Community & Activities

Graduate Community

Our department supports the study of philosophy in a variety of ways. We regularly host colloquia and guest lectures. Faculty members are readily accessible; our graduate students take independent studies with individual faculty. After working through the first volume of Marx’s Capital, students run currently three reading groups focusing on Adorno and Kierkegaard, Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth, and Lenin’s Notebooks.

Annual Reports from the GradDirector

• 2022-23 Graduate Program Annual Report [pdf]
• 2023-24 Graduate Program Annual Report [pdf]

Governance

Our graduate students actively participate in Department governance. Each year they elect two spokespeople who serve on the Department’s Committee of the Whole. In addition, four graduate students serve on the Graduate Committee, one on the Advisory Committee, the Academic Environment Committee, and the Undergraduate Committee.

Conference Participation & Research

Graduate students in our department are active researchers and regularly participate in national and international conferences and workshops. 

For example, in 2023-24 Travel Funding Awards have been given to Jonah Branding (York University Graduate Conference on Animal Minds, an interdisciplinary conference on cognitive science and philosophy of mind, Toronto/Canada), Gabi Bussell (The International Summer School in Critical Theory 2024: Social Critique and Economics, Berlin/Germany), Reese Haller (Philosophy of the Black Experience Conference, Washington D.C.), Jonathan Hollingsworth and Ashley Krieger (Critical Theory Conference, Rome/Italy), Matt Kelley and Emily LaRosa (American  Philosophical  Association (APA) Pacific Conference, Portland), Jessica Martínez-Cruz (Tepoztlán Institute for Transnational History of the Americas, Morelos/México and Critical Genealogies  Workshop, Syracuse), Taylor Mills (Ambientalismos Interseccionales/Intersectional Environmentalisms, Puerto Rico), Qingxuan Pan (Philosophy Graduate Conference, Boston), and Gregory Rogel (7th Public Philosophy Network Conference, Santa Cruz). In addition, Blake Ginsburg will take a Trauma and Self- Care Trauma Certificate Course.

Annual Graduate Conference

The graduate community organizes an annual Graduate Conference which features presentations by graduate students and a key note speaker. The 2023 conference attracted more than 60 submissions.

Here is the 2025 Graduate Philosophy Conference Call for Papers [forthcoming].

Past Conferences