception in Spinoza and Whitehead
Directors: Prof. Wilhelm Wurzer & Prof. Stephen Ross
Non-academic employment

Dr. Edward Pluth
Towards a New Signifier: Freedom and Determinism in Lacan’s Theory of the Subject
Director: Prof. Fred Evans
Professor (tenured) & Chair, California State University, Chico

Dr. James Snyder
Time and Eternity in the Philosophy of Martin Heidegger
Director: Prof. Fred Evans
Associate Professor (tenured) & Chair, Mercyhurst College

Dr. Christopher Venner
Networking, Knowledge and Power: The Control Subject from Deleuze and Guattari through the Information Age
Director: Prof. Wilhelm Wurzer
Instructor, George Washington University

2001–02

Dr. Colleen Flewelling
The Social Relevance of Philosophy: The Debate over the Applicability of Philosophy to Citizenship
Director: Prof. Tom Rockmore
Initial placement: Assistant Professor, Assistant Provost & Director of Institutional Research & Assessment, Susquehanna University
Current placement: Associate Dean for Academic Assessment & Development, Cecil College

Dr. Hülya Şimga
Truth, Assumption, and the Subject
Director: Prof. Wilhelm Wurzer
Associate Professor (tenured), Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey

Dr. William Marshall Stewart
Heidegger, Spinoza, and Other Beginnings
Director: Prof. Wilhelm Wurzer
Assistant Professor (TT) and Chair, Carlow University

Dr. Georganna Ulary
Tales of Recognition: A Kristevan Rewriting of Hegel
Director: Prof. Fred Evans
Assistant Professor, Marist College

Dr. Leigh Viner
Moral Paradigms and the Stoic Sage
Director: Prof. Ron Polansky
Assistant Professor, Indiana University Southeast